A problematic idea of the law

 The Texas abortion law has been widely copied by states that want to ban abortion. The law has been denounced as a descent into the dark ages by some legal scholars.

I wish the people who hold office in Texas knew something about ancient Athens. The problems with this kind of law were obvious a couple of thousand years ago.

The Texas law is being hailed as revolutionary and innovative because it takes the state out of the enforcement business. The state doesn’t enforce. Enforcement occurs because any private citizen can sue to stop an activity he or she objects to.

Actually, the law is neither revolutionary nor innovative. This is what law was in ancient Athens.

Athens had no police, no public prosecutors, no professional judges. The judge was an ordinary citizen who, chosen by lot, was chairman of the trial. The jurors — 500 was a common number — were chosen by lot.

One citizen prosecuted another for whatever action he considered to be a violation of law.

There’s no problem here — unless you get to the question of whether a doctor, for example, has a right to operate a business. Because if this is your concept of law, the answer is no. If the doctor beats the first lawsuit, he won’t beat the 143^rd. And this system, as the ancient Athenians discovered, created a class of people who went around insinuating that a business person was doing something wrong and demanded money in return for not bringing a lawsuit.

And if you can blackmail a doctor, you can also blackmail a plumber, a carpenter, a teacher … anybody. You can stop doctors from running their medical practices. And you can stop plumbers, carpenters, teachers — you name it — from running their businesses.

I have heard people who call themselves socialists bewail “the fact” that capitalism and free enterprise cannot be contained, much less killed.

Actually, you can put a torpedo through the bow of any enterprise with this concept of law. The Texas Legislature inadvertently and unfortunately rediscovered the old blueprints for the torpedoes.