From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Tue Jul 30 2002 - 00:45:57 MDT
Randall writes
> > Yes, but *who* is to decide what is right and wrong? You
> > act like it is *entirely* a matter for the individual.
>
> It is. No one else has direct control over an individual's
> actions, so the individual must choose whether to obey or
> disobey any given law. Whatever the posturing of politicians
> and lawyers, each individual *does* decide which laws to obey:
> the only remaining question is whether the individual should
> use his or her own reason and experience to guide that choice,
> or simply submit.
I say that their reason and experience should cause them to
conclude that they should obey even the laws they disagree
with, (fanciful exceptions aside, and it being understood
that one lives in a fundamentally democratic society).
> At least in the US, the role of law appears to be to pad the
> pockets of the legislators. That is, each of them votes for
> or against laws based on future prospects, rather than because
> they have carefully considered the rule under consideration,
> and decided that this one is good. If this had workable
> feedback which drove the system toward the enactment of good
> laws, and toward the repeal of bad ones, this wouldn't be a
> problem.
There is such a mechanism. The representative must run for
re-election. Don't think that the legislators are any less
human than the rest of us, and have any fewer mixed motives.
Yes, a primary motivation is indeed their career advancement,
and how well it will go over back home. But they also get
self-righteous, idealistic, moral, patriotic, revengeful,
compassionate, and so on too. Democracy is the least worst
of governments because of that feedback from the voters.
> The worst side effect of this process is that there are now
> so many laws on the books that any person can be legitimately
> incarcerated at any time.
A slight exaggeration, but I agree, only slight. I think the
reason is *power*. By passing more and more laws, it becomes
less and less easy for the citizen to know what to expect or
what the rules are, and so the judges and police increase
their power of discretion. The cop can pull you over if he
feels like it, and have a very good chance of finding something
wrong. Judges in America since the time of Earl Warren strive
to do "what is right" rather than follow the law. The old
bastard used to literally say this to his fellow justices,
"yes..., that's the law, but is it right?". Slowly, we become
a nation ruled by men rather than laws. Slowly, we succumb to
the notion that only if we had *good* people in office, and
they had enough power, our problems would be ameliorated.
> How can we obey the law, Lee? You have already conceded that
> any given individual cannot even *know* if he or she is lawful
> in every way. Given this, strengthening a meme which is
> certain to lead to failure in many cases seems willfully
> counterproductive. Each and every person in the US is very
> likely a criminal, if not a felon, per the laws currently
> in effect. Since it is impossible to live one's life in a
> way certain not to break the law, why should a person try?
Or, since it is impossible to avoid math errors, why should
one even try? Or since it is impossible to be objective, why
should anyone try? I'm really surprised that the quest for
certainty has popped up here. You can't be serious.
Moreover, technically speaking, of course, someone's a criminal
only after being convicted of a crime. You're also continuing
the theme of several people here that those actually convicted
of crimes aren't any different from another sample of people
picked at random---no more prone to commit further crimes and no
more likely to be guilty of moral offenses. You should do a
study: pick a large sample even of those *acquitted* of crimes,
and another large sample of people at random, and see which
group after five years has a higher rate of convictions for
crimes on some objective list you create, like murder, rape,
larceny, etc., of nasty and vicious crimes. You'll make history
if it turns out that your sample of people charged with crimes
(much less those convicted!!) turns out to be indistinguishable
from the control group.
Lee
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