Because it's the Law! is heard so often. And, yeah, so what? The law is not some mystical thing that no one can grasp unless you are a lawyer. It might be a convoluted and absurd creation by a few people to keep other people from doing what they want, but the law is not something that is beyond the grasp of anyone.
It is against common reason, what with the ever increasing amount of laws, but the law is actually more in people's favor today then at any time in the course of human history. Back then -- whenever that was -- law was more at the point of a gun, or spear, or fist. "Law" was the unadulterated power of one group of people over another group of people. When the law was brought into question about the only place were anyone could go to question it was to the very people who created it in the first place.
But there are actually two parts to law. There are the laws of limitation and there are the laws of cooperation. Laws of the first sort are all those laws that have been passed throughout history that gave the state some level of control over the people. The number and power of these laws has been diminishing for centuries. What was the absolute power and law of a king is now the mere constitutional monarchy. What was the law and power of Communist states is now parliamentary democracies. These lwas were perjorative.
The laws of limitations -- that prevented woman from voting, or owning property -- or that prevented the use of this language, or the publishing of that book -- all across the world has been under attack -- and they have been beaten back down in ways that just 50 years ago would have been inconceivable. This trend will continue.
The laws of cooperation are the laws which people use to resolve disputes and issues between them. They are neutral in their application. They are contract laws, and marriage laws, and zoning laws -- they are the laws of reasonable, practical people who are trying to figure out how to best balance all the different rights and needs of individuals. These laws are proliferating without end. As more countries are freer, and as Western countries too, move to limit the power of the state, so these laws of cooperation are growing in number.
One of the problems with laws of cooperation is that they are forever subject to hairsplitting. And thus there is a growing need for lawyers. Laws of limitation need only a police force to enforce. Laws of cooperation need adjudicators to refine, define, interpet and parse. There is no healthier sign of freedom than more lawyers to deal with more laws of cooperation. |
