The short answer is that without law we would have anarchy.
The average person is unlikely to give any more thought to the impact of laws on their daily life than the source of the food purchased at the market or how garbage is disposed of when it leaves the curb.
What the law should be on any given subject can divide us as citizens. However, it is worthwhile to take a moment and consider why we have laws in the first place.
As you may recall from your grade school civics class, laws are a system of rules that a government or people adopt to regulating the behavior of its members. It provides for certain rights and privileges, as well as responsibilities that result in consequences when laws are broken.
Laws are the natural product of the social contract implicitly agreed upon by people when they form a society. Absent the social contract and the laws which enforce that contract, society would be lawless with everyone doing what is best for him or herself. It would be the movie The Purge everyday.
Laws both protect and restrict freedoms and property rights. The limitations are intended to prevent each of us from infringing on one another’s rights or interfering with their property. The laws also impose restraints on government.
The law should not be static. It must evolve as its citizens do. Ignorance of the law is generally not an excuse for breaking the law. Those unhappy with any law have lawful means of changing the law through the electoral process.
In the blog posts to follow, I will talk about current events in the law, explore Supreme Court cases, explain definitions and concepts and, occasionally, share tales of lawyer folly.
I hope you will join me for the ride.
– David Blansky