5 ms·

Reminds me of this quote from Atlas Shrugged: > “Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better g

by ufmace 11y ago

Reminds me of this quote from Atlas Shrugged: > “Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with.” In turn, that makes it feel odd that the prevailing opinion in these parts is often that the police enforce things too harshly, but the cure for every economic and social ill is always more Government micro-managing...

jordanthoms 11y ago
Absolutely - you don't want laws to be enforced too completely, but you also don't want to have lots of laws on the books which nobody obeys and are usually not enforced, but can be enforced selectively.
- jsprogrammer 11y ago
  We don't want laws to be enforced too completely? What?
  - oh_sigh 11y ago
    Let's say there is a law against walking your dog without a leash on, because it will prevent unruly dogs from scaring other people out in the public(even if the dogs intent is good, people may not understand this), or staring dog fights, or pooping where they shouldn't. Sounds good. Now, what if someone has a perfectly trained dog, that will stay right at their owners side no matter what circumstance is presented, and that dog is walking without a leash on? Is it appropriate to give that person a ticket? They are breaking the letter of the law, but the intent of the law was not broken because of how well trained the dog is.
    - mseebach 11y ago
      > Let's say there is a law against walking your dog without a leash on .... Is it appropriate to give that person a ticket Yes, because that law was written for the convenience of law enforcement. The law should have been "You need to be able to control your dog at all times when in public, with a leach if necessary", or indeed, not there at all: There are plenty of laws on the books that penalises behaviour that hurts other people. But enforcing that is a lot more difficult than determining the absence of a leach and writing a ticket, regardless of whatever harm or risk is present in the actual situation. You're suggesting that laws should be enforced in accordance with how they should have been written, not how they are written - and while obviously a good thing in this case, it also applies in the other direction: A policer officer might feel very strongly that beating unruly arrestees is what the law should be. Rule of law means the laws are enforced as they are written, equally for everyone, not subject to the whims of law enforcement. Making stupid laws that implicitly demands law enforcement to be arbitrary is deeply corroding to the rule of law.
      - oh_sigh 11y ago
        > You're suggesting that laws should be enforced in accordance with how they should have been written, not how they are written But this is exactly what police discretion is - the police officer is not some brainless automaton which enforces the laws with algorithmic precision. http://thelawdictionary.org/article/police-discretion-definition/ http://thelawdictionary.org/article/police-discretion-defini...
    - michaelt 11y ago
      If you pass laws that have faults then rely on enforcement discretion to produce justice, that puts a lot of weight on the enforcers' shoulders. Imagine being a cop who pulls over a poor black janitor for DUI. You know last week your colleague pulled over a rich white senator who was on his way home from the police union's fundraising ball, and let him off with a caution. If you arrest the janitor your department will look like a bunch of corrupt, racist, classists. And if you don't arrest any DUIs, all the problems caused by drunk driving will get laid at your department's doorstep. Perhaps instead of passing laws that have faults then using enforcement discretion to work around those faults, instead we should improve the laws to be fault-free. (admittedly that might need a faster release and testing cycle than we have at the moment)
