Friday, January 17, 2014

What is Law?

     Law does not inhibit or stop persons from committing any act, it merely represents the fear of punishment for doing so. It is laid out to discourage or incite prohibition to certain acts the lawmakers deem unfavorable or unwanted in their society.
   
     In theory law is created to prohibit certain peoples from doing thing, taking things, enjoying things, destroying things and so on and so forth, but what it cannot do, in any way, shape or form is to stop someone from doing it.
     Lets take driving laws for our first example. Most roads in the United States have a certain speed at which automobiles can travel, there are laws establishing these speeds but these laws are broken every day by people from every walk of life. 112,000 speeding citations are issued EVERY DAY in the United States, 41,000,000 annually. Statistics show that even though there is a law against driving faster than the posted "legal" limit there are a lot of individuals who still do it. The people have no fear of the law itself since it is a non tangible idea of moral and social acceptance. Some people fear the punishment from the law enforcers. Law enforcement. What they fear are the repercussions of committing an act by which a law has been made.
Fines, imprisonment, or the revocation on the right to travel are the reasons many choose not to break these silly intrusive laws.
     Driving isn't the only area that people do not adhere to the law.
     Many people will claim that if added legislation or laws were placed on gun owners or the possession of a firearm we would have less murders. But murder is already illegal. So why would adding greater laws against the act suddenly affect the existence of the cases of murder? The same can be said of drug laws. Laws are there restricting the use, cultivation, possession or sale of all kinds of drugs and medicinal plants, yet here we are with prisons full of drug law offenders. It didn't stop them from doing what they did, they just didn't heed the threat of violence or incarceration. And there's no proof that the law has stopped someone from doing anything, it's not like people say, "you know if it weren't illegal I would totally start eating mushrooms and shooting heroin." If people are drawn to do something they will do it regardless of legality.
     And that's law is, a threat of violence or incarceration for actions that one perpetrates.

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