Legal Food for Thought

I have begun to start developing my thoughts on how the law should be practiced, although I clearly do not yet have a legal philosophy that is grounded in anything other than a vague idea of the law. It is a topic that has become very politically charged with the recent US Supreme Court appointments by Bush, but I have tried my best to withold judgement until I can see what formalism vs functionalism really means within the scope of American jurisprudence, and how that difference in interpretation and application plays out in various court decisions.

In this blog I will chronicle some thoughts on the subject.

There are two quotes below...perhaps I'll give some thoughts on how I interpret them in, and what I think their significance is, in later posts. But I think you should read them if you find this topic fascinating as I do (or even, really, if you're only mildly interested in said subject) as they are great food for thought. I myself have been chewing on them for a little while now. The first quote is short, the other lengthier.

"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible ye might be mistaken"
-Oliver Cromwell

The next quote comes from A Man For All Seasons, a play by Robert Bolt, based on the life of Sir Thomas More.

Alice: Arrest him!

More: Why, what has he done?

Margaret: He's bad!

More: There is no law against that.

Roper: There is! God's law!

More: Then God can arrest him.

Roper: Sophistication upon sophistication.

More: No, sheer simplicity. The law, Roper, the law. I know what's legal, not what's right. And I'll stick to what's legal.

Roper: Then you set man's law above God's!

More: No, far below; but let me draw your attention to a fact -- I'm not God. The currents and eddies of right and wrong, which you find such plain sailing, I can't navigate. I'm no voyager. But in the thickets of the law, oh, there I'm a forrester.I doubt if there's a man alive who could follow me there, thank God.

Alice: While you talk, he's gone!

More: And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law!

Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!

More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast -- man's laws, not God's -- and if you cut them down -- and you're just the man to do it -- do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.