1. Why Laws?
Overview
“What we don’t need is another law!” That statement is often heard from those
worried about over regulation. Another law means another intrusion into the lives
of people by government for it is government’s duty to set out the law to regulate
activity. However, the main purpose of a law is just that… to regulate activity and
thereby, bring order. One can understand the point of those oppose more laws
because if we started today and wrote down every law on the books of this nation
our great grandchildren would still be writing decades from now. Just imagine the
nearly endless topics that laws cover. Starting with our nation’s international laws
on treaties, import and export laws, laws on the high seas, in the skies over the
hundreds of countries around the globe, weapons laws, passports, visas, green
cards, work authorization, currency laws, international agreement for extradition of
wanted criminals, terrorism laws, laws on aid to foreign countries, laws on embargo,
laws on sanctions against foreign powers and on and on and on. Get the picture? If
one would guess that there may be a million laws they would be off by a factor of
ten at least. However, this study is to determine not if there are too many laws but
to answer the question… What is the purpose of law in the first place?
Let me first speak to the definition of law. Probably one of the very best definitions
of a law would be that it is a rule that life must play by or have it changed. Maybe
that is a bit simplistic but if we test that statement we can see that for the most
part it’s true. This course is a broad review of law as fits into the fabric of society.
For the most part it covers the “rule book” concept of law. If you want to know how
old one has to be to stop going to school there is a rule (law) in your state that
probably requires children to attend school until the age of 16 years. That’s a law as
we think of law. But what about 2+2=4 isn’t that a law too? Yes, it’s a law of
mathematics. How about gravity, is that a law? Yes, it’s a law of physics. Now
suppose 2+2 equaled four sometimes but other times it might equal 14 or that
gravity, the physical phenomena that keeps the world in orbit around the sun,
worked up until noon and then, in the afternoon it didn’t work. We would not have
the ability to have a correct census of our fellow citizens and we would not have any
fellow citizens to count. What we would have is chaos.
Laws in the physical sciences are different from the laws in the social sciences of
course but in each case they seek to effect the same result and that result is order.
So let’s take our example a bit further. Two plus two always and everywhere in our

2. universe equals four and gravity is at work twenty four/seven. But in this new case
there are no social science based laws. Because all of the scientific laws are in effect
you can buy a car but since there are no traffic laws you are in a serious accident
when you try to leave the dealership and your car is totaled and you are lying in a
hospital bed with a broken leg in a cast. None of your friends can visit to sign their
name and maybe do a smiley face on your cast because without traffic laws they
can’t risk ending up in the bed next to you. Just outside your window there are no
laws governing human interaction and therefore chaos is sitting on your window
sill. What can be done about that? You guessed it…we DO need another law. We
need lots of laws so that chaos is left to the galaxies and order is our only way of
peaceful living.
So let’s go back to the definition of law regarding society. Here’s what Merriam
Webster dictionary says about law… “a rule of conduct or action prescribed or
formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority”. Even the
expert agrees with what we first noted above in our definition and that was law is a
rule that life must play by or have it changed.
Where and when did laws regulating conduct first appear?
From the dawn of time the concept of rules or laws, though primitive, was certainly
used by our ancient ancestors. Even the cave dwellers had to have rules or they
would have never survived. Once we left the trees and began to congregate in small
groups the scientific law of the so-called alpha male took over and he became the
rule maker or, as Webster described him, the controlling authority. It might be fun
to imagine what the community of cave dwellers over 150,000 years or more ago
somewhere in Mesopotamia near the rivers Tigris and Euphrates must have been
like. Using our premise, that they were bound to have some rules, what might they
have been?
Let your imagination peek over the rocky ledge into their world and you will
probably see several males, one or two older men wrinkled and white haired, mostly
toothless, sitting closest to the fire in the better seats in the cave. These choice
places are reserved for the men of esteem due to their age and wisdom of years.
That they sit in these preferred spots is the result of the first rule (law) of cave
dwelling which is… that the better seats will be saved for granddads to whom they
all owed their existence. There are maybe five or six younger males in their mid-
teens to twenties with one or two perhaps as old as thirty five and they, too, are in
prime seats at the fire though the teenagers are back one row a bit back from the
warmth. Then there is one male who is nearer to forty who is massive of chest and

