Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

This comic is a four-panel joke about the nature of justice and authority. A child asks his mother a genuinely deep philosophical question: "Is justice an intrinsic quality of the universe, or is it an arbitrary set of rules created to benefit whoever's in charge?" The mother answers confidently, "The first one" -- that justice is intrinsic and universal.

When the child asks the simple follow-up question "Why?", the mother snaps "Because I say so!" -- which is, of course, a perfect demonstration of the second option she just denied. By asserting her authority as the sole basis for the claim, she inadvertently proves that justice (at least in her household) is indeed an arbitrary set of rules imposed by whoever holds power. The comic highlights how authority figures often appeal to universal principles while relying on authoritarian enforcement.