4 ms·

No, we should not enforce laws efficiently, because that weakens the protection against tyranny. We want law enforcement agencies to have to jump through hoops

No, we should not enforce laws efficiently, because that weakens the protection against tyranny. We want law enforcement agencies to have to jump through hoops so that tyrannical and oppressive laws are hard to enforce. The reason the US government is so inefficiently organized is to thwart the establishment of tyranny. Yes, it means that people who creep us out, who are "obviously" guilty, and whom we personally want to punish will continue to walk free. As H. L. Mencken famously said, "The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all."

toki5 14y ago
Jumping through hoops -- a system of checks and balances -- is fine and good. When those checks and balances check out, so to speak, I want my law enforcement agencies able to do their job efficiently. This is a case of making that process -- the post-warrant process, after checks and balances have played out -- easier.
- betterunix 14y ago
  One would think that the police are already able to do their jobs efficiently, since we have the largest prison population on this planet. What this proposal is about is making it easier for the police to gather evidence, because as we all know, leaving their desks and actually working to catch criminals is just asking too much of them. It is precisely the same argument that was made for CALEA: demanding that the police actually go into the field and attach wiretapping equipment to phone lines is making it too hard to catch criminals, so we "must" make it possible to execute wiretap orders without even leaving their chair. The checks and balances are weakened every time we make the police "more efficient." Again, the point of making the government, police included, inefficient is to thwart those who would try to establish oppressive systems. Making the police more efficient makes it easier for unjust laws to be passed and enforced.
  - jfoutz 14y ago
    Meh, i think it's more about having to many stupid laws. Lying to a federal agent is 5 years, even if you don't know they're a federal agent? that's madness. I think your approach of making everything hard, really just makes government expensive. The flip side, looking for fewer and more specific crimes frees up a bunch of resources to do the job well.
    - betterunix 14y ago
      "Meh, i think it's more about having to many stupid laws. Lying to a federal agent is 5 years, even if you don't know they're a federal agent? that's madness." Sure, but such laws must be enforceable, and they must be enforceable with the resources available to law enforcement agencies. We have a lot of stupid laws, but over the period of time where those lose were passed we also increased the power and authority of the police. "I think your approach of making everything hard, really just makes government expensive." Thus making it accountable to the citizens, as those expenses must be paid for with tax money (or debt, which is just a way to postpone tax collection). Eventually people start to complain about the poor funding for education, healthcare, parks, and other things. Eventually, the limited tolerance people have for government spending begins to catch up with law enforcement (though we are nowhere near that point). Of course, for the past few decades, we have taken the alternative approach: prioritizing law enforcement over civil rights and reducing or eliminating the obstacles to law enforcement.
lincolnq 14y ago
It's not clear to me that the more difficult-to-enforce laws are also the more tyrannical. Examples - tyrannical but easy to enforce: "private citizens must allow soldiers to stay in their houses and eat their food". Hard to enforce but not tyrannical: "don't have sex with people against their will".
- betterunix 14y ago
  That is a different kind of difficulty. What I am talking about are the deliberate obstacles to law enforcement and other government functions in the United States. There is an easier example than quartering soldiers: search warrants. It is easy for the police to search a home; it is hard for the police to get permission to do so. The purpose of these obstacles is to make law enforcement difficult in general, so that tyranny is harder to establish. By forcing the police to work hard, we force them to prioritize the laws they will enforce. It would be hard for the government to justify enforcing some oppressive law while letting murderers walk free; it is less difficult to justify ignoring an oppressive law because the police were too busy tracking down murderers.
jfoutz 14y ago
I dunno. i think that's the kind of thinking that pushed the cost to defend against a federal case up to 1.5 million. I'm not advocating we just throw people who might be guilty in jail. Everybody deserves their day in court. I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone (who's not directly involved in something horrible - father of a murdered child, etc) that disagrees with getting a fair trial. For example, i'm a big fan of red light cameras. I hate them, but the blind uniform enforcement is great. Doesn't matter if you're a cop, or an important business man, or late for school. You break the law, you pay your ticket and move on. Laws are for cases where it's hard to get everyone to agree in the heat of the moment, that's why we write them down beforehand. Arguing about Alice killing Bob is different from arguing about Alice buying a car from Bob. It's still a negotiation, but adding some special cases so everyone gets all the facts doesn't seem wrong. Remember, the prosecution still has to turn all that stuff over.
- betterunix 14y ago
  "I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone (who's not directly involved in something horrible - father of a murdered child, etc) that disagrees with getting a fair trial." I am pretty sure your local district attorney would disagree. The majority of prisoners in America -- the overwhelming majority -- did not have a trial and took a plea deal instead. A standard prosecutor tactic is to make the list of charges as long and extensive as possible, to pressure the defendant into a guilty plea. It has been suggested that if everyone were to refuse a plea deal and demand a jury trial, the justice system would be completely overwhelmed and unable to handle the load. "For example, i'm a big fan of red light cameras. I hate them, but the blind uniform enforcement is great. Doesn't matter if you're a cop, or an important business man, or late for school. You break the law, you pay your ticket and move on." I had not thought of that, but it is a perfect example of why we do not want law enforcement to become too efficient: http://www.marketplace.org/topics/life/shorter-yellow-lights-mean-more-red-light-revenue http://www.marketplace.org/topics/life/shorter-yellow-lights...
  - jfoutz 14y ago
    Is the district attorney's opinion because of your strategy to make everything expensive? We build other systems that are very complex, explicit and efficient. Less prosecutor discretion, and more adaptive law seems better than making trial costs spiral out of control. Yes, and yellow light timing isn't contentious at all, is it? It's almost like perfect enforcement of stupid laws gets those laws modified to not be stupid. But whatever, i'm sure your way is good too.

