Laws don’t exist merely to do things; they must also stand for the ethical principles that sustain a stable and productive society. Laws create moral codes of conduct as well as a pragmatic ones. It is profoundly puzzling to me that so many regard this as a controversial statement, especially in a country founded by two documents that are steeped in values.
There are laws against stealing to discourage theft, but also because the official voice of society must make it clear what the values of that society are. The laws against stealing state that theft is wrong. The law expresses societal consensus about acceptable and unacceptable conduct; it also reinforces and strengthens that consensus.
The fact that this is a proper function of law doesn’t mean that those who write and pass laws or the public understand any of this. The relationship isn’t taught in schools, and while one might encounter this concept in law school or a good college government or philosophy course, one can be well-educated and never think about this at all. In other words, the officials who make laws often don’t have a clue what they are doing, and neither does anyone else.
Two glaring examples have arisen in my neck of the woods, the District of Columbia, where I work, and Virginia, where I live.
Behold:
In Virginia, Virginia Senate declined to pass a bill that would have decriminalized adultery in the state. Currently, adultery is a Class 4 misdemeanor. Sen. Scott Surovell (D–Fairfax) introduced a measure that would have reduced adultery from a criminal offense to a civil one, keeping the criminal law’s fine of no more than $250. Thirteen states have repealed similar adultery statutes in recent years, and only about a dozen states still treat the act as a crime. The immediate criticism of the Virginia decision was predictable and focused on “legislating morality,” as if that isn’t a legitimate function of law. What critics, usually from the left, mean when they use this catch phrase is “How dare the government interfere with private conduct that is nobody else’s business?” Well, is spousal abuse and child abuse private, then? Bigamy? The reason adultery is illegal is that it hurts people, wrecks families, traumatizes children, and destabilizes society. It is completely appropriate for society to say “This is bad for everyone, so don’t do it.” The law is how we express such messages. I presume the opposition to the bill was simply that when the government removes a criminal sanction against conduct, it is tantamount to endorsing it. Adultery is objectively wrong, and government shouldn’t endorse it. However, never enforcing a law on the books is not much different from repealing it. Both suggest that the government and society aren’t serious about forbidding the conduct, and worse, non-enforcement encourages cynicism about all laws. The nature of adultery makes criminal laws against it impossible to enforce without extreme police incursions into citizen privacy.
The arguments by those critical of Virginia’s decision generally made the worst case against it: adultery is commonplace, or “everybody does it.” (The liberal position tends to be “if it involves sex, it can’t be all bad.”) The correct argument is that keeping an official disapproval of societal damaging conduct is appropriate and responsible, but making the prohibition civil rather than criminal was the right and only practical approach. Keeping a criminal law that will never be enforced sends exactly the wrong messages.
UPDATE: A long-time reader with a good memory notes that I previously wrote about this issue when it arose in Colorado.
In D.C., the City Council unanimously approved a bill this week establishing a program in which up to 200 individuals at risk of violence but without criminal cases pending will receive counseling and job training, and cash stipends for not getting arrested.
I kid you not.
The amount taxpayers will give these individuals for not mugging citizens or dealing drugs hasn’t been announced, but the program in California (it “worked,’ you see, so that makes it good) awarded up to $9,000.
For obeying the law.
(Excuse me while I stifle a scream.)
Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, the Democrat who wrote the legislation, argues that spending $9,000 a year in stipends “pales in comparison” to the cost of someone being victimized, along with the costs of incarcerating the offender.
So this is government sponsored blackmail, right, Councilman? “Pay me, or it will cost you much more to catch me, jail me, and fix your broken head.” Law abiding tax payers will be transferring their hard-earned dollars to these 200 potential criminals because they might break the law unless we pay them first.
The brilliant program will cost $4.9 million over four years, including $460,000 a year in stipend payments.
Tell me, what messages does this law send?
Ethics Alarms 
I must admit that I have always thought about laws somewhat differently to the point you make in your first two sentences. Not so much the first sentence, although I’ve never vocalised it so clearly. I am however still of the opinion that laws are more about punishing offenders, and so removing their actions, and sometimes them, from the society for the protection of that society.
I don’t need a law to tell me that it is wrong to murder, rape, steal, commit adultery or even badmouth other people. I can’t help feeling that making such a law doesn’t do a damn thing to prevent people from doing these things, but does allow society to lock them up for our own protection. I am convinced, that means I have an idea and not a shred of evidence to support it in case you are wondering, many lawmakers believe that making a law will stop people from doing the thing prohibited by that law when in fact it seldom does so. I should point out that I am mostly thinking of criminal law rather than traffic rules etc. here. There is no need for someone to point out how often traffic laws are flouted!
