Law

Whoops! Maybe you were looking for Margaret Thatcher, or Judge Dredd?

Law is everywhere. It is an invisible force that permeates the entire universe, giving energy to every living thing. It always has been, and always will be, for all eternity. But who is law? And what, where, and why? But most importantly, when?

Nutshell

Problem solved.

Laws are of two kinds: (1) descriptive generalizations, such as "the laws of physics", which explain why what you expected to happen didn't; and (2) prescriptive generalizations, such as "laws of God", which tell you why something you've just done you shouldn't've. Some laws, like "the laws of economics", are a mixture of these two; they explain why what you expected to happen didn't because some prat did what they shouldn't've while expecting something impossible. This article confuses the foregoing two or three, starting with the first. The bottom lines are: laws (2) shouldn't exist; but, if laws (1) didn't, then nothing would. Furthermore, it has been proven that eating large quantities of Yogurtland prior to taking any bar exam increases the test taker's chance of passing by 3314%.

Whodunnit?

Modern science seems to favor the Big Bucks theory of cosmology. Essentially, before the universe as we know it was created in the "Let There be Light Acts 0-1", there was a shapeless, timeless, massless mass of law.

Creationist legal theory is the theory currently taught in law schools throughout both East and West Berlin. For God so loved the world that he created crime and TV to make people interested in crime, and then also contract law and corporate law to make people sad but rich. Note that natural law descended from God after the flood but BEFORE the Birth of jebus.

However, when attempting to gain planning permission, he discovered that such a thing was illegal under an obscure clause of the Universe Act, -0001. Attempting to compromise, he sketched some designs for a universe where all beings lived in complete happiness and freedom, however he soon discovered that this was also illegal.

Nondeterred, God decided to settle for any universe possible, just so long as it was a rational world where intelligent beings could strive for greatness through reason and enlightenment. This was also illegal.

Down-hearted, God had to settle for creating the random, imperfect world in which we all live.

In our physical universe, people have known for millennia of a mystic force known as "Law" has powered the cosmos, like water powering a water wheel, or cocaine powering a model. There were two opposing sides to the Law, the Civil side, which, as the name suggests, was good – courteous and polite; something you mother would approve of, god rest her soul. Opposing this was the Criminal side, which was bad, stealing and hurting people.

However, modern scientists, being a cabal of narrow-minded ideologists, smeared this belief as a "hokey old religion". That is, until the great Cosmic Barrister John Lennon discovered the Strawberry Field, which is an omnipresent body of subatomic particles known as gravitrains. These particles appear to travel independently of normal reality, moving around wherever they will, and are responsible for everything. Yes, everything. Anyway, this proved that law was a real, testable scientific phenomenomeminem.

However, Ambrose Bierce seems to favor another idea:

"... Satan made himself multifariously objectionable and was finally expelled from Heaven. Halfway in his descent he paused, bent his head in thought a moment and at last went back. 'There is one favor that I should like to ask,' said he. 'Name it.' God replied. 'Man, I understand, is about to be created. He will need laws.' 'What, wretch! You his appointed adversary, charged from the dawn of eternity with hatred of his soul – you ask for the right to make his laws?' 'Pardon; what I have to ask is that he be permitted to make them himself.' It was so ordered."

What?

Law's main purpose, it seems, is to make things complicated. Did you know that the periodic table used to contain only four elements – Earth, Air, Fire and Water? It was law that changed it into the 100+ elements we have today.

One of Law's most obvious complications has been penis. Oh, bravo law, you may be saying. Jolly well done that mystical energy field, pip pip. (You may not be saying this, I don't know, you're just too complicated.) But think of those poor slime moulds. They didn't want to evolve. They don't want a big house, or a fancy car, or a long neck. They just want to slime out, pimp their mould, hang in their cribs with their homeslimes. They're proud of their single-celled ghetto culture. But the Law wouldn't let this happen, and forced them up the evolutionary ladder.

No, we're not so different from slime moulds. I mean, apart from agriculture, metallurgy, civilisation, art, science, computers, and the aqueduct, what have humans ever done? In fact, humans managed those things only because law made them do it. It's a basic human instinct to simplify things, but we're to weak to resist the law. Not like dolphins. They're cleverer than people, which is how they can be so simple. This is shown in their most spectacular triumph – getting caught in our tuna nets. Ooh, those pesky dolphins. They always win.

So, law overrides human's natural urge to be simple. Here are some more things that law has made complicated:

• Computers Computers tried hard to be simple – they use only 0s and 1s, after all, but there was some very subtle maneuvering by Law here. In an attempt to simplify things, Microsoft added all sorts of helpful tools, helpful windows, helpful messages etc. This made things v. complicated. Of course, dolphins don't have Microsoft. It's too evil. In fact, they're so good they don't have computers at all, or even abacuses. But I think they're acting a bit holier-than-thou when they can't count. Damn them.
• Psychology Early man had a very limited range of emotions – happy, sad, angry, afraid. But law created all sorts of new feelings, like Manga Anger, Freud's repressed-jazz-complex, and the tragic melancholy. Dolphins have only one emotion, a kind of euphoric sadism.
• Sociology Primitive man lived in simple, altruistic communities – law has driven us through slavery, feudalism and onto capitalism. Law has created Criminals. Capitalism may seem simple, but try phoning customer services. Dolphins don't have a society, despite the law's best efforts. They cunningly live underwater, so their civilization never got around to inventing fire or the wheel. Also, we, as land creatures, invented the boat early on, but you never see a dolphin driving a car. Clever bastards.