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - jordanthoms 11y ago
    Homosexual acts were illegal until quite recently (~50 years or less) in most of the western world. If we had, hypothetically, 100% effective law enforcement, there could have never been a social movement to change that - everyone would be locked up. Same with Cannabis - how could sufficient people have experienced it and realized that it wasn't as dangerous as promised, if everyone who tried it was locked up? It's hard to change an unjust law without breaking it in the process - and we want unjust laws to be changed. So therefore we should enforce laws, but not completely, and have some discretion in how they're applied. However, the alternate situation is also bad - if you have lots of laws, as we do now, which are rarely or never enforced, then you have a powerful hammer the authorities can bring down on anyone they like, since everyone is a criminal.
    - LLWM 11y ago
      Locking up tons of people who others think don't deserve to be in prison is exactly how you start a social movement to change something.
    - runako 11y ago
      I'd suggest you study the history of civil disobedience. It's predicated on doing exactly what you say is impractical.
pas 11y ago
> In turn, that makes it feel odd that the prevailing opinion in these parts is often that the police enforce things too harshly, but the cure for every economic and social ill is always more Government micro-managing... Show a principle that is broader than introducing new micro-regulations but would result in better outcomes. Considering the complexity of our reality, I doubt it's possible. Edge cases, functional requirements of life are numerous, and sure, there are a lot of old policies on the books, simply removing them would also cause too much perturbations. And no one cares enough about abstract efficiency, elegance and such to propose and fight for a plant to gradually deprecate them. (Minor examples are various tax exemptions, major example is the whole social security problem looming on the horizon. And the whole problem of healthcare economics fits here. People are rational, but have nasty time-dependent preference inversions, just to point out a problem with going with a simple and general solution.) And this not too surprisingly has nothing to do with too harsh enforcement of some laws. (You just guessed the war on drugs. And general over-militarization of the police and the hostility of the criminal justice system.)
- BurningFrog 11y ago
  > Show a principle that is broader than introducing new micro-regulations but would result in better outcomes The alternative to regulating what, how and when everyone should do everything is to let people do what they want, but allow anyone to sue if they damage people or property. If it results in better outcomes is of course debatable, but it has a long and defendable track record.
  - LLWM 11y ago
    This system has a long and defendable track record of encouraging assholes to commit small violations that are not worth suing over, while penalizing those that are considerate of others.
  - acdha 11y ago
    > but allow anyone to sue if they damage people or property. That's the same as saying the only people who should get justice are those with the wealth and free time to file lawsuits for everything. Consider, say, the case of a company over-billing you – are you going to take time of work, pay to hire lawyers, maybe retain an expert witness to attack the credibility of their billing system, etc. or will you just write it off and pay the extra $50? Companies which do things like that tend to do them on a scale where they can afford to pay for tons of attorneys to make that job as hard as possible. (Oh, wait, bad news will spread and the invisible hand will correct that! That's sure worked wonders for Comcast…)