The other thing is that there are laws of convenience, something that many a police officer doesn’t seem to realise. In, I think all, states of Australia there is a law that you can’t carry a knife with a blade of over four inches length – or some such – in public unless it is needed for your work. Having coffee with a young copper I had to tell him to ‘ease off turbo’ when he asked why I was carrying a pocket knife in a belt pouch (I was on call so there!) and explain that the law was there so that he could nick some arsehole who really needed to spend time in police company but hadn’t actually stabbed someone. As such some laws aren’t actually meant to be enforced on a zero tolerance basis, just as you may be let off with a warning for some traffic infraction; provided you treat the police politely that is.
As for the situation you described in D.C., yeah, laws like that leave me banging my head against brick walls; and they are becoming common.
That is simply not true, not in as absolute and general a statement as that. In fact, it is only true “in a country founded [on ethical] values”, so your usual excuse that generalities admit exceptions is even thinner than usual (it’s always thin as it makes it impossible to handle principles properly, by confining their scope and/or adjusting the principles to be more widely applicable; it allows a get out of jail free card to everything). In the many times and places where that did not hold but there were laws, the laws were otherwise. For instance, Ottoman Law had the working principle of not disturbing the peace; that led to all involved in (say) a robbery or a murder to be guilty, which included the victim(s). There, “[t]he laws against stealing” do not “state that theft is wrong”, only that it is a nuisance to the powers that be.
Dear P.M. Lawrence: Your post offered nothing to defend your rejection of Marshall’s statement. Instead it is a mish-mash of pedantic nonsense, and not worth reading. I think I’ll just remember you’re a pedant and skip “P.M. Lawrence” next time. Get out of your attack mode and think, if you can. Pseudo-intellectual rants are the mark of the semi-educated moron.
Good shot.
We are talking about Western legal and government theory, and U.S. law, enacted by a society rather than despots, kings and dictators. I may add , “obviously.” I understand that not comprehending the U.S. is handicap for you when I engage in these areas. The Ottoman Empire is about as relevant as Oz, but you did make me laugh.
That won’t wash. Your rebuttal is just precisely what should have been in there in the first place if you couldn’t have formulated a correct and applicable generality: a restriction of the general to the particular where it does hold. You asserted a false generality, and pointing out that it should only have applied in a more restricted area is not a successful rebuttal, it is conceding what I was bringing out (“… handle principles properly, by confining their scope …”).
By the way, truly general analysis of law is in fact constructive, as it shows what can and cannot work. You were not attempting that, but it was open to you to do so.
Brevatim: I knew perfectly well what you meant, I was telling you what you had stated.
Baloney, PM! Just more gotcha-mongering—I know you enjoy it, but it’s a bad habit.. My examples were US law, I’m a US lawyer, and my topic was law, as used in the US, as based on US legal theory and Western culture. If there is anyone in the world other than you who thought I was referring to Ottoman Law, Chinese Law, Burke’s Law, Nazi Germany Law, Roman Law, or any other variety, I’d like to see a show of hands. The statement was “Laws don’t exist merely to do things; they must also stand for the ethical principles that sustain a stable and productive society. Laws create moral codes of conduct as well as a pragmatic ones. It is profoundly puzzling to me that so many regard this as a controversial statement, especially in a country founded by two documents that are steeped in values.” I suppose I should have included “properly” at the beginning. That’s a well-established philosophy of the relationship of law to morality and ethics, the thesis of many books and treatises, and I stated it as fact, because in this country, that’s how laws work and have always worked except when the system goes off the rails. this has been discussed hear nay times, particularly in the context of so-called “victimless crimes.” Nobody was misled, and the only one complaining knew exactly what I was writing about.
I don’t know why you do this, or what purpose it serves.
(What PM does’t realize is that, at the end of the day, even the Ottoman “Law” reflects the values of the WHOLE culture and not just the ruling elite…as the whole culture is completely fine with having a ruling elite and not replacing it with something better, then it is completely fine with the Laws passed and the values enforced…crappy as they may be from our more advanced perspective)
But, one must always realize, PM Lawrence approaches these types of discussions with a Moral Relativist worldview as betrayed by his flawed and broken arguments regarding Tessio’s Excuse.