3. shoulders and whose face and arms bear numerous scars. He is sitting at the very
best place reserved for the boss, the chief, the alpha male. Then you might see at
spots around the cave doing a variety of domestic chores a couple of teenage girls
along with the rest adult females from twenty to late thirties perhaps. One is older
with pure white hair and heavily wrinkled. She sits behind the oldest man and
keeps her eye on the next oldest female who is the alpha male’s mate. She is his
mother and, as principle mother-in-law, she’s the boss female. The other women are
sisters or mates of the other men and they, along with Mrs. Alpha, are busy at the
cook fire in the rear of the cave where a crude smoke vent is in place to take the
smoke from cooking up and out. The males are all talking about an upcoming hunt
and looking to their chief for his plan. He may mention a neighbor or two who will
go along with them on the hunt and another tribe that supplies vegetables and
rough flat bread who will trade their produce for a share of the hunt. Finally you’ll
see seven or eight children and adolescents running in and out of the cave playing
the ancient game of “you’re not the boss of me”. They are careful to keep their noise
down when they come near to the fire. Too much noise wins then a crack behind the
ear indicating the need to ‘zip it!’
Now did you get a chance to count how many rules to regulate the conduct of our
cave dwellers were in play in that little vignette? You should find at least nine.
First and foremost the alpha male is THE controlling authority. Just look at his size
and his battle scars. Then you have the rule that the better seats go to the males
beginning with the alpha male and then to his father and so on around the fire.
They are the protectors of the clan and the providers of the food. The third rule is
(and was) that the alpha male’s mother sits behind her mate and is in charge of the
females and the meal preparation. Next is that the hunters look to the alpha male
for his plan. He makes the plans and he makes the law. The need to divide up the
duties and tasks calls for a rule concerning the division of labor and the dispersal of
the spoils of the hunt. Another set of rules govern the females. Everyone, except the
youngest children, take part in preparing the meal under the ancient rule…the you
don’t eat if you don’t work rule. Another is that Mrs. Alpha heads up that operation
under the gaze (often bleary and hyper critical) of her own mother-in-law. Finally
the law of… children are to be seen and not heard… is in full force.
From those early, early days of civilization to the immediate present laws (rules)
are in place to do a number of different things, one of which is that it regulates
conduct. So we leave our clan having supper in their comfy cave with conduct
regulated insuring Mr. and Mrs. Alpha Male’s hospitality was enjoyed by all… even
grandma with the blearies!

4. It is well settled that law along with regulating conduct came in to being as a way to
avoid or settles disputes. For this notion please join me in my imagination for a
moment. (Pause here)
Hey! Let’s get up a game of softball. No rules, no laws. Okay, who’s up first? Me!
You? Don’t be crazy, I’m up first. No, I am. No you’re not He is! Him? He can’t hit a
lick, she’s up! She’s a girl, she can’t play. Yes she can. Oh yeah, who says so? I say
so. Oh, what’s the use, goodbye! Get the point? How can you be in the game of life
if there are no rules? Chaos. But, thankfully our cave dwelling ancestors discovered
more than fire. They discovered that some simple rules (laws) will avoid or settle
disputes and passed them down to our present day world.
If one walks down the street one can’t miss the effect law has on the orderly process
of day-to-day life. The traffic law settles the question of which side of the street one
drives down. The zoning laws determine the neighborhood’s character. The fact that
everyone is wearing clothing, apart from the weather, is due to the law of public
decency. If you get into an argument about who was in line at the coffee shop there’s
a policeman outside he’ll settle the dispute. In fact, that’s one of his major purposes.
All law requires authority behind it to make the law and then enforce it. It is that
authority which, oddly, arises out of disputes. Take the simple example of a mother
and two small children in the grocery store. The five year old wants a box of caramel
popcorn. Here’s the dispute… so does her four year old sister and there is only one
small box left and the two are pulling at the box and their voices are rising and
chaos is just itching to show up. Mom (the law), notices this and says, “Children,
settle down there is only one of the small boxes left. But there is a double box right
there next to it. We’ll get that and each of you can hold it until we pay for it and
then you will each have a box for yourself.” Two angelic smiles, law acted, dispute
resolved, order restored and chaos is disappointed. And so it is in nearly every walk
of life from who will be president to who gets popcorn.
Let’s look at law from the point of view that we have rules to set out rights and
obligations. For the orderly pursuit of life in the community of people certain rights
and duties need to be established. As we saw in the Webster’s definition, the
enforcement of law necessitates a controlling authority and for this nation that
authority is the government. The Constitution of the United States is the supreme
law within which the power of government is clearly stated and the fundamental
rights of all people living in its shelter are guaranteed. One of our fundamental
rights is the right to elect those who will govern. It is those men and women who

5. determine what laws apply to the countless number of actions that go on daily
regarding the safety of our water supply to the sales of cheeseburgers to the
responsibilities of our armed forces to the speed limit on the interstate. As citizens
we have the right to petition our government to make laws or change them. Our
basic rights such as freedom of the press, freedom to worship, freedom to speak and
freedom to assemble are enlarged upon in the thousands of laws written and
enacted since the Constitution was ratified. To experience your rights watch the
news on the upcoming elections and see the freedom of speech and to assemble in
action. Somewhere close by your neighborhood there are probably three or four
places where the freedom of religion is being practiced. Then look at any magazine
or newspaper or internet news site and you’ll see the free press spinning a thousand
different angles on this topic or that topic. It took law to make this marvelous
atmosphere of liberties become as commonplace as raindrops.
Now, we’ve covered some basic rights and you can add to that list as you see fit but,
what about obligations? What duty do we, as everyday citizens, owe regarding the
law. That answer is simple. We must obey the laws. The end. Well, not really the
end because we are duty bound to follow just laws and to seek peaceably, if possible,
to change such laws that work an injustice. Because law is in force to set out our
path to order we must obey them so that order is maintained. It is our government’s
duty to see that our rights are protected so that, as we go about preforming our
duties, we can do so knowing that we have the power of law on our side.
In our version of rules and laws the United States was formed with the purpose of
insuring justice. Certainly one of government’s foremost roles is to see that justice
prevails when its citizens become involved in some transaction that requires an
unbiased judge to determine right or wrong. For a judge to determine the just
outcome there must be some law that they can go to for guidance. The law itself has
no opinion. It is and that is all you get. Justice steps in to interpret that law and
bring fairness to the table. To better explain this let me give an example:
Mrs. H has a small boutique selling ladies fashions. Next door Mr. K has his deli
business. Mr. K discovered that Mrs. H has an electric outlet right next to Mr. K’s
back door and he has been plugging a large air conditioning unit into her outlet
without her knowledge. This goes on for several months until Mrs. H finds out and
calls the police. They come and charge Mr. K with theft. Mr. K pleads guilty and is
given probation. Justice served. Wait a minute, was justice served? It was not,
thank you. Mrs. H is still out the several hundred dollars in increased utility costs
that were Mr. K’s responsibility. What about that? Remember there are two major

