4 ms·

I think the law should apply equally to all. That means you don't give special breaks or come down especially hard on someone just because of their economic cir

• jgeada 2y ago
  The law should have the same consequences for everyone. $1M fine for you is likely making you bankrupt, but is a rounding error for Elon. Is that the same consequence? If fines don't scale with wealth, they mean the activity is only illegal for the poor & middle class.
  • bko 2y ago
    So in principle, different rules for different people? If you have no money you should be able to break the law more cheaply? Principles are principles for a reason. You don't hold equal treatment / punishment under the law as a principle. Equal does not mean relative to something.
    • CalRobert 2y ago
      It's the same rule, the calculation is just different. Imagine it were prison. Should we say that a rich person should get a 1 day sentence and a poor person should get a 1 year sentence simply because the rich person's time is worth more?
      • bko 2y ago
        Terrible example since equality would mean they both get N day sentence as I'm advocating keeping the fee fixed regardless of circumstances. Here is how the example would actually work: A 20 year old probably has 60 years left. Spending a year in prison for a 20 year old is only 1/60th his expected life span. But for a 50 year old it would be 1/30th his life span. So perhaps the young person should get a harsher penalty. You see why this is wrong?
        • CalRobert 2y ago
          We already kinda do this, old people get let out of prison if they're ill, etc. I don't really think my example is terrible, I think it depends on what you think of as "equal". If the idea is to disincentivize an action, it needs to have a similar amount of pain to all people, presumably.
      • M95D 2y ago
        In fact that's exact how the fine is calculated: day-fine = punishment financially equivalent to incarceration for one day without salary. Rich and poor get the same number of days "without salary". There's also a minimum fine. People with no income will still pay a fine.
    • op00to 2y ago
      > If you have no money you should be able to break the law more cheaply? Yes, the total value of the fine is less for someone with no money, but has the same impact the same because it is the same portion of their overall income. Just like "if you have no money, you should be able to live in country more cheaply by paying less in taxes".
      • Ekaros 2y ago
        And realistically poor will always have more impact due to any fine. As they have almost always both in relative and absolute terms less disposable income. It is not like taking 9 million from someone on net earning 10 million will make them starve, but try to do same with someone making 20k and taking 18k from that...
        • op00to 2y ago
          Huge point! This fine will not affect the lawyer’s ability to provide for his family at all. Maybe one less fancy BMW.
    • add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
      The point is that it achieves, proportionally, the same rule for different people.
• 8organicbits 2y ago
  Courts can imprison you, take your assets, and much more. Asking your income is pretty mild.
• Analemma_ 2y ago
  The word "equality" is underdetermined here. To me, it is obvious that scaling fines with income (so everyone gets 1/500th of their annual wage for a speeding ticket, e.g.) is equality and that flat fine amounts, being a larger burden on the poor, are unequal. Apparently you don't agree, but that means we need to sit down and hash out an agreed-on definition of equality first, not go slinging around emotive rhetoric.
  • bko 2y ago
    Imagine speeding and then having to disclose your income to the court. Seems very invasive and dystopian.
    • CalRobert 2y ago
      You can choose not to operate the dangerous machinery in an unsafe manner if this bothers you.
    • Analemma_ 2y ago
      The government already knows your gross income from your tax return. No new information is being disclosed here.
    • bluGill 2y ago
      Or just don't break the law. Thousands of people die in car related situations. Most of them are preventable if people would just drive they are told in drivers ed. Don't tailgate is a big on as it means when (not if!) someone makes a mistake there is enough time and space to take evasive action. Many other safety laws exist that people think nothing of violating.
    • fwip 2y ago
      If you think that simply disclosing your income is dystopian, I can't imagine how much you hate having to pay taxes.
    • dzhiurgis 2y ago
      Imagine if such progressive fines only applied to severe offences. Fines for doing 10 km/h over posted speed, etc doesn't have be so draconian.
• michaelt 2y ago
  > Just seems invasive to me for a court to demand your personal monetary situation when determining how much to punish you. What if the default punishment was instead a nice, equitable 21 days in jail for rich and poor alike, with the option to instead pay a fine of 21 days income, if you were willing to disclose your income?
  • fmobus 2y ago
    would still be worse for the poor. 21 days without being able to work is life-crashing when you are living paycheck to paycheck.
• IncreasePosts 2y ago
  The law does apply equally. The law is: your fine amount is based on your daily income. This law is applied equally.
• itsdrewmiller 2y ago
  Fining 1% of income is no less principled than fining a flat $1000.
• archagon 2y ago
  “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”
• dzhiurgis 2y ago
  IDK everyone seems to be happy with taxes taking a fixed % and most countries even higher % if you work your ass off.
• fragmede 2y ago
  The equality is that the fine is for hours of your life it takes to pay that fine. If you make $20/hr and the fine is $100, that's 5 hours of work that you could use to pay for whatever, that you have to use to pay the ticket. If you make $200/hr, then the fine is $1,000, also 5 hours of your life. That's where the equality is. No matter who you are, violating this thing costs, in this example, 5 hours of work.