The Virginia Senator was right to introduce a bill reducing the penalty from a criminal misdemeanor to a civil offense. The law is unenforceable as it stands and the wise wife or husband could always hire a private investigator to investigate their suspicions. Better than marching them to the town square and forced to wear a tee shirt with a big red A on it.
This is not far from my idea — pay people not to have kids until they reach 30 years of age. It will cost a fraction of what we pay out in social services.
Unethical. No different from paying the homeless guy to pour hot coffee on his head.
I didn’t say it was ethical, but it would be effective — and it would help eliminate childhood poverty and neglect. Certainly those are ethical goals, we just can’t find an ethical path to achieving them.
But it is different from your coffee example. Hot coffee hurts people. Encouraging women to delay childbirth until they are mature and financially stable is sound policy.
In both cases, it is abusing superior financial resources to induce people to do what they don’t want to do and wouldn’t do otherwise. It’s Donald Trump ethics.
“In both cases, it is abusing superior financial resources to induce people to do what they don’t want to do and wouldn’t do otherwise.”
I think I get the gist of this, but am having difficulty with my inner economic libertarian. My issue with Beth’s idea to pay people to delay having children is that she frames it as a government program; we would save on social services. This I find unethical, as I do most government programs.
Would you consider it unethical if, say, the Catholic Church, in a stunning turn-around, decided to pay people to delay having children? Or another private organisation or individual? If so, why?
Using money to control people and induce them to do what they would not do otherwise is unethical. It abandons encouraging ethical motives and uses venality or desperation as a weapon to manipulate. The objective doesn’t matter…it’s an end that can’t justify the means.
Let me continue to try to not be an idiot here: People usually do what they would not do otherwise for money, and it’s frequently productive work. Lots of people dislike their jobs, and only do them for the money. Some are quite unpleasant, (you rarely hear about the ‘glass ceiling’ in the hot-mop roofing trade!). Indeed, the willingness to do really miserable work can be well compensated. How would it not be an individual choice to accept payment for delaying children? Assuming it wasn’t compelled. Am I just not getting this?
Also, would paying addicts to stay clean be unethical? Again, outside of government?
Not as far as I’m concerned. It is incoherent: why shouldn’t everyone be paid to stay clean? Perverse incentives.
People need jobs: they may not like working, but that’s a choice to work. Paying someone to go against their nature is corruption. I have had experience with the rich father paying the disapproved boy friend to leave the city and his daughter. Usinmg money to manipulate people’s lives…autonomy is an ethical value. There are weak and desperate people, and those with money can make them slaves. I really don’t care what the motives are.
One of the defining days of my life was when my job required me to be at a high level meeting, everyone required, no excuses. It was a good job. The Red Sox were playing the Yankees that afternoon in the one game 1978 play-off to settle one of the greatest pennant races eve. I left the meeting, putting on my Boston cap, and said, “I apologize, but I am needed by my team.” I walked out the door, and had no idea if I’d have a job the next day. And if someone had offered me an outrageous sum to miss that game? Despicable.
The boyfriend made a choice that he preferred money to the daughter. You made the choice to possibly forfeit your job (as a fan, I think it was the right choice!). I find neither of these choices despicable, and in neither case was anyone giving up their autonomy. Of course it is evil to take advantage of the weak and desperate, with money or force or subterfuge, or in anyway. I don’t see that inducing behavior with money is equivalent; in fact I see it as the basis for our society.
As regards my question about the addict, it would have been better phrased as “would paying addicts to get, and stay clean be unethical”.
Both choices are despicable. But the main thing is that this methodology is despicable in the macro sense: it fails Kant principles completely, and yet is still a bad attempt at an ends justifies the means system: don’t bother acculturating the society to do the right things because they are right, but rather pay everyone to engage in responsible conduct, and cede all power to determine what that is to whoever has the most money. How can you endorse that?
“Paying someone to go against their nature is corruption.”
But threatening punishment to ‘encourage’ people to go against their nature isn’t?
My nature says that the correct way to deal with anger toward another is to challenge them to a fight (with mutually agreed upon rules and end-points). I am not alone. A significant amount of anger has backlogged in persons in this nation (and most other so-called civilized nations) through the outlawing of such practices, with various personal, interpersonal, and societal negative consequences (convenient externalities). Though I understand that in various small towns such fights would be allowed by law-enforcement (between teenagers IIRC) for the greater societal good.
It’s not a choice between unlimited rough-and-tumble and duels to the death. It’s a choice between anger dealt with in the moment or anger left to build to debilitating rage.
