Most Americans think of their rights as unshakable, carved in stone by the Constitution and guaranteed for life. In reality, much of what we call a “right” exists not in the Constitution’s text but in interpretation. The U.S. legal system is built on a combination of written law and evolving court decisions, which means many of our freedoms depend not on permanent guarantees but on how judges interpret them at any given moment.
To understand why that matters, it helps to look at how the American legal framework is actually built.
Every society must decide how it will live together. It does this not only through shared values or traditions, but through the laws it writes, enforces, and debates. Law is the framework through which we express our morality, our philosophy, and our sense of justice. It reflects what we consider sacred, what we tolerate, and what we condemn.
Every Texan knows the state takes pride in personal freedom. Yet hidden in the Texas Penal Code is a relic that tells a very different story. It is a law so outdated that it borders on parody. Under this rule, owning or selling too many adult novelty products can make you a criminal.
You crack open a beer in the courtyard of your apartment complex after work — just a few steps from your front door. You’re on private property, you pay rent, and you’re not bothering anyone.
Then the police roll through, decide you’ve had too much, and suddenly you’re being cited or even arrested for public intoxication.
It feels absurd - but in Texas, it’s perfectly legal.
The State of Georgia publishes its authoritative statutes in a single compilation called the Official Code of Georgia Annotated (or OCGA). That version includes the text of every statute in force plus annotations (summaries of court decisions, attorney general opinions, legislative history, etc.).
Under Georgia law, the OCGA is the official code. Yet access to the full volume — particularly including the annotations - was limited to paying purchasers, because Georgia claimed copyright over that compilation.
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Most Americans believe that everyone has the right to a free attorney if they cannot afford one. That belief is only partially true. The right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment applies only to criminal prosecutions — and even then, only under specific circumstances.
In practice, there are major exclusions that leave millions of people, including children and non-citizens, to navigate complex legal systems without any guaranteed representation.
Most Texans assume they have a legal right to privacy — that the government, employers, and companies must respect their personal boundaries. But the truth is far less comforting. In Texas, the right to privacy is limited, implied, and inconsistently enforced.
Unlike California, which explicitly guarantees privacy in its state constitution, Texas has no broad constitutional right to privacy. What protections Texans do have come piecemeal from court decisions and narrowly written statutes. As digital surveillance, data collection, and workplace monitoring become more pervasive, that legal gap is widening fast.
It sounds like the setup to a bad joke: someone leaves a bar, hops on a horse, and heads home. But across the United States, law enforcement has, in fact, charged people for being intoxicated on horseback. Whether it counts as a DWI (Driving While Intoxicated) depends entirely on how each state defines the word “vehicle.”
Ask a dozen Texans whether you’re required to carry ID, and you’ll likely get a dozen different answers - most of them wrong.
Some will insist everyone must have identification on them “at all times.” Others believe refusing to show ID is an automatic arrest.
The truth is more nuanced. In Texas, you are not required to carry identification unless you are engaged in specific, regulated activities.
Understanding those situations, and the limits of the law, can make the difference between a calm interaction and an unnecessary arrest.
Texans love their trucks, their highways, and their independence. It is not surprising that one of the most common arguments you will hear, whether in courtrooms, traffic stops, or online debates, is this:
“Driving is a right, not a privilege.”
It sounds compelling. After all, the ability to move freely feels fundamental to liberty. Yet under Texas law, driving is not a right; it is a regulated privilege. The true constitutional protection lies not in the act of driving, but in the right to travel itself.
While Americans frame mobility as a freedom from interference, many other countries frame it as a right to access: a guarantee that transportation will be available to everyone, not merely permitted.
It sounds like something from another century, and in truth, it is. But in Texas, a law that once criminalized private, consensual intimacy between adults is still officially part of the Penal Code.
Even though the U.S. Supreme Court struck it down more than twenty years ago, Texas has never erased it from its books. That means if the federal ruling were ever reversed, the old statute could spring back into force, instantly turning private behavior into a state crime once again.