You probably would not appreciate me punching you in the face and taking your phone. If I’m stronger than you there is not much you can do. If you get the entire tribe involved then you can.
That being said every legal system is perfectly adapted to how society was in the recent past.
This looks like an assignment for your homework.
That may be true, but I still think it’s a question worth considering.
The answers you will get here could get your normie teacher triggered but hey at least she will know chatgpt didn’t write it 🤣
It’s a question that’s been considered over and over again throughout history by academics and philosophers. There’s well-researched books on the topic by experts.
Asking Lemmy is like asking some random person on the street what this whole quantum mechanics thing is about.
You could read up on the subject and discuss particulars with other people interested in the topic. It’s not a subjective question to drop on a bunch of random doom scrollers.
I’m not concerned with definitions, but rather with people’s opinions. This seems to me especially relevant given that there are many US users here. I’m interested in how they perceive what is happening in the US, what their legal system allows, and whether they consider it just in any way.
First there was moral reasoning and feelings, then there were religion, and now there is laws. I think it works quite well for countries with a healthy government.
The purpose of a legal system is to provide stability to a society, so that a person can safely pursue long term goals over their lifetime in a predictable environment.
The most effective way to accomplish this is to make a system where laws originate from a process where people are allowed to have some say in the creation of the laws that will apply to them, and the laws are then applied uniformly, consistently and fairly to all people regardless of background.
Our system partially fulfils this.
A legal system should be providing the framework to deal with disagreement and should be fair and equitable. Mine is being trampled all over atm so is not doing its purpose so well.
The purpose of a legal system is to provide consistent and coherent methods of conflict resolution that are superior for the functioning of general society than means outside of a system of centralized coercion for certain, sufficiently disruptive acts.
By this extremely broad definition, the legal system in my country, the USA, fulfills its purpose. But so would the legal system of fucking Napoleonic France.
More narrowly, a legal system should be oriented towards a standardized means of punishment and reform of those who disrupt the basic functioning of civil society.
By this narrower definition, my country only succeeds on ‘standardized means of punishment’, and even there arguably only partially. It largely fails at reform, and the punishments are both visited on those who do not disrupt the basic functioning of civil society (minor drug offenses, immigration crackdowns, anti-homeless legislation), and failed to be visited on many of those who do disrupt the basic functioning of civil society (gestures broadly at corporate America and the current coterie of fascists in power in government).
The legal system has many jobs to fulfill, but in the broadest sense it serves to construct, maintain, and administrate the contract between a government and its citizens.
In spite of recent events, I do believe that the American legal system is one of the best that has ever existed. That isn’t to say it is perfect or even nearly so. Our system has many flaws, and recent events have done a great job at highlighting those flaws. However, it is worth remembering the severity of previous systems which lacked basic pillars we now take for granted (like the presumption of innocence)
It is also worth remembering that our legal system has a lot to contend with: not just the scale of the American population but the vastness of American diversity. Never before and nowhere else have such massively diverse populations been able to construct a society where we are all empowered to disagree with each other. The contract which makes this possible may still fail do provide these things equitably and may now be strained beneath its own weight, but the simple fact that we are able to discuss these flaws and conceive reasonable avenues for improvement is evidence that our system is (imperfectly) working.
I really don’t understand how you can hold that opinion. Your president is clearly a criminal, and he is exploiting your legal system to enrich himself and his partners.
That’s perfectly obvious.
It’s equally obvious that your legal system not only allows this, but also enables this level of massive organized crime in the first place.
Here’s an example: Clarence Thomas, a Supreme Court justice, has been blatantly corrupt for decades (and he’s not the only one in that small circle). The Supreme Court has ruled - in clear violation of the US Constitution - that the law does not apply to the president. So Trump is shamelessly enriching himself.
How can anyone live in such a system and even approve of it?
Protect the rights of people who own property. As those are the people supposedly paying property taxes which pays the salaries of the cops.
The anti-violence laws are just to work around the fear that they reasonably have that other people will probably want to brutally attack them for the shit they have done.
