Stephen C. North scripsit: > And if legal action isn't possible, then the contract actually > has no teeth?
A fine question. My father wrote an essay about it called "Law without Force", published in a Festschrift for Hans Kelsen (a typical joke of my father's, considering that he was blatantly opposing Kelsen's legal-positivist view of the matter). To summarize his argument, we all of us go through life making and breaking endless legal contracts, cursing innumerable defective products, engaging in sales, bailments, mortgages, and other legal events -- and yet most of us never sue or are sued. The sheriff that, according to Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., stood behind all of this is, in my father's words, "a rank metaphysical spook". Enforcement of a contract represents the failure of that contract, as divorce represents the failure of marriage. Successful contracts and marriages never see a courtroom. -- John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.reutershealth.com ccil.org/~cowan Dievas dave dantis; Dievas duos duonos --Lithuanian proverb Deus dedit dentes; deus dabit panem --Latin version thereof Deity donated dentition; deity'll donate doughnuts --English version by Muke Tever God gave gums; God'll give granary --Version by Mat McVeagh -- license-discuss archive is at http://crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3