by ufmace 11y ago

jordanthoms 11y ago

Absolutely - you don't want laws to be enforced too completely, but you also don't want to have lots of laws on the books which nobody obeys and are usually not enforced, but can be enforced selectively.

jsprogrammer 11y ago
We don't want laws to be enforced too completely? What?
- oh_sigh 11y ago
  Let's say there is a law against walking your dog without a leash on, because it will prevent unruly dogs from scaring other people out in the public(even if the dogs intent is good, people may not understand this), or staring dog fights, or pooping where they shouldn't. Sounds good. Now, what if someone has a perfectly trained dog, that will stay right at their owners side no matter what circumstance is presented, and that dog is walking without a leash on? Is it appropriate to give that person a ticket? They are breaking the letter of the law, but the intent of the law was not broken because of how well trained the dog is.
  - mseebach 11y ago
    > Let's say there is a law against walking your dog without a leash on .... Is it appropriate to give that person a ticket Yes, because that law was written for the convenience of law enforcement. The law should have been "You need to be able to control your dog at all times when in public, with a leach if necessary", or indeed, not there at all: There are plenty of laws on the books that penalises behaviour that hurts other people. But enforcing that is a lot more difficult than determining the absence of a leach and writing a ticket, regardless of whatever harm or risk is present in the actual situation. You're suggesting that laws should be enforced in accordance with how they should have been written, not how they are written - and while obviously a good thing in this case, it also applies in the other direction: A policer officer might feel very strongly that beating unruly arrestees is what the law should be. Rule of law means the laws are enforced as they are written, equally for everyone, not subject to the whims of law enforcement. Making stupid laws that implicitly demands law enforcement to be arbitrary is deeply corroding to the rule of law.
    - oh_sigh 11y ago
      > You're suggesting that laws should be enforced in accordance with how they should have been written, not how they are written But this is exactly what police discretion is - the police officer is not some brainless automaton which enforces the laws with algorithmic precision. http://thelawdictionary.org/article/police-discretion-definition/ http://thelawdictionary.org/article/police-discretion-defini...
  - michaelt 11y ago
    If you pass laws that have faults then rely on enforcement discretion to produce justice, that puts a lot of weight on the enforcers' shoulders. Imagine being a cop who pulls over a poor black janitor for DUI. You know last week your colleague pulled over a rich white senator who was on his way home from the police union's fundraising ball, and let him off with a caution. If you arrest the janitor your department will look like a bunch of corrupt, racist, classists. And if you don't arrest any DUIs, all the problems caused by drunk driving will get laid at your department's doorstep. Perhaps instead of passing laws that have faults then using enforcement discretion to work around those faults, instead we should improve the laws to be fault-free. (admittedly that might need a faster release and testing cycle than we have at the moment)
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- jordanthoms 11y ago
  Homosexual acts were illegal until quite recently (~50 years or less) in most of the western world. If we had, hypothetically, 100% effective law enforcement, there could have never been a social movement to change that - everyone would be locked up. Same with Cannabis - how could sufficient people have experienced it and realized that it wasn't as dangerous as promised, if everyone who tried it was locked up? It's hard to change an unjust law without breaking it in the process - and we want unjust laws to be changed. So therefore we should enforce laws, but not completely, and have some discretion in how they're applied. However, the alternate situation is also bad - if you have lots of laws, as we do now, which are rarely or never enforced, then you have a powerful hammer the authorities can bring down on anyone they like, since everyone is a criminal.
  - LLWM 11y ago
    Locking up tons of people who others think don't deserve to be in prison is exactly how you start a social movement to change something.
  - runako 11y ago
    I'd suggest you study the history of civil disobedience. It's predicated on doing exactly what you say is impractical.

pas 11y ago

> In turn, that makes it feel odd that the prevailing opinion in these parts is often that the police enforce things too harshly, but the cure for every economic and social ill is always more Government micro-managing... Show a principle that is broader than introducing new micro-regulations but would result in better outcomes. Considering the complexity of our reality, I doubt it's possible. Edge cases, functional requirements of life are numerous, and sure, there are a lot of old policies on the books, simply removing them would also cause too much perturbations. And no one cares enough about abstract efficiency, elegance and such to propose and fight for a plant to gradually deprecate them. (Minor examples are various tax exemptions, major example is the whole social security problem looming on the horizon. And the whole problem of healthcare economics fits here. People are rational, but have nasty time-dependent preference inversions, just to point out a problem with going with a simple and general solution.) And this not too surprisingly has nothing to do with too harsh enforcement of some laws. (You just guessed the war on drugs. And general over-militarization of the police and the hostility of the criminal justice system.)

BurningFrog 11y ago
> Show a principle that is broader than introducing new micro-regulations but would result in better outcomes The alternative to regulating what, how and when everyone should do everything is to let people do what they want, but allow anyone to sue if they damage people or property. If it results in better outcomes is of course debatable, but it has a long and defendable track record.
- LLWM 11y ago
  This system has a long and defendable track record of encouraging assholes to commit small violations that are not worth suing over, while penalizing those that are considerate of others.
- acdha 11y ago
  > but allow anyone to sue if they damage people or property. That's the same as saying the only people who should get justice are those with the wealth and free time to file lawsuits for everything. Consider, say, the case of a company over-billing you – are you going to take time of work, pay to hire lawyers, maybe retain an expert witness to attack the credibility of their billing system, etc. or will you just write it off and pay the extra $50? Companies which do things like that tend to do them on a scale where they can afford to pay for tons of attorneys to make that job as hard as possible. (Oh, wait, bad news will spread and the invisible hand will correct that! That's sure worked wonders for Comcast…)