HISTORICAL CONCEPTS
Cultural Development
Human Endeavor
ETHICAL FOUNDATIONS
PROGRESSIVE IDEAS
The law embodies the manner in which civil persons define public and private rights and liabilities. Civil persons are those who have laid arms aside and submit to the law. The law applies equally to public institutions and corporations and to private individuals. It delineates what a person may and may not do along with the attendant consequences they may expect.
The philosophy which underpins just law is "Love your neighbor as yourself." As a corollary, "If it harms none, do what you will." At a minimum, laws should protect the individual from willful or negligent harm in any reasonably preventable form, likewise preventing the individual from doing such harm to another. At its fullest, the law causes individuals to come to the aid of others. A human society without law is no longer a society, as its would-be members are then apt to do one another every sort of evil and can have no community.
Law as practiced today in the United States has perhaps one great abuse: the willingness of judges to award punitive damages to individuals. Punitive damages are often quite severe, and while they may be fully warranted as an object lesson to incorrigible offenders, awarding them to the victim creates an imbalance. The victim has no right to damages beyond the damage suffered. What was a punitive measure to the violator in fact becomes an undue reward to the victim and has created an industry of speculative law suits which has damaged the reputation of the law. The solution is to award punitive damages elsewhere, perhaps to worthy causes or back to the taxpayers.
Criminal trial
Military criminal trial