How Law Destroys Order

THE PHRASE “law and order” implies cause and effect. The United States is now discovering the corollary, to wit: A legal system that fails to protect order signals flaws in the law itself. We now have a legal system that creates chaos and disdains order. As a result, criminals rule urban streets and absurdities in commercial law threaten U.S. competitiveness.

Any law-and-order movement today requires a focus both wide and deep. We must recapture the most fundamental idea in our jurisprudence—the rule of law. Our laws must be fair, based on common sense, and easily understood by the citizens who are expected to live under them; they must punish the guilty and protect the innocent; and they must be molded to the needs of society and not to any group’s arbitrary standards. In particular, now that the results are in, it is time to end liberalism’s social experimentation through the courts. An emerging intellectual conservative majority on the highest courts marks a change in direction, but whether it will mean a renewed conservative approach to the law remains to be seen.

LC

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L. Gordon Crovitz

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THE PHRASE “law and order” implies cause and effect. The United States is now discovering the corollary, to wit: A legal system that fails to protect order signals flaws in the law itself. We now have a legal system that creates chaos and disdains order. As a result, criminals rule urban streets and absurdities in commercial law threaten U.S. competitiveness.

Any law-and-order movement today requires a focus both wide and deep. We must recapture the most fundamental idea in our jurisprudence—the rule of law. Our laws must be fair, based on common sense, and easily understood by the citizens who are expected to live under them; they must punish the guilty and protect the innocent; and they must be molded to the needs of society and not to any group’s arbitrary standards. In particular, now that the results are in, it is time to end liberalism’s social experimentation through the courts. An emerging intellectual conservative majority on the highest courts marks a change in direction, but whether it will mean a renewed conservative approach to the law remains to be seen.