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Most of the Argumentative Law class were tucking their textbooks and computers into their backpacks when Dr. Hawkins blew into the room in his normal rush. Filling the vacuum behind him, Monica closed the door and made her way to her usual location in the small lecture hall. Tears edged her eyes and soaked her lashes. Lindsey hopped down a row to sit beside her, giving Monica a quick hug and then held her hand, and Jervin looked on with sympathy. Their first drafts of their senior project were in the rearview mirror, and they understood the trauma of that first round of feedback. Fikes and Goard would be experiencing it soon enough and kept their heads forward, not looking at their classmate.
John’s lip curled and Moore whispered a comment to his girlfriend Breanna which made her punch his shoulder and move to the front row. The two men’s senior advisor for their project was the pre-law department chair, Dr. Leverett, who only took on legacy students, supporting those ‘most likely to succeed’.
“Why is property and property rights important in the law? Mr. Goard, this is your area of expertise, impress me. Don’t limit it to intellectual property.”
“What, oh, property. Well, we own things.” Seth rocked in his chair.
“You are not impressing me.”
“Ownership is important, acknowledging ownership is important.” Seth’s eyes drifted to where Monica and Lindsey whispered.
“Eyes forward Mr. Goard. You talk to the Judge first, the gallery second. You will rarely have a jury in your chosen field.”
“People need to feel that they own the items they make or buy, whether it is their home, their car, their book, or their movie. It’s essential for capitalistic societies and encourages growing economies. Why would citizens put into all the extra work if their stuff gets confiscated at a drop of a hat? If we don’t protect property rights, workers will do the bare minimum because there is no benefit doing stuff beyond roof and food.” The heat kicked on, so Seth raised his voice. “Extra effort is hard. Governments need to respect people’s property rights, or repay them in a fair manner. Thieves and pirates must be punished harshly for their crimes as they undermine the labor of workers. Property is essential. Really, all law is about protecting people’s property rights.”
“Wait.” “No.” “Not this again.” “Are you crazy?”
Dr. Hawkins clapped his hands and everyone quieted. “Let’s work with that assumption tonight. All law is about property rights. Ms. Hargate, how is murder a property crime?”
Monica rubbed the back of her hand against her wet cheeks while Lindsey glared at the professor. The soft-spoken student cleared her throat before talking over the blower for the heating vent. “Murder is a property crime because … people own themselves?” She glanced at Lindsey who nodded encouragement. “That would be it. Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, where the pursuit of happiness is a substitute for property because our forefathers were merchants and didn’t want to have property be an inalienable right so they switched out that. Also made sure it wasn’t happiness, but the pursuit of happiness. Still that means life and liberty, your personal life and your freedom plus the pursuit to make your life comfortable through stuff and ideas, belong to you. You belong to you. Someone assaulting you and-or un-aliving you takes your rights away.”
“That works.” Dr. Hawkins nodded. “Ms. Crawford, why are children property? How are they property?”
Lacing her fingers together, Breanna smiled at the professor and then the surrounding students. “Since children do not yet have full citizenship, they must be protected from general use and abuse by their parents. Children do not yet have the maturity, mentally or physically, to take care of their needs or their home. Interestingly they have two types of property law applying to them, one is their parents being their owners. Some of whom might claim ‘I brought you into this world, I can take you out.’ But that is not the case, because children are also fall under community property laws, not like marriage with everything split, but more like the commons where everyone can use the area but everyone is also responsible to take care of the area. This community property aspect is needed because the children will eventually become adults and have legal rights to themselves and until then the parents and the community must protect them.”
“Anyone want to expand on what else is both owned by an individual and shared through community property.”
“Housing.” Jacob answered. “You can own your house, but you got to keep the lawn mowed and yard clear for health and safety, controlling rodents and disease in the neighborhood. Reducing fire risks. HOAs may be annoying but they have a place.”
Lindsey interjected. “So long as they don’t confiscate the house for flying the wrong flag out front.”
