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But that's not how laws work in reality. The police decide whether to enforce a law or not - eg whether to give you a speeding ticket or not. The district att

by dotBen 4y ago

But that's not how laws work in reality. The police decide whether to enforce a law or not - eg whether to give you a speeding ticket or not. The district attorney will decide whether to bring a case to trial. Even the supreme Court, as we've seen with Roe v. Wade, can decide a different interpretation on the same fundamental laws and constitutional rights. As an engineer who has worked with a lot of lawyers, a great observation I once received from one was that the law is fungible and should not be treated like source code.

akerl_ 4y ago
The statistics make pretty clear that the examples you listed are all pretty good examples of my point. Police disproportionally apply traffic laws to some groups vs others, and DAs apply similar profiling in deciding who to charge and for which crimes. It's not a good thing.
- naasking 4y ago
  Exactly, fungibility is a problem, not a feature. If the law were not fungible and the police were obligated to charge any violations, and the DA was obligated to prosecute any charges, then the law becomes a nuisance to everyone and we'd see a lot more citizen involvement in reducing that nuisance by more strictly limiting state power. Reducing that nuisance by making the law fungible instead means those in power people get to be selective and make exceptions for friendlies while oppressing their opponents.
quadrifoliate 4y ago
> As an engineer who has worked with a lot of lawyers, a great observation I once received from one was that the law is fungible and should not be treated like source code. Yes. This keeps lawyers employed, because rich people and companies can employ a "great lawyer" to present creative interpretations of various fungible laws; whereas poor people and companies cannot afford to do so, and have to fall upon the mercy of those enforcing the law, like in the cases you mentioned. This does not mean that we should just accept the state of affairs. Laws with clear-cut examples and precedents will reduce the inherent unfairness that I cited above. This is especially true in the US, where lots of groups with differing backgrounds form a melting pot culture where norms can change rapidly. Even if you are a member of a group that's a beneficiary of the status quo, that is not guaranteed forever; so it is to your benefit to have clarity in law.
aksss 4y ago
Discretionary enforcement is often selective enforcement. Biases are very hard to overcome. With as many laws as we have on the books, clarity of law and unbiased enforcement is a worthy goal. Maybe you never get to 100%, but we should not be okay with not trying for that ideal or setting that expectation. Would that legislators considered it their job to curate the law books, meaning removing and trimming laws, not just adding new ones.

by dotBen 4y ago

akerl_ 4y ago

The statistics make pretty clear that the examples you listed are all pretty good examples of my point. Police disproportionally apply traffic laws to some groups vs others, and DAs apply similar profiling in deciding who to charge and for which crimes. It's not a good thing.

naasking 4y ago
Exactly, fungibility is a problem, not a feature. If the law were not fungible and the police were obligated to charge any violations, and the DA was obligated to prosecute any charges, then the law becomes a nuisance to everyone and we'd see a lot more citizen involvement in reducing that nuisance by more strictly limiting state power. Reducing that nuisance by making the law fungible instead means those in power people get to be selective and make exceptions for friendlies while oppressing their opponents.

quadrifoliate 4y ago

> As an engineer who has worked with a lot of lawyers, a great observation I once received from one was that the law is fungible and should not be treated like source code. Yes. This keeps lawyers employed, because rich people and companies can employ a "great lawyer" to present creative interpretations of various fungible laws; whereas poor people and companies cannot afford to do so, and have to fall upon the mercy of those enforcing the law, like in the cases you mentioned. This does not mean that we should just accept the state of affairs. Laws with clear-cut examples and precedents will reduce the inherent unfairness that I cited above. This is especially true in the US, where lots of groups with differing backgrounds form a melting pot culture where norms can change rapidly. Even if you are a member of a group that's a beneficiary of the status quo, that is not guaranteed forever; so it is to your benefit to have clarity in law.

aksss 4y ago

Discretionary enforcement is often selective enforcement. Biases are very hard to overcome. With as many laws as we have on the books, clarity of law and unbiased enforcement is a worthy goal. Maybe you never get to 100%, but we should not be okay with not trying for that ideal or setting that expectation. Would that legislators considered it their job to curate the law books, meaning removing and trimming laws, not just adding new ones.