Laws

[vampire]

What is the most annoying thing about laws in USA (and the world's laws):

Is that every freaking local town/state/county got their own laws, there are ten of thousands of laws in USA.
Unless you read local papers there is no way to know if they changed a law. Especially if it makes you a criminal, like NY changed gun control laws and made some of the owners criminals after a year. I think it's sensible that people don't follow papers or can't even afford them.
Even advocates don't know most of the laws, they research / read when required. So if an expert in the field doesn't know, why should a normal person know and be guilty of them? We know the basic laws: do not kill, do not steal, etc.

Like also I need to remember where are the boundaries between counties... In NYC you can't make a right turn on red, in Nassau you can. The border between these isn't that clear.

/end of rant

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[Lethn]

That's how they get you, they make it so complicated and boring to read through no sane human will be able to understand it so they can put in whatever laws they like.

[myrkul]

Ignorantia juris non excusat

[Vandroiy]

Kinky games. If everyone's a criminal, they're less likely to come up and complain.

"You surely broke copyright/tax/whatever law. Sure you still want to complain, and have me look at that?"

Not saying all copyright and tax laws are something bad, but being sued for copying your own CDs to hard drive (might be illegal over here) or not knowing the super-special tomato taxation law is quite arbitrary. I say it's a good idea to distinguish between breaking pointless laws and actual immoral behavior.

[creativex]

That's the fabric of a fascist society. More laws = more bloodsucking lawyers, who can then bribe more scumbag politicians to pass more laws, which will require more bloodsucking lawyers. All of this is also great for those that make a living from law enforcement and furthering the ever expanding prison system. Why else would police unions be lobbying to keep drugs from being legalized? How many cops would be out of a job if drugs were legalized?

Big business wins and the little guy gets clobbered with the mallet held by goobermint parasites.

[myrkul]

I say it's a good idea to distinguish between breaking pointless laws and actual immoral behavior.

...And that's why I'm an anarchist.

I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them
tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break
them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for
everything I do.

[Lethn]

Define 'immoral behaviour' because I think the only thing I've seen human beings not argue about is that we don't like being killed or hurt and we don't like having our stuff stolen, so that's basically all I define as immoral behaviour.

[silvertree]

You should try living in Europe, laws are created out of Brussels by unelected bureaucrats faster than the average peasant can read them, and even if I did read any of them I wouldn't understand them.

When i say law i use the term loosely, laws and statutes are two different things.

If no one is being harmed no law is being broken.

If its the government that are saying i done wrong it means i broke one of their stupid made up rules.

[Brunic]

The problem is not laws, it's how the system is made. It's far from being optimal, up-to-date and open. It's usually a well-made mess with a bunch of exceptions and nobody to supervise it. The system of laws could learn a couple of things of looking at how open-sources project are made.

But still, I don't want to cry that much about it. I still get that warm feeling when you see judges declaring that what the government is trying to do is illegal or unconstitutional. Here's an example:
http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/08/21/harper-v-the-judges/

Prime Minister Stephen Harper called it “essential.” The judge called it “fundamentally unfair, outrageous, abhorrent and intolerable.” They were both speaking about mandatory minimum jail times for gun-related crimes—Harper when touting the law requiring them, and Justice Anne Molloy of the Ontario Superior Court when she struck it down by uttering the fateful word: unconstitutional.

Last year, the Supreme Court decided that addicts could inject heroin in a Vancouver clinic, notwithstanding Conservative attempts to shut it down. Earlier this year, the government’s goal to create a national securities regulator floundered after yet another supreme smackdown. And if the Harper government opts to bring Omar Khadr home from Guantánamo Bay, it will be because the highest court said in 2010 his rights had been violated.

In another ruling that angered conservatives, earlier this year the Ontario Court of Appeal concluded that prostitutes could operate indoors and hire bodyguards. The case is now heading to the Supreme Court in the next year, where the court will decide whether Canadians can buy sex in the privacy of a brothel.

In June, the B.C. Supreme Court granted Gloria Taylor, who is suffering from the degenerative Lou Gehrig’s disease, the right to a doctor-assisted suicide.[...] The government has appealed the ruling and asked the B.C. Court of Appeals to suspend Taylor’s right to die in the meantime, which last week the court refused to do.

I love how the court keep in check that crazy government sometimes

[myrkul]

I love how the court keep in check that crazy government sometimes

Must be nice.

[twolifeinexile]

Kinky games. If everyone's a criminal, they're less likely to come up and complain.

"You surely broke copyright/tax/whatever law. Sure you still want to complain, and have me look at that?"

Not saying all copyright and tax laws are something bad, but being sued for copying your own CDs to hard drive (might be illegal over here) or not knowing the super-special tomato taxation law is quite arbitrary. I say it's a good idea to distinguish between breaking pointless laws and actual immoral behavior.

The whole point is that everyone is a criminal - no way your are not, so it is easy to control you.