“I’m going to agree with Lindsey here,” Seth said. “People must feel safe in their neighborhood and homes, and HOAs confiscating houses just because the lawn is too short or too long violates rights.”
“Speaking of rights,” Dr. Hawkins looked at Larry. “Mr. Northern, how can you tie the first amendment to property rights?”
“Thank you for the softball, Dr. Hawkins.” Larry tilted his head to the side and his smile took up the room. “The First Amendment rights covers religion, freedom of expression including the press as well as the individual, and the ability to assembly peacefully. All these are intellectual property rights.”
“Excuse me?” Seth blinked from his seat. “No, no.” He held up his hand as though to push back an oncoming bus about to hit him and shook his head. “No.”
“Do you have more to contribute Mr. Goard?” Dr. Hawkins prodded from this place leaning against the lectern.
“Fuck.” He leaned forward, pushing his curly hair back. “No, I’m good. I’m going to need to change my outline, but I am good.”
“Since you have shaken Mr. Goard’s world, could you continue Mr. Northern?”
“Well, freedom of expression is the easiest, that allows people’s ideas, the most central part of themselves, to be shared and not suppressed. Suppression of the individual is akin to confiscation without reimbursement if done by the government. If done by the community, where everyone has the right to walk away, that is similar people looking at a … painted clay pot and deciding not to buy it. If the government took the clay pot away so no one could see it, property has been removed from the owner. Similarly by preventing an idea from being shared, the government has seized intellectual property. Freedom of religion, the very structure of ideas made reality, and assembling peacefully to share ideas are just expansions freedom of expression.”
“Beautifully stated as always Mr. Northern.” The professor’s black eyes moved to Matt in the back row where he was still glaring at the back of Breanna’s head. “What other bases are there for law other than property, Mr. Moore?”
“I don’t know, Civil law maybe?”
Jervin held up his hand. “How about relationship law?”
“Mr. Santinelli, would you care to expand?”
“Sure, everything we have done so far is basically about figuring out who owns something and someone or something else acting on it – stealing it, suppressing it, protecting it. But another law structure is the connections between people and society. We kind-of have seen a bit of this already with the children not only being owned by their parents, but the community having a responsibility to the children and their potential adulthood within the culture indicates how things are. Many indigenous cultures do not have ownership of things, especially the land, but the relationship between the people and the land. A responsibility of stewardship for not only future generations but to the land and the environment in-and-of themselves, kind-of like how we do corporations as ‘people’ but not really. Anyway some indigenous cultures judge people on relationships. Duty and responsibility, privilege and benefit.”
“What complete communism.” John sneered beside Larry.
“Well, yeah, kind-of. Capitalistic law is all about property, while communism which requires sharing of resources would be more relationship based. That is the discussion we are having today, right?”
“Capitalism is better than communism.”
“When you got the privilege on your side.” Lindsey snapped back from where she sat.
“If you like communism so much, move to China.”
“China and Russia are not really communistic states, they are oligarchies just like America, ruled by an elite who take all the property for themselves.”
A clap stopped the squabble. “This is dining hall discussion, not lecture hall. Good talk everyone. Thursday afternoon we will be working our understanding of law as a relationship versus property through a debate. I will send out links that I want you to read to prepare for the debate and I will send out who will be on which side of the debate at six am Thursday morning via the group chat. You can read beyond the assignment as you wish but you must share your resources on the chat because one of you nine will be the judge and will need to know all sources drawn on. The rest of the class will be divided four to a team. I do want each of you to come up with two, and only two, questions for the debate and post them to the chat by Wednesday at five pm.
“Northern your first draft is due tomorrow morning. Crawford, I will need yours Thursday morning. Santinelli and Mills-Jumper, I need a summary of your present research documents Thursday. Dismissed.”
(words 1,614, first published 4/15/2024)
Argumentative Law series
- L is for Legality (4/14/2024)
- M is for Monday (4/15/2024)
- O is for Options (4/17/2024)
- Editing Rant: Q is for Quorum (4/19/2024)
- Writing Exercise: Y is for Yoke (4/28/2024)
