🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1ckeg2INNnl1@function.mps.ohio-state.edu>,
fiedorow@function.mps.ohio-state.edu (Zbigniew Fiedorowicz) writes:
| Professor Denning's proposals for encryption key registration 
| have inspired me to advance my own ideas for hastening the
| onset of a brave new world (lamentably already 8 years overdue).
| 
| Why not install video cameras in every home?  They could be tied
| into existing cable television systems....
| 
| The benefits of such a proposal are obvious and indisputable.
| Heinous criminal activity will be strongly discouraged. Family
| values will be improved.  The national moral fiber will be
| enhanced.
| 
| Tongue firmly in cheek,

Mr. Fiedorowicz's tongue may have been in his cheak, but he has presented a
wonderful illustration of why, in legal reasoning, reductio ad absurdum
arguments carry almost no weight.

The law is not mathematics.  It deals with people, highly complex people who
can act very stupidly or very intelligently, interacting in a very rich and
complex world.  I challenge you to formulate ANY law that I cannot render
silly by a reductio argument.  For example:  Murder is unlawful.  But suppose
my car backfires, frightening someone with a bad heart.  They have a heart
attack and die.  Have I murdered them?  Perhaps we should reconsider our
laws against murder!  (Yes, yes, I know this silly example falls apart on
various grounds, like intent.  That's not the point.  There are always silly
arguments to be made by pushing the issue beyond the point where it makes
sense.)
							-- Jerry