![]() "'What is a law?' said he to himself. 'It is a measure to which, when once it is decreed, be it good or bad, everybody is bound to conform.'" -- Frédéric Bastiat Human law - announced Natural law - order in the world discovered through reason. Basis of Law"It is not because men have made laws that personality, liberty, and property exist. On the contrary, it is because personality, liberty, and property exist beforehand, that men make laws." -- Frédéric Bastiat "
Second, common law is based on the notion that anything not expressly prohibited is legal. There is no need to get the permission of the authorities for a new initiative.
" Role of law" It is not true that the mission of the law is to regulate our consciences, our ideas, our will, our education, our sentiments, our works, our exchanges, our gifts, and our enjoyments. Its mission is to prevent the rights of one from interfering with those of another, in any one of these things." -- Frédéric Bastiat Scope of Law" And as every individual has a right to have recourse to force only in cases of lawful defense, so collective force, which is only the union of individual forces, cannot be rationally used for any other end. The law, then, is solely the organization of individual rights, which existed before legitimate defense." -- Frédéric Bastiat " But if the law were to be made upon the principle of fraternity, if it were to be proclaimed that from it proceed all benefits and all evils--that it is responsible for every individual grievance and for every social inequality--then you open the door to an endless succession of complaints, irritations, troubles, and revolutions." -- Frédéric Bastiat Which laws to obeyQuote 323
“ Must a citizen ever for a moment in the least degree resign his conscience to the legislator, if so why has every man a conscience then? ”
-- Henry David Thoreau “ The law will never make men free, it is men who have got to make the law free ” -- Henry David Thoreau Types of law
Characteristics of common law adjudication:
English Common law - People can do what they like unless the law forbids it
Nepolianic Code tradition - People can only do what the law specirically allows
(This leads people to falsely assume the state is giving them rights.)
Problems with law
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For something to become a law it has to be effected in practice.
Criminal law
Regulations law.
The Regulators are just as clueless as anyone else
The rules government make stop private parties agreeing on their own terms tailored to their situation, thus imposing a high cost to society.
Law above conscience, which should take precedence? The law sometimes stops people acting according to their conscience.
Law for government
Miscarriage of lawRandy Barnett says
[T]he attempt to create and maintain a system of legal rules may miscarry in at least eight ways
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Link607Rule of law Pyramid
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