It's not. Laws are not a "logical system", nor are they designed to be. Laws are a fuzzy coordination mechanism around the exercise of power. (If you have on

It's not. Laws are not a "logical system", nor are they designed to be. Laws are a fuzzy coordination mechanism around the exercise of power. (If you have one actor in the power structure who "goes rogue" and has a wildly differing interpretation than the consensus, they tend to get smacked down sooner or later, but there is substantial slack both within the system and over time). When it serves the interests of the government, laws are in fact specified reasonably exactly (eg building codes), but they are subject to the same intentional lacunae (try enforcing a state building code on a federal building, vs a private building rented by a federal agency). These are all descriptive statements, not normative statements.