My parents programmed their new TiVo to tape all episodes of Law and Order, both new and reruns, and the spin-off series Special Victims Unit. Whenever a new courtroom drama comes to video, my family and I curl up in the living room and savor every suspenseful testimony and every passionate rebuttal. The only heated political discussion, ever, at our dinner table is about the death penalty.
My parents passed down to me an obsession with law; it's hereditary, like hair color or height. I've been trying to account for this fascination - from my rapt attention in communication law to my itch to try my hand at the LSATS.
Back in Catholic high school, where explicit rules proscribed everything from skirt length to heel height, a whole chapter of our textbook of our junior-year religion class was devoted to law.
There are two types, the teacher told us. First, some laws exist simply to keep order; they are as arbitrary as rules governing the movement of chess pieces. Stop on red. Return library books after three weeks. Though rolling through a stop sign has no high moral significance, a world without late fees and traffic cops is asking for chaos.
The second type is moral law - something my Catholic school religion teacher described as law for stupid people. This category includes laws that anyone who didn't sleep through grade school should already know. Do not kill. Do not steal. Do not beat your roommate over the head with a rock if she doesn't do the dishes. The government, by bothering to scribble down these self-evident restrictions, pass a bill through Congress and sign it into law, is just humoring the slow-witted members of society.
Can't say that I agree.
Law isn't for the perpetrators; it is for the victims. We didn't outlaw murder, discrimination, thievery and slavery - so that a potential criminal, in plotting his dastardly deeds, can get out the tome of U.S. law to see if his actions are permissible.
Law gives a victim the opportunity to fight an injustice that otherwise he or she just would have to bear. It legally protects the weak against the strong. When a landlord charges a $50 a day late fee, you can fight it. When your boss doesn't pay you overtime, you can fight it. When a cop enters your house without a warrant, you can fight it. As my communication law professor told us, laws are only as strong as those willing to fight to uphold them.
We are a meddling country. I never realized how much the United States loves our written laws until I spent a quarter in Holland. The Netherlands legalized marijuana, but I found no college student who actually smoked it. They permit prostitution, but yet I got a 5-minute lecture about putting my feet on the train seat in front of me. It is a country with far fewer laws but far more order.
But here a law exists to support each of our nation's values. We defend equality with Brown vs. Board of Education and last year's Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action. We enforce our Puritan prudishness with television and movie ratings and obscenity censorship laws. The examples are endless.
Let's face it, my law addiction isn't a quirky family trait; it's a national obsession. This nation, which has more lawyers per capita than any other country in the world, is the sum of its laws. You add up all our proclamations, our declarations and amendments and all our rules and regulations - you get a pretty good picture of what the United States stands for.
17 Archives
Emily Patterson
