Comment by aetherson
5 months ago
When you make bad law that involves trying to apply a fuzzy rule to a fuzzy situation, judges make bad calls. And you also make it possible for people to be very harassed by bringing cases to court where it's not possible to easily dismiss them (because the rule is fuzzy and there isn't a clear standard to dismiss) so even if the judge makes a good call, you've punished good behavior.
Almost all of our laws fall into this categorizations.
The idea that laws are clear-cut is largely a programmers fantasy.
Related: there's a lot of people who think that if you don't technically break the law then you're off the hook.
Uh, no, not how law works. The letter of the law doesn't matter, the spirit does. Being an asshole but not technically breaking the law is still illegal.
Yes, that's a lot different than code, isnt it? But it has to be.
You're a combination of smug and wrong that I don't think is working for you.
Are you going to expand on me being wrong or is "nuh uh!!" all you can offer?
The reason I'm smug is that technical people think they're hyper intelligent and cracked the code.
Ha! Those silly law makers! Don't they know I perfectly followed the laws algorithm and hit an edge case? Now they HAVE to let me off the hook!
No they don't. Why would they have to do that? Laws aren't algorithms, they're natural language intended to curb bad behavior.
If your behavior is bad, and a judge or jury thinks it's bad, you're getting curbed.
The inverse of that is you can actually break the law and get away with it, if the behavior isn't bad. Maybe it's justified, maybe you're a struggling single mother or something... the jury can just say "nahhh" and you go home.
1 reply →