6. sets of laws wherein justice plays a role. Criminal law and civil law are on the books
for cases just like our example. Under the criminal code justice was done and Mr. K
now has a police record. But Mrs. H can’t buy new inventory with that result so she
turns to the civil law and finds that the unlawful theft of electricity carries with it a
requirement that the thief repay all the costs suffered by a victim and court costs.
In the end Mrs. H wins that money and Mr. K is stuck with additional court costs.
Now Justice has been served. More simply put fairness was the result of law.
Harmony out of chaos would be the title of our next approach at finding the answers
to why laws? Law came into being as the result of chaos or disorder. Therefore, law
exists to maintain order. It was the steady implementation of laws enacted over the
centuries since we first gathered as humans that, on a case by case basis, kept the
peace. This proposition is seen in virtually every possible situation where people
interact. The laws of manners keep order in the home. The criminal laws bring
order to a rioting mob. The ships in New York City’s harbor are not crashing into
one another because of the harbor master’s laws. The residential occupancy laws
keep order in a 35 story apartment building in downtown Chicago. The law
establishing the FBI was enacted to keep order. Even the unwritten law that frowns
on butting in line maintains order.
Another word for order of course is peace. We have peace officers protecting our
lives and property. Peaceful demonstrations effect attentive listeners. Your
grandparents can remember the headlines of every newspaper in America at the
end of World War II. They said PEACE IS DECLARED! And the utter horror and
chaos of nations at each other’s throats was over. Finally, peace is the goal of every
law and it matters little whether that law has to do with crime or with what you are
allowed to say in public. We must have laws to maintain the pursuit of happiness
for without laws we just have anarchy. That is why we set up governments.
Our founding fathers were blessed with spectacular wisdom in deciding how they
wished the new nation of the United States to function as a government. They
realized that the form of government was as important as its substance. They were
aware that they were but a tiny handful of patriots and that they needed the will of
the people to form an effective government. Jefferson wanted a republic. Hamilton
wanted George Washington to be king. Others wanted a majority rule form of
government. What was finally decided was a federal republic under democratic
restraint with the states keeping their rights that were not held within the national
prerogative. To achieve this they came up with the Constitution but the

7. Constitution wasn’t a law and it would not be a law until it was ratified by the
people in each of the 13 colonies.
What many people don’t realize is an idea is just an idea and it will not become
reality unless certain steps are taken. This happened with our country. The framers
had ideas and they needed to get them on paper, refine them as best they could and
then send them on to the people to have their glorious idea become a reality. In
other words the idea became the law. The marvelous thing about the Constitution is
that it is THE law but it requires more laws to become the blueprint for freedom
and government of the free.
We needed the first law to decide the next law. Because of the Constitution the
government was divided into three branches. There is the executive branch where
the laws set out who can be a president, what the duties of the president are and
what departments the executive would have to assist it in the exercise of those
duties. There is the legislative branch where congress is instituted and made up of
the Senate and the House of Representatives. These two ‘houses’ have more laws
such as who can be a senator or a congressperson, what their duties are, how they
are to pass legislation (law) and what their relationship to the executive and the
judicial branch amounts to. The third branch, the judicial branch, has more laws
such as what the process is to have a Supreme Court, who may be justices, what the
role of the court and its jurisdiction will be and the manner in which the lower
federal courts (the trial courts and appellate courts) must act so that the final
decision may be decided by the Court when appropriate.
To summarize, the purpose of law is to achieve order. From the simple rules of how
to live together as a family (manners) to the more complex rules of living together
as a community (law and order) to the setting up of a nation (our constitution) it is
law that sets the path and the people can choose to follow it or be outlaws. To do the
former is to embrace order and to be an outlaw embraces chaos.
I want to thank the xxx Foundation and the xxx Company for giving me the
opportunity to better acquaint you fledgling judges, congresspersons, journalists
and our next generation of keepers of the law with the reasons we look to law to
effect harmony. Best of luck in all that you do. Good night.