Charlie,

I think you exaggerate a bit when you claim the english common law was rejected wholesale. I am no scholar on the matter, but ISTR that Justice Holmes wrote a study on the provenance of laws, tracing many to the English common law. I also buy John’s point that the country operates as much by tradition as by law. I always think of how orderly Americans are when faced with a failed traffic light, my impression is that this is far from universal. On a slightly different note, I think the knowledge of how to make a building is more tradition, passed down from worker to worker, than something learned in school or mandated by law. There is no reason to think that such observations apply only the making of things.