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Has anyone else noticed the trend of ever-increasing laws and ever-decreasing enforcement? It’s not a good mix. We end up with a system that punishes people f

Has anyone else noticed the trend of ever-increasing laws and ever-decreasing enforcement? It’s not a good mix. We end up with a system that punishes people following the rules and doesn’t do anything about the many people breaking the rules. It also creates the sense of unfairness and general lawlessness — that laws are recommendations that can mostly be ignored.

kepler1 6y ago
I echo this sentiment. It's either getting too expensive (people) to police laws with sufficient numbers, or we are not interested in offending people or doing the dirty work of putting teeth behind laws in the name of "equity" (for some things). I hate half-measures that inconvenience those that follow the rules, and do nothing to punish those who break them.
mike_d 6y ago
This is just peak NIMBY Karen at work: laws passed to address personal grievances.
proc0 6y ago
Yeah, it's just not an effective means to change small behavior like this. They could have instead banned loud noise making machines and/or machines with high pollution, and this would reduce the supply, and shift the demand to the alternatives, which by definition should now optimize for the proper features (silent and green). The way things happening now, especially in CA, is laws for everything such that it specifies behavior, not incentives. This then makes enforcement target individuals instead of market suppliers.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- jrochkind1 6y ago
  > They could have instead banned loud noise making machines and/or machines with high pollution Isn't that what they did? Oh, are you saying they should ban the sale or posession, not just the use? Or you're saying they should ban more kinds of noise-making or polluting machines, not just leaf-blowers? Are you arguing for more expansive ban? Or I may be missing it.
  - proc0 6y ago
    I'm saying ban something that targets the supply, in a way that is both general but at the same time addresses the specific immediate need. It's hard to expand here, but IMHO the system/process of Law is not meant to target things at such "level of detail". If the system was extremely fast at revising existing laws, I would have a different opinion, but with how much power it has plus how slow it is, why are lawmakers designing laws that punish such specific activities? As a crude analogy it's like a bunch of programmers are adding a ton of bloat to the code just for a tiny feature, that maybe should have been part of a bigger feature to begin with. To summarize, every law needs to be extremely well thought out, but results have shown otherwise (although that's a different thread).
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sib 6y ago
It generally ensures that there is always something to charge someone with if they come to the attention of the authorities and if the "offender" is not politically or socially advantaged in some way.
- sintaxi 6y ago
  These types of laws should always be implement with some sort of grandfather system otherwise it ends up being a tax on being poor. In BC we used to have something called Air Care, which measured your vehicle emissions and forced bad cars off the road. Naturally it only impacted people who couldn't afford new cars. It was the one of the dumbest government programs I had ever seen.
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    In California the state provides a $500 grant for low income people for to pay for emissions related repairs. They will also buy back cars that fail for $1500.
drak0n1c 6y ago
The phenomenon has a nickname - Anarcho-Tyranny, or the "Managerial State". 1994 Essay: https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/anarcho-tyranny-u-s-a-5/ https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/anarcho-tyranny-u-s-a-5/
- koheripbal 6y ago
  One of the biggest dangers about it is the ability of the government to practice selective prosecution. When most people are guilty of multiple offenses, then a government can find political troublemakers and accuse them of violating dozens of "rules" that are otherwise never enforced.
- AndrewKemendo 6y ago
  This is a great reference thanks I had never heard of it but it's bang on.
ur-whale 6y ago
Every new law should come with an expiration date, at which time a vote should occur to either extend or can it. Alternatively, there should be a "fixed budget" for laws, as in: if you want to pass that new law, you're going to pick one of the existing laws on the books an can it to make space for the new one.
acd 6y ago
I think its great that combustion engines are banned since they pollute a lot! Yes its named Parkinsons law. Parkinson noticed that the number of ships in the english army was decreasing but the number of administrators administrating the ships were increasing. Government officials hire more officials which invents new laws and rules. Reference link https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law

kepler1 6y ago

I echo this sentiment. It's either getting too expensive (people) to police laws with sufficient numbers, or we are not interested in offending people or doing the dirty work of putting teeth behind laws in the name of "equity" (for some things). I hate half-measures that inconvenience those that follow the rules, and do nothing to punish those who break them.

mike_d 6y ago

This is just peak NIMBY Karen at work: laws passed to address personal grievances.

proc0 6y ago

Yeah, it's just not an effective means to change small behavior like this. They could have instead banned loud noise making machines and/or machines with high pollution, and this would reduce the supply, and shift the demand to the alternatives, which by definition should now optimize for the proper features (silent and green). The way things happening now, especially in CA, is laws for everything such that it specifies behavior, not incentives. This then makes enforcement target individuals instead of market suppliers.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jrochkind1 6y ago
> They could have instead banned loud noise making machines and/or machines with high pollution Isn't that what they did? Oh, are you saying they should ban the sale or posession, not just the use? Or you're saying they should ban more kinds of noise-making or polluting machines, not just leaf-blowers? Are you arguing for more expansive ban? Or I may be missing it.
- proc0 6y ago
  I'm saying ban something that targets the supply, in a way that is both general but at the same time addresses the specific immediate need. It's hard to expand here, but IMHO the system/process of Law is not meant to target things at such "level of detail". If the system was extremely fast at revising existing laws, I would have a different opinion, but with how much power it has plus how slow it is, why are lawmakers designing laws that punish such specific activities? As a crude analogy it's like a bunch of programmers are adding a ton of bloat to the code just for a tiny feature, that maybe should have been part of a bigger feature to begin with. To summarize, every law needs to be extremely well thought out, but results have shown otherwise (although that's a different thread).

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

sib 6y ago

It generally ensures that there is always something to charge someone with if they come to the attention of the authorities and if the "offender" is not politically or socially advantaged in some way.

sintaxi 6y ago
These types of laws should always be implement with some sort of grandfather system otherwise it ends up being a tax on being poor. In BC we used to have something called Air Care, which measured your vehicle emissions and forced bad cars off the road. Naturally it only impacted people who couldn't afford new cars. It was the one of the dumbest government programs I had ever seen.
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  In California the state provides a $500 grant for low income people for to pay for emissions related repairs. They will also buy back cars that fail for $1500.

drak0n1c 6y ago

The phenomenon has a nickname - Anarcho-Tyranny, or the "Managerial State". 1994 Essay: https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/anarcho-tyranny-u-s-a-5/ https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/anarcho-tyranny-u-s-a-5/

koheripbal 6y ago
One of the biggest dangers about it is the ability of the government to practice selective prosecution. When most people are guilty of multiple offenses, then a government can find political troublemakers and accuse them of violating dozens of "rules" that are otherwise never enforced.
AndrewKemendo 6y ago
This is a great reference thanks I had never heard of it but it's bang on.

ur-whale 6y ago

Every new law should come with an expiration date, at which time a vote should occur to either extend or can it. Alternatively, there should be a "fixed budget" for laws, as in: if you want to pass that new law, you're going to pick one of the existing laws on the books an can it to make space for the new one.

acd 6y ago

I think its great that combustion engines are banned since they pollute a lot! Yes its named Parkinsons law. Parkinson noticed that the number of ships in the english army was decreasing but the number of administrators administrating the ships were increasing. Government officials hire more officials which invents new laws and rules. Reference link https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law