Where?

Throughout history, law has influenced man through law-sensitive beings known as the Eimbullanz-Tchashas. Most of them take the difficult but true path of the Civil side. However difficult this journey may seem, the Eimbullanz-Tchasas use several guided meditation techniques to learn that money is the highest good, which is of course the ultimate reward for devotion to the civil path. However, for many Eimbullanz-Tchashas, the twin temptations of interest and justice lead them to fall astray from the pure pursuit of money and the turn to the Criminal side. And it is the conflict between the Civil and the Criminal sides that is the root cause of all suffering and evil in the world.

Why?

Lawyers are easily recognized by their low sloping forehead and thick skull.

Our modern justice system came together through a variety of methods, including bribery, simony, rolling dice, Ikea assembly manuals, threats of mob violence, astrology, Masonic rituals, and the advice of goat's intestines.

For some cases, a jury is assembled to deliver the final verdict. The original idea was that the jury would consist of "twelve honest men". However this was not practicable for obvious reasons, instead the court will accept any twelve men, so long as at least one of them has magic powers. See Jury System for how your rights are protected.

The first thing the accused does in court is to swear on the book of their choice. Although they are told that this ritual is in fact just part of an elaborate yet pointless joke, it in fact determines the nature of the rest of the trial. The books that can be sworn on are:

• The Bible By choosing this book, the accused is subjected to Trial by Jesus. Now Jesus is a really great guy, and can in fact bring any case to a satisfactory resolution for all parties. From the simplest parking offenses to the most complicated fraud trials, Jesus can solve most disputes merely by showing His infinite and universal love. When this doesn't work, He has many other tools in His arsenal, including parables, miracles, turning the other cheek (and Jesus says that no matter how many times He tells that joke, He always gets a laugh. Must be the way He tells them), and, when all else fails, damning to hell for all eternity. When even these don't work, He can always fall back on the old classic fail-safe method, which is to reconcile all concerned with hearty swigs of Jesus Juice all round.
• The Koran Cases are judged by Trial by Allah. In fact exactly the same as Trial by Jesus, except He wears a towel.
• The Lotus Sutra (Trial by Enlightenment): Cases are judged by Buddha, who is actually Jesus of the far future, after He has really let Himself go. Trial consists of both parties' spending a lifetime in meditation, and the first one to reach enlightenment wins. On doing so, Buddha liberates the victorious party from the universe by firing him into a black hole.
• Trial by Quidditch Whoever wins the classic wizard broomstick basketball game also wins the trial. If it transpires that magic isn't actually real, then the game continues, but usually devolves into a vicious orgy of broom-based violence and destruction, with most of the court receiving third-degree splinters and bloody straw flying everywhere.
• The Selfish Gene (Trial by Teeth): Trials under this system are nasty, poor, brutish, and short. Jungle Law takes over, and the winner of the trial is whoever most successfully spreads his DNA. Murdering the competition and raping all the potential breeding partners are usual methods. Priests can take part if they abide by these rules.
• Trial by Balrog Although not actually a written rule, all trials under this system reduce to a debate on whether or not the Balrog had wings.
• No book at all (Trial by Philosophy): Of course, the premise that there was no book at all is ridiculous. Instead, the trial begins by holding a debate on whether it was an imaginary book, one of the UnBooks, a metaphorical gap that is a book by definition of it missing a book, or if it is in fact the rest of the universe that isn't there, but from there it can go anywhere. Trial by Philosophy was used in the Michael Jackson trial, since it has a tendency to prove that black is white. Traditionally, cases were resolved on the "I think, therefore I am" basis, meaning that one side shouts "p" and one side shouts "q" (or, loudly, "P!" and "Q!"), and whichever the judge thinks about the most is more true and so wins. Various propaganda and subliminal messaging techniques can also be used. In the postmodern age, however, trials are resolved by hyphens and brackets, with verdicts such as not-(not)-uber-contra-deviant-simulacra-hegemon(e)y-repression-irony-(s)he-is-guilty. Trial by Moral Philosophy, however, is prohibited as cruel and unusual punishment.
• Rules in School (RiS) Whatever happened, it's your fault. Even if it's not your fault, you are guilty. The plea "He started it" is never accepted. It is best not to get caught. The RiS are made against students, so don't expect anything positive in them.
• The Book of the Law By choosing this book, the accused is subjected to Trial by Judge Dredd. You have been warned.
• The Dictionary Sometimes just meeting lawyers reading (or even swearing on) this book can help put things into perspective.

See also

• Alternative legal systems
• Lawyer
• Law School
• Jury System
• Judge Dredd (He is the Law)
• Godwin's Law
• Codex Hammurabi
• Bears and the law
• Scots Law
• UN:LEGAL
• The Book of the Law
• Attorney at Love

External crimes

• Stupid Laws
• The Law
• Dumb Laws