toki5 14y ago

Jumping through hoops -- a system of checks and balances -- is fine and good. When those checks and balances check out, so to speak, I want my law enforcement agencies able to do their job efficiently. This is a case of making that process -- the post-warrant process, after checks and balances have played out -- easier.

betterunix 14y ago
One would think that the police are already able to do their jobs efficiently, since we have the largest prison population on this planet. What this proposal is about is making it easier for the police to gather evidence, because as we all know, leaving their desks and actually working to catch criminals is just asking too much of them. It is precisely the same argument that was made for CALEA: demanding that the police actually go into the field and attach wiretapping equipment to phone lines is making it too hard to catch criminals, so we "must" make it possible to execute wiretap orders without even leaving their chair. The checks and balances are weakened every time we make the police "more efficient." Again, the point of making the government, police included, inefficient is to thwart those who would try to establish oppressive systems. Making the police more efficient makes it easier for unjust laws to be passed and enforced.
- jfoutz 14y ago
  Meh, i think it's more about having to many stupid laws. Lying to a federal agent is 5 years, even if you don't know they're a federal agent? that's madness. I think your approach of making everything hard, really just makes government expensive. The flip side, looking for fewer and more specific crimes frees up a bunch of resources to do the job well.
  - betterunix 14y ago
    "Meh, i think it's more about having to many stupid laws. Lying to a federal agent is 5 years, even if you don't know they're a federal agent? that's madness." Sure, but such laws must be enforceable, and they must be enforceable with the resources available to law enforcement agencies. We have a lot of stupid laws, but over the period of time where those lose were passed we also increased the power and authority of the police. "I think your approach of making everything hard, really just makes government expensive." Thus making it accountable to the citizens, as those expenses must be paid for with tax money (or debt, which is just a way to postpone tax collection). Eventually people start to complain about the poor funding for education, healthcare, parks, and other things. Eventually, the limited tolerance people have for government spending begins to catch up with law enforcement (though we are nowhere near that point). Of course, for the past few decades, we have taken the alternative approach: prioritizing law enforcement over civil rights and reducing or eliminating the obstacles to law enforcement.

lincolnq 14y ago

It's not clear to me that the more difficult-to-enforce laws are also the more tyrannical. Examples - tyrannical but easy to enforce: "private citizens must allow soldiers to stay in their houses and eat their food". Hard to enforce but not tyrannical: "don't have sex with people against their will".

betterunix 14y ago
That is a different kind of difficulty. What I am talking about are the deliberate obstacles to law enforcement and other government functions in the United States. There is an easier example than quartering soldiers: search warrants. It is easy for the police to search a home; it is hard for the police to get permission to do so. The purpose of these obstacles is to make law enforcement difficult in general, so that tyranny is harder to establish. By forcing the police to work hard, we force them to prioritize the laws they will enforce. It would be hard for the government to justify enforcing some oppressive law while letting murderers walk free; it is less difficult to justify ignoring an oppressive law because the police were too busy tracking down murderers.

jfoutz 14y ago

I dunno. i think that's the kind of thinking that pushed the cost to defend against a federal case up to 1.5 million. I'm not advocating we just throw people who might be guilty in jail. Everybody deserves their day in court. I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone (who's not directly involved in something horrible - father of a murdered child, etc) that disagrees with getting a fair trial. For example, i'm a big fan of red light cameras. I hate them, but the blind uniform enforcement is great. Doesn't matter if you're a cop, or an important business man, or late for school. You break the law, you pay your ticket and move on. Laws are for cases where it's hard to get everyone to agree in the heat of the moment, that's why we write them down beforehand. Arguing about Alice killing Bob is different from arguing about Alice buying a car from Bob. It's still a negotiation, but adding some special cases so everyone gets all the facts doesn't seem wrong. Remember, the prosecution still has to turn all that stuff over.

betterunix 14y ago
"I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone (who's not directly involved in something horrible - father of a murdered child, etc) that disagrees with getting a fair trial." I am pretty sure your local district attorney would disagree. The majority of prisoners in America -- the overwhelming majority -- did not have a trial and took a plea deal instead. A standard prosecutor tactic is to make the list of charges as long and extensive as possible, to pressure the defendant into a guilty plea. It has been suggested that if everyone were to refuse a plea deal and demand a jury trial, the justice system would be completely overwhelmed and unable to handle the load. "For example, i'm a big fan of red light cameras. I hate them, but the blind uniform enforcement is great. Doesn't matter if you're a cop, or an important business man, or late for school. You break the law, you pay your ticket and move on." I had not thought of that, but it is a perfect example of why we do not want law enforcement to become too efficient: http://www.marketplace.org/topics/life/shorter-yellow-lights-mean-more-red-light-revenue http://www.marketplace.org/topics/life/shorter-yellow-lights...
- jfoutz 14y ago
  Is the district attorney's opinion because of your strategy to make everything expensive? We build other systems that are very complex, explicit and efficient. Less prosecutor discretion, and more adaptive law seems better than making trial costs spiral out of control. Yes, and yellow light timing isn't contentious at all, is it? It's almost like perfect enforcement of stupid laws gets those laws modified to not be stupid. But whatever, i'm sure your way is good too.