🚀 go-pugleaf

          Dear John  Gilmore,

             I'm afraid your idea of an ordered society leaves much to
          be desired, and is further reinforcement for my thesis of an
          educated voting populace.

          >       My  view of  the main  problem  is that  people
          >    wrote the law as a way to control other people.  I
          >    don't want to be controlled.

             It is precisely because people  don't want to be control-
          led that we must have laws.   Do  you think that the Bill of
          Rights was  written to protect  the wealthy land  owners who
          wrote it?   Hardly.   The Bill  of Rights,  and arguably all
          laws,  are written  to protect the interests  of the minori-
          ties,  the "discrete and insular" minorities typically lack-
          ing the political and economic  power to assert their rights
          on their own.  In the early sixties, the Ku Klux Klan didn't
          want to be controlled either.   But thank God, and the dili-
          gent effort of an army of lawyers in the court system,  they
          were.

             Our freedom is intimately tied  to the conduct of others.
          If I, not wishing to be controlled, choose to shoot you dead
          for sport,   then I have acted  as freely as I  can imagine.
          But what has happened to your freedom?   Absolute freedom is
          a concept of  little value in structuring  the relationships
          among people.   The law is the best approach to limiting ab-
          solute freedom only  to the extent that  the greatest number
          of people may enjoy the highest degree of freedom possible.

          >       Another problem  is that  recently the  law has
          >    been trying  to fix blame  for things  to specific
          >    individuals,  and provide specific redress to peo-
          >    ple who claim to be injured.

             Recently you say?   As recently  as the 17th century eng-
          lish courts have experimented with  systems of adjusting the
          relationships between citizens.   It becomes necessary, when
          one person is injured by another, to determine whether it is
          fair,  or "equitable" (as in courts of Equity),  to transfer
          the cost of the harm from the victim to some other person.

             In Las Vegas,  a hotel is required to have lifeguard per-
          sonnel on duty while the guests  are using a pool of greater
          than a certain  depth.    This is to protect  the guest from
          dying,  a very serious harm indeed.   One hotel,  wishing to
          avoid the cost of a lifeguard,  posted a sign which said "NO
          LIFEGUARD ON DUTY".   A young boy who could not read slipped
          into the pool area and was drowned.

             Now,  if the hotel could avoid a DUTY imposed by law sim-
          ply by posting  a sign announcing their  intention to disre-
          gard the law, what would happen to our ordered society?  No,
          the hotel  was at  fault,  and was  ordered to  pay damages.
          Bravo.   Without such controls, you could not be sure of the
          food you eat being safe, of the structural soundness of your
          home or automobile, the quality of care from your physician,
          or any  relationship in  which you  are forced  to interface
          with another human being.

             Those well-read on the subject know of the "New Zealand"
          plan, which limits  damage  awards and levies a tax against
          each citizen to create a fund from which those damage awards
          are paid.   Again I say  that if the current  system is not
          acceptable, put in a new one, work with the old one, but for
          God's sake, don't just sit there and bitch.

          >       Another recent  bad trend (still  reading?)  is
          >    the idea  that you should  be arrested  and jailed
          >    for  "looking  like  you are  about  to  commit  a
          >    crime".   E.g.  if you drive  down the road drunk,
          >    you are jailed.   You haven't killed any kids, you
          >    haven't sideswiped any trees,  you were just driv-
          >    ing down the road and it's time to go to jail.

             Unless I missed something,  it is illegal to drive drunk,
          whether or not you hit someone and kill them.  Why?  For the
          same reason that it is illegal  to set time bombs in crowded
          public buildings.   The real harm is not the action, but its
          logical and probable  consequence.   Must we wait  until the
          bomb is  detonated before arresting  the person  who planted
          it?   Do we then excuse criminals  who are caught in the act
          of committing a  crime because their crime  is inchoate?   I
          hope we never come to that!

          >       PS:   The idea that you,  the citizen,  are re-
          >    sponsible  for knowing  the text  and meaning  and
          >    current interpretation  of every law on  the books
          >    is another great fuckup in  the current law.   Not
          >    even  the judges  and  lawyers and  congresspeople
          >    know this stuff,   how is the average  citizen ex-
          >    pected to?

             No citizen  is expected  to know all  the laws  and their
          current interpretations.   Nobody does.   The fact that many
          cases go to appeal is an  indication that even lawyers can't
          agree on what these interpretations are, let alone know them
          all.  My paradigm was a bit more <outre>.  I can see no jus-
          tification for  people not even  knowing how their  vote was
          cast (remember the union election I mentioned?).   Nor can I
          see allowing  important issues to  be decided by  people who
          have no idea what the issue is, when all that is required to
          find out is to read a paper, or watch the news.  That hardly
          requires a Juris Doctor of every citizen,  since the news is
          aimed at a third grade level of understanding.

             P.S.   The reason that Congress is  made up of lawyers is
          that 215 million non-lawyers voted for them.


          Dave Massey