11.05.2007

Shades of Blue...Laws


I thoroughly enjoyed Slate Magazine's installment article, American Lawbreaking. There are the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government, with their near-perfect symbiosis of checks and balances, but actual policy all hinges on enforcement. Enforcement is what plugs our society's daily operations into its rules, or lets things run afoul of the law, in plain view. Usually because the laws are stupid, and everyone knows it.

Slate chose five great examples (and one boring one...who can stomach patent law, anyway?), to illustrate the significance of laws we as a society don't have the will or resources to enforce.

For example,

-Do we really want another comprehensive reform of immigration, when current permissiveness already violates existing laws but is in the economic best interest of most affected parties?

-Big pharma saves us from the war on drugs?

-And finally, all pornography is illegal, in case anyone cares.

2 comments:

what me worry? said...

hi, i read it and thought of the oldsters who say" There ought to be a law against that"
I for one will now pause before agreeing with them.

s said...

they ought to try and enforce the law against that, so that it can be thown out, so that workers in that industry can benefit from our nation's labor laws.