“It’s not a choice between unlimited rough-and-tumble and duels to the death” versus a stable society.
Neglected to complete this sentence.
I think you are getting hung up on Jack’s terminology of “against their nature”.
What Jack is discussing AGAINST is Beth’s suggestion that we pay people not to have children. Conduct, which by simple analysis is NOT UNETHICAL, only through a complex (and questionable) analysis can we say that individuals having children is unethical. Paying people not to engage in conduct that has no settled ethical outcome is what is corrupting.
You being discouraged by law from engaging in conduct that by simple analysis IS UNETHICAL, just doesn’t parallel and undoes your objection.
By simple analysis, MUTUALLY AGREED upon combat has never before been considered unethical in the history of humanity.
Until some jerks a couple of centuries ago decided to stick their noses in other people’s business. Which is unethical.
Yes yes, it blew over me that you were talking about duelling. Read my response as aimed at straight up unilaterally beating someone you are mad at.
As for mutually agreed fighting as a means of settling issues outside of court, I imagine it’s a bit more complex than a “private matter” unless it can be absolutely guaranteed that NO ONE knows about it. In which case, I’m certain the practice occurs with regularity. But that’s the issue: if people know about it, then it isn’t a private matter and you get issues such as disturbing the peace, endangering others, etc…
“if people know about it, then it isn’t a private matter and you get issues such as disturbing the peace, endangering others, etc…”
Which are good reasons to regulate dueling, not make it illegal.
Personal and interpersonal rights should not end when issues become other than “private matters”, just as social rights should still exist in the hall of privacy (or else I have the personal right to peek into closed meetings 🙂 ). The social cannot unilaterally trump the personal and interpersonal under equitable ethics.
I should have written “against their desires, proclivities and preference.”
Hillary’s health care bill paid med students to go into fields the government wanted them in, rather than what they wanted to practice.
And to answer the next objection: It’s perfectly ok in my mind to regulate dueling (such as enforcing non-lethal endpoints). But outlawing it entirely is unethical in the extreme (equivalent in societal violence to outlawing miscegenation, in that both render illegal natural legitimate, and even corrective impulses).
Punishment for those who break laws is clear and fair. Paying people for conduct that society should be encouraging its members to engage in anyway—ethical conduct is in everyone’s best interest—is unfair to people wo DO engage in the conduct without the bribe, and again, bypasses ethics.
“Punishment for those who break laws is clear and fair. Paying people for conduct that society should be encouraging its members to engage in anyway—ethical conduct is in everyone’s best interest—is unfair to people wo DO engage in the conduct without the bribe, and again, bypasses ethics.”
If it bypasses ethics, then is it an ethical alarm?
1) You could pay everyone a basic income (Tom Worstall at Forbes, generally a conservative, writes on nations looking in to this, and the economic feasibility of it), and then take it away for those who violate the law.
2) I agree that it is unfair, and wrote what I would prefer. But does it work?
3) “Punishment for those who break laws is clear and fair.” Should be clear and fair, though this isn’t always the case.
1) That’s the penalty/tax Obamacare dodge. If you pay everyone anyway, and take away money for law-breaking, that’s called a fine.
2) “It works” does not translate into “it’s right.” We could kill any rule-breaker on the spot, no trial, any rule. That would work
3) “Should be clear and fair, though this isn’t always the case.” The best solution is seldom a perfect solution. It would be great if we could just make people behave in societally responsible manner by education and enlightenment alone. The few sociopaths and other lawbreakers, however, won’t be dissuaded by anything but punishment…which is, by the way, another reason paying for virtue doesn’t work.
“Paying people for conduct that society should be encouraging its members to engage in anyway—ethical conduct is in everyone’s best interest—is unfair to people wo DO engage in the conduct without the bribe, and again, bypasses ethics.”
Given: that this payment works. and Given: that this payment is less than prosecuting for future crimes would cost.
Is it ethical, or even fair, to the victims of those future crimes to demand that they unduly suffer to make a point on equitableness?
The legal system must take in to account, as best it can, the consequences of its actions. This is the lesson of hindsight bias.
But it’s not given. There are terrible unintended consequences of giving up on ethical acculturation and instead elevating cash and venality to the prime value in society, with government leading the way.
Your victim argument would work as well, indeed better, for pre-crime, and all sorts of other unethical schemes. So what? If we ban automobiles, we save many lives.
Are you really proposing that we pay likely criminals for not committing crimes against us, or just arguing for the sake of arguing? There is no way a society can be seen as just—or sane— that reward people for threatening to break laws.
