Different Kinds Of Laws And Authorities example essay topic

In ancient times, laws were usually passed along by words, it was never written down. But around 1760 B.C., a man named Hammurabi, King of Babylon, produced what is believed to be the first set of codified laws in Western civilization. They were chiseled on a stone tablet and hung in the center of the city where everyone could see them. In 1750 there was not very much respect for authority and I believe it has improved since then. I believe over the centuries the respect for authority has drastically changed. I think the reason it has improved since 1750 is because back then they had laws but the laws were for everyone and everything.

What I'm trying to say is today we have laws but we have different kinds of laws and authorities, they only had one. We have the provincial government and the municipal government, they have different kinds of responsibilities and we respect them for what each type of government does for us. Also we have different sections of government for us, like substantive law, and procedural law. These are different types of the law which deal with different things. Today we have private and civil law which deals with us, the people of the country, and on the other side we have public law which deals with the relationship of the government and society. What I'm really trying to express is that back in 1750 they did not have different sections of the laws for certain things and people, they had one big law and sometimes the punishments were blown out of context.

A good example of this is in one of the excerpts where a witness lies on the stand during a capital trial, and because he lied and it was a capital trial the man will receive the death penalty. Back then they only had one way to decide these punishments, "an eye for an eye", and sometimes this way was unorthodox. The people lost respect for the government and started to overcome with fear. Today we have different kinds of authorities; we also have different kinds of courts such as divorce court, family court, criminal court, etc... I believe because we have all these different kinds the people are happier and respect the government for implementing this kind of system. People even have more respect for smaller levels of authority.

Good examples are police officers, a while back they used to be seen as "Pigs" who go to Tim Horton's to eat donuts and drink coffee. But now I can honestly say people respect them a whole lot more and do not make jokes about them and finally realize that the little things they do greatly improve our society. So yes, I believe the respect for authority has immensely improved since 1750 and will continue to improve as time goes on. And even though there is more respect for authority now, the respect for authority was quite impressive for its time, who would have thought that a civilization over thousands of years old would be capable for producing the worlds very first set of codified laws.