“When is a train most free? Is it when it goes bouncing across the field off the track? No. It is free only when it is confined to the track. Then it runs smoothly and efficiently, because that was the way that its maker intended for it to run”(Jay E. Adams). Are laws restricting us or are they liberating? today, especially in the US we’re very two sided about almost everything. We can apply this numerous ethical debates but due to recent political controversy lets stick with contemporary politics. Some sides say they’re for free speech but don’t let others speak some use violence and go against the laws, there’s just too much controversy. People want to fight against laws but are these laws keeping them locked up or is it keeping order to allow people to do what they go against. What would life be if we didn’t have laws or order such as what we do now.
According to the Judicial Learning Center “laws are rules that bind all people living in a community. Laws protect our general safety, and ensure our rights as citizens against abuses by other people, by organizations, and by the government itself. We have laws to help provide for our general safety.” Laws are there to keep us safe, a nation without laws leads to oppression of certain people as we can see from the aftermath of killing Saddam Hussein and the rise of sectarianism in Iraq. Maintaining a nations freedom while not restricting their rights runs a very fine line only because all people must follow the same laws, you can’t have some people here and others there that would cause inequality. This brings up the question, who and what has the authority to pass law and do we pass it because it benefits the most or must we find a law that has to benefit all?
If we do pass the law to benefit the most-majority rules style-we run into the “Trolley problem”. The “Trolley Problem” should be vaguely familiar and is the idea of five people are one track and one on another while the trolley is coming down which track do your force the trolley towards. Most things done in the US government follows this style aka majority rules. Therefore if majority rules then someone must suffer and if said person(s) is/are suffering then is the law really protecting their freedom?
