In a Nutshell

April 26th 2008 09:25 pm

Not everything that’s a good idea should be compelled by law.

Not everything that’s a bad idea should be forbidden by law.

VoxVeritas responded on 28 Apr 2008 at 8:34 pm #

It remids me of a saying I heard once but cant recall who said it. “For the most case laws are useless. Good men don’t need them and bad men won’t obey them.”
admin responded on 28 Apr 2008 at 11:29 pm #

There are two groups of laws that are necessary, though. The first codifies behavior most of us would use even without laws — prohibitions against killing or stealing for instance. We need those laws so that when the bad guys steal or kill we can grab them by the scruff of the neck, point at the law books, and say, “See? It says right here you can’t do that,” and haul them away.

The other group of laws we need was pointed out to me very recently. It concerns behavior that’s really pretty arbitrary, but on which we all do need to agree — things like which side of the road to drive on and what color light means “stop” and which means “go.”

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Laughter and Libertarianism from the Heartland