Law and Politics
"While every law restricts individual freedom to some extent by altering the means which people may use in the pursuit of their aims. Within the known rules of the game the individual is free to pursue his personal ends and desires, certain that the powers of government will not be used deliberately to frustrate his efforts."
- Friedrich Hayek
What is law? Webster says that is, "The collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense"(Law). Each of us has a natural right to defend our person, our liberty, and our property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two (Felkins). Every person has the right to defend -- even by force -- his/her person, liberty, and property. On this basis, an individual can't lawfully use force to destroy another person. Furthermore, the people of a nation (possibly through elected officials) should have the right to choose which laws are just and which ones are not.
If a nation were founded on this basis, it seems that order would prevail among the people. Furthermore, such a nation would have the simplest, easiest to accept, most limited, nonoppressive, just, and enduring, government imaginable -- whatever its political form might be. Under such an administration, everyone would understand that they possessed all the privileges as well as all the responsibilities of their existence. No one would have any alliance with the government. When successful we would not have to thank the politicians for our success (Donald). Moreover, conversely, we would no more think of blaming them for our misfortune than would the farmers blame them for a poor harvest due ...
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Felkins, Leon. "Property and Liberty: You can't give up one without losing the other."
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United States. "The Constitution of the United States." Bill of Rights. 1789
http://www.jim.com/jamesd/usconsti.htm - preamble. 10 Feb 2000.
"Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men's minds."
The Role of Courts in American Politics The third branch of the federal government is the judicial branch. Before the existence of the Constitution, a system of state courts was in place. Through much controversy and compromise a decision was accomplished, which put in place the Supreme Court. In Article III, Section 1, "The judicial power of the United Statesshall be vested in one Supreme Court and such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." The Supreme Court was initially set up as a part of the separation of powers in the American political system.
“To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom…” (2.8).
Laws are structured and implemented to benefit the masses. Unfortunately this objective is not always achieved. The constitution of the states is considered the best work of law yet it is unable to save the life of a child. Clearly the problem of violence is turning more into a socio-cultural and psychological problem than a legal one. However laws still need to be implemented justly in order to preserve the freedom and rights of me...
"The public is despotic in its temper; it is capable of denying common justice when too strenuously demanded as a right; but quite as frequently it awards more than justice when the appeal is made, as despots love to have it made entirely to it's generosity."
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all human beings are born with certain natural rights, among these are life, liberty, privacy, speech, and property that to protect these rights. Institutions created by adults use their powers with the consent of the people, however, if any institutions abuse their power and deprive the people of their natural right, then it is our right nullify or modify it, consolidating
"None of the supposed rights of man go beyond the egoistic man, man as he is a member of civil society; that is, an individual separated from the community, withdrawn into himself, wholly preoccupied with his private interests and acting in accordance with his private caprice."
In answering this final question raised, the conclusion to the essay emerges. We have seen how difficult it is to simply define liberty as a single conception, but have discovered many properties that a statement of freedom must posses. In the question between the conflicts of freedom, where two persons individual freedoms create a zero-sum game, the idea of social freedom emerges, and the idea that it is possible for there to be restrictions on an individual's freedom that are morally desirable. To best, and most simply explain in what sense we want people to be free, a balance must be found between the extent to which society may restrict an individual's freedom, and vice versa. As can be seen by observing politics throughout the ages, it is finding this balance that has proven to be the most challenging aspect of the ongoing question of freedom.
Access to the law and legal system is the ability to shape it, both in its meaning and
"The business of the law is to make sense of the confusion of what we call human life-to reduce it to order but at the same time to give it possibility, scope, even dignity."
“To understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature; without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other
The rule of law is a difficult concept to grasp and proves elusive to substantive definition. However, the following work considers the attempts of various social and legal theorists to define the concept and pertinent authorities are considered. Attitudes and emphasis as to the exact shape, form and content of the rule of law differ quite widely depending on the socio-political perspective and views of respective commentators (Slapper and Kelly, 2009, p16), although there are common themes that are almost universally adopted. The conclusions to this work endeavour to consolidate thinking on the rule of law in order to address the question posed in the title, which is at first sight a deceptively simple one.
“The law, then, is a language that lawyers and judges use when they try to prevent or resolve problems–human conflicts– using official rules made by the state as their starting point” (Carter, 6). “Viewing individual autobiographies over a sweep of time reveals the variety of ways in which rights can become active or remain inactive” (Engel, 13). Reason in Law and Rights, Remembrance and the Reconciliation of Difference both examine the way that law affects daily life. They have a wide range of situations in which they have examined law and to some extent have both reached the same conclusions when it comes to the issue of law being uncertain and ambiguous. Furthermore, they have come to some opposing conclusions because of the groups of people each book or article focuses on. These include the approaches of law and life and officials and receptors.
Law is a tool in society as it helps to maintain social control, promoting social justice. The way law functions in society and its social institution provide a mechanism for solutions. There are many different theories of the function of law in relation to society in considering the insight they bring to different socio-legal and criminological problems. In the discussion of law’s role in social theory, Leon Petrażycki and Eugen Ehrlich share similar beliefs in the jurisprudence of society. They focused their work on the experience of individuals in establishing meaning in their legal relations with others based on the question of what it means to be a participant in law. Jürgen Habermas presents a relationship between law and morality. From a certain standpoint, law is a key steering mechanism in society as it plays an educational role in promoting conducts, a mean of communication and it
In this chapter I will explore into the vireos issues regarding the concept of punishment and justification of the state. Why state punish and how much punish? What is the justification of state for punishment? Furthermore I will look at the comparison of theoretical arguments concerning the state punishment and the justification, than I will proceed to outline the concepts of minor and major offences. What kind of punishment inflicted for those offences? In the final part I will investigate the punishment in today's systems. There are numerous form of punishment which has been implemented in the human society. This can be different from one jurisdiction to another, the rules and regulations of punishment are based on the constitution of state and in some contexts have reflective accordance with the universal regulation or its own society's backgrounds. Now I will emphasis on the state justification of punishment.