Someone could easily argue that the legal system protects the people who have decided to follow laws--legalists; that is to say, those who follow the letter of the law as a matter of course--from those who violate those laws, and who might violate the rights of the legalists.
Laws are either agreed upon or disagreed upon and they are never unanimous. 99 people may agree that we shouldn't kill each other, but as long as 1 person out there thinks it's okay, that law is just another imaginary line to them that they feel completely justified in crossing. If they would feel comfortable taking another person's free will they have no fear of taking everyone's. If instead that person was taught from a young age why free will is important and that respecting each others freedom and liberty is the only way to ensure our own perhaps we could change some minds. Obviously the imposed "punishment" or whatever threat the law poses to them isn't getting the point across because people are still killing each other even with the threat of governmental retaliation. If people are still getting murdered and these laws exist, then what protection is it offering?
So, let's accept that everyone subject to these laws are both capable of doing what law permits, and that everyone is aware enough to decide whether or not to do something for themselves.
That's a massive stretch, but also why I think we need to approach this problem from a different direction so that people do become that aware and grasp the full severity of their decisions.
In that case, doesn't a law forbidding murder codify the victim's right to live, and protect the life of possible victims with a threat of imposing punitive measures?
I'm saying your right to exist shouldn't be trusted to a "law." We all have a right to exist and pretending like some government gave us that right is a joke. If the government gives me the right to live and thus protects that right, then I truly am a slave and nothing more than a possession of that government which gives me the right to exist.
I appreciate the different perspective, I was using murder as one of my main examples because it's the ultimate removal of someone else's free will/right to exist, but we all know the majority of laws are restrictions. It's illegal to buy or sell marijuana in most of the U.S. for example. That doesn't give me anything, that takes away. There's a law that I have to register a vehicle with the government, that's not giving me anything and it's costing me money. Rights are something we are born with, laws are restrictions put in place to control those rights, and I don't see where any government in the world has a "right" to tell me that I have the "right" to live.
RE: The Illusion of Legality