So poor => no justice
Have money => better not hurt you
Do you have any thoughts on what purposes laws should serve?
Yes but even if we had perfectly just laws (we don’t); we still would not have a justice system but a slightly more fair legal system (which by definition would always favor the powerful over the vulnerable).
If we are to choose laws, we best choose laws that limit harm by badly behaved individuals but don’t limit the actions of those who are reasonable and considerate of others.
To make justice to the victims of crimes by punishing the perpetrators without accidentally punishing the innocent. Mine currently fails at both due to the long times it takes to judge people, meaning guilty people don’t get properly punished and the innocent get ounished with a long court battle that takes up much of their lives
Protect property of the real people
Oppress the peasants
Maintain social and economic order that benefits real people’s at expense of the peasants.
Dispose of undesirables
What purpose do you think it should serve?
Same purpose it just shouldn’t discriminate against the peasants like it currently does.
The state requires that to have coercive power but the original agreement was that we are all equal which is factually nor legally true.
The purpose you mentioned is to oppress people. Does that seem desirable to you?
My question was what you would do if it were up to you to decide what purpose the legal system should serve.
The state inherently has to opress people into compliance. That ain’t changing. Only thing that can change how much and who gets oppressed.
So ideally honest people don’t get fucked, criminals get prison.
You can’t have a state with out it having the coersive power.
Tax code is another exampe, the state miust have taxes but in practice stupid peasant pay the tax, rich man gets cash transfers. Again discrimination against poors.
All I hear in your answer is anger. I can understand that, and I share it to a certain extent, but I think you’d be doing yourself a favor by turning that anger into something positive.
Being against something achieves much less than being committed to a goal. The fanatical Maga supporters show where a purely negative worldview leads. These idiots are even against things that spring from their misguided imagination, and they can’t even define what their hatred is directed against. That’s why their leaders have given them terms like “woke,” which are as empty and unfocused as these people’s hatred. The goal is to have them pulled behind their leader, who does nothing but enrich himself.
That doesn’t seem desirable to me. Rather, it seems desirable to me to think for myself instead of repeating slogans.
My point: You won’t be able to change anything if you don’t have ideas that point in a positive direction. That only leads to the same unproductive hatred that the Maga fanatics represent.
My comments above is political science 101.
You are coloring it with your US centric misunderstanding on how regimes actually operate in practice.
There is no “anger” child
Spare me your imaginary lectures and also your assumptions. I am European and I know the basics of political science. Besides, I’m not the one downvoting you. You’re doing that all by yourself.
I have tried to be conciliatory and convey a positive message here, but I have to conclude that this is obviously futile.
Just to say something different then the definition, I would describe it as both a representation of, and the justification for, the government’s monopoly on violence.
The purpose of the legal system of the United States of America is to oppress the common people and enable the capitalist agendas of the highest bidders. It accomplishes these things perfectly.
Imagine you could establish a new legal system. What would it look like?
The root cause of the legal system we have today (in my estimation) is the existence of private interest in all levels of government. Between lobbying, gerrymandering, and reelection “donations” there is no such thing as an honest judge. The first step would be excising the cancer of profit from the judicial system in its entirety.
The purpose of the legal system is to enforce the laws.
Does it fulfill it? No. Trump was convicted on 34 counts, has not been held accountable. If you have the money to delay judgement you can get away with anything.
On the other end of the spectrum, if you don’t have money and can’t afford legal representation, we are SUPPOSED to provide a public defender.
When there aren’t enough public defenders to go around, those cases aren’t even prosecuted.
In a democracy, rule of law is supposed to replace “fighting a war in a battlefield” with “elections”, rule of law upholds stability.
In an authoritarian country, its to protect the the dictator/dictators.
I live in the US, and unfortunately, the “democracy” is heavily manipulated by powerful oligarchs, so I think it only ever did like 50% what it was supposed to do at its peak (Civil Rights movement was an example, it was only half peaceful, at least the other half of it was violent police brutality and mob lynchings), it already failed once in 1860, and now, ever since January 20 of this year, its had been on a rapid decline, again.
