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infryq[Error: unknown template qotd]
Sure.
It would be a meta-law. That every new law is required to have a sunset clause of < 50 years. Then every generation will be subject to a legal setting that is relevant to its own context, and not that of many generations before. Laws would stop needlessly accumulating. I think the revolutionaries' ideal of civil disobedience driving the testing and rejection of bad laws was on the right track, but if you keep making more and more laws faster and faster, there's no way to keep up with them, no way to make sure they are rigorously tested in court. We live in a society where police may use your words against you, but not for you; increasingly the public is being instructed not to talk to police if at all possible. Any misstatement, and in most cases any statement at all is likely to transgress one law or another. While every law probably made sense at the time it was passed, under the circumstances that lawmakers considered it (although that is increasingly untrue, or at least, the circumstances considered are becoming more and more optimistic), few laws make sense when applied algorithmically, and unfortunately it is often difficult to distinguish the two senses when a law is broken. Chuck 'em out.
Laws are important to protect us from one another. There needs to be some structure to provide recourse against people who are violent or negligent or abusive or steal things, and there needs to be some structure to separate crazy people from those they might hurt. I think those sorts of laws make it easier for people to be human to one another. But I think that the smaller the laws get, the more petty, the more you try to solve problems with government that should be solved between people, the more you separate a community and make strangers of each other. And that's something I'd like to have stop.
Sure.
It would be a meta-law. That every new law is required to have a sunset clause of < 50 years. Then every generation will be subject to a legal setting that is relevant to its own context, and not that of many generations before. Laws would stop needlessly accumulating. I think the revolutionaries' ideal of civil disobedience driving the testing and rejection of bad laws was on the right track, but if you keep making more and more laws faster and faster, there's no way to keep up with them, no way to make sure they are rigorously tested in court. We live in a society where police may use your words against you, but not for you; increasingly the public is being instructed not to talk to police if at all possible. Any misstatement, and in most cases any statement at all is likely to transgress one law or another. While every law probably made sense at the time it was passed, under the circumstances that lawmakers considered it (although that is increasingly untrue, or at least, the circumstances considered are becoming more and more optimistic), few laws make sense when applied algorithmically, and unfortunately it is often difficult to distinguish the two senses when a law is broken. Chuck 'em out.
Laws are important to protect us from one another. There needs to be some structure to provide recourse against people who are violent or negligent or abusive or steal things, and there needs to be some structure to separate crazy people from those they might hurt. I think those sorts of laws make it easier for people to be human to one another. But I think that the smaller the laws get, the more petty, the more you try to solve problems with government that should be solved between people, the more you separate a community and make strangers of each other. And that's something I'd like to have stop.
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-20 05:05 pm (UTC)(Though an interesting question is whether your law would be grandfathered out of itself.)
no subject
Date: 2010-09-20 05:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-20 05:29 pm (UTC)Also I'd like a pony
Date: 2010-09-20 05:59 pm (UTC)Re: Also I'd like a pony
Date: 2010-09-20 06:02 pm (UTC)I was just indulging in a mind experiment, trying to think what would happen were your hypothetical law to be less hypothetical. Of course, I guess it takes a pretty big leap of imagination to even get to that point.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-20 05:26 pm (UTC)the laws should be to protect us from our common man, not to control us, or be a revenue stream for the govt.
lots of laws on the books still are COMPLETELY idiotic. the fact that police will "hold someone to find a law to charge them with" is beyond reproach. there's almost no way you can go about your day these days, without break some law.
simply simply ok!
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-20 05:52 pm (UTC)That's the trick; I'm for taxes. I'd like for firefighters and social workers and health inspectors and teachers and librarians to make a living. Give me services that keep me safe and educated; charge me for them. I'm of more conflicted opinion on "public welfare" programs, since on the one hand I think that when it comes to efficiently redistributing excess wealth to those who need it, the government tends to be more effective than charities or private individuals could ever be. On the other hand, it feeds into the government-creates-strangers problem, since the bum on the corner isn't the guy you set a spare place for at thanksgiving 'cause you know he's got nowhere else to go, if you know he could just go down to the city soup kitchen and stop creeping you out. Dunno what to do about that one. It's the old question of what kind of society would you create, if you couldn't pick your race, social class, health, etc?