But you wouldn’t be “controlling” them, it would be an incentive only. You can choose to take the incentive or not — if you really want to become a single mom at 18, more power to you, but the money ends now. The only way to support that child is for you — and/or the father and extended family — to figure it out. There is no more medicaid, subsidized housing, or food stamps except for a very narrow set of circumstances (something akin to temporary unemployment benefits).
Right now, the State is drowning in payments to keep kids clothed, fed, housed, and healthy. And this system not only perpetuates itself, but it grows, because kids learn from their parents. So, if your mom had you as a teenager, most likely you are going to become a teenage parent as well. You’re not as likely to graduate from college or even high school. You most likely are going to make bad choices in life and might even end up in the prison system. We aren’t cutting these people off right now, indeed we are doing exactly what you are saying we shouldn’t do — we are supporting other people’s children when they should have the responsibility of doing this themselves. So, the current system is no less or more ethical than the one I am proposing.
There are several benefits to my system over the current model. First: the majority of parents would make thoughtful choices about when and whether to start a family. Those children will end up becoming better educated and more productive citizens. Second: my system would cost less. Third: we won’t live in a nation where 30% of children are living in poverty and food scarcity situations.
This is false dichotomy.
You think that instead of incentivizing the production of unsupportable children the state had better start incentivizing the opposite. I know, from the Left it is really hard to imagine a life where the Government isn’t the sole source of incentive/disincentive, but in real-world, things are different:
The best option is to neither incentivize the irresponsible having of children nor to incentivize the avoidance of having children.
We had that system until the 1930s or so — but it was depressing to see partially-clothed children starving, dying of treatable conditions, and working in factories in order to afford a piece of bread. So no, I don’t need to imagine it, I just need to read a book or two — which I have.
That argument is nullified as your “solution” does not support the “partially clothed children starving, dying of treatable conditions and working in factories…” problem either…
as you stated: “The only way to support that child is for you — and/or the father and extended family — to figure it out. There is no more medicaid, subsidized housing, or food stamps except for a very narrow set of circumstances (something akin to temporary unemployment benefits).”
I know you didn’t forget that you wrote that…
Sometimes I think you love being deliberately obtuse — since I know you’re not an idiot.
If a teenager’s choice is unprotected sex vs. money, he/she is most likely going to use a condom. Or perhaps not have sex at all. This results in fewer children living in poverty because there will be fewer children born to parents before they are ready to support them. Indeed, that same couple might have the same amount of children than they would under a no-incentive system, but they will wait until they are older, have better jobs, and have no need or desire to take the government hand-out.
BTW — did you just acknowledge that poor children suffered en masse before the advent of social services? Do you mean that there are holes in your “the world would be better with less gubment” thinking? I’m impressed Tex. That’s progress!
No
I’ll say this: it makes more ethical sense than the current system of perverse incentives, where single mothers are paid because of their poor choices.
I think you missed a couple of words — “where single mothers are paid because of their [and the babies’ fathers’] poor choices.” But yes, obviously I agree.
The problem is that as a society we really cannot allow (because we are civilized) children who are brought into the world by irresponsible parents to bear the burden of their parents irresponsibility.
Beth’s “partially clothed children starving, dying of treatable conditions and working in factories…” would come back on steroids.
The real solution is unpalatable to progressives because it involves morals/religion and bypasses government entirely. People, through efforts of churches and other non government charitable entities, can be taught how to correct the corrupt thinking that produces parents who can bring children into the world and neglect them to the point of sickness and death. Moral people use better methods than money to inspire people to be better. The change is from the inside.
But we had that system before. The immigrant classes who came to America (and made up the majority of the poor) were avid church-goers. You can be moral AND not have the ability to provide for your children.
The only way to prevent children being born into poverty is family planning. And I don’t mean abortion. I mean birth control, education, and incentives for people not to have children until they can provide for them and not to have too large of families if they can’t provide for them.
Worshiping idols is evil. See Exodus 20:4-5 “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them” See also 2 Kings 17:12. And yet, far from criminalizing the worship of idols, we have the First Amendment.
Is the message of the First Amendment that idol worship is a good thing?
Where’s the idol? The idols referred to in the Bible were literal.
Michael Ejercito is, I believe, pointing out that permission does not mean approval.
The common law principal is that everything not forbidden is permitted, rather than everything not forbidden is endorsed.
Permission does not mean approval. But this is an odd case where specific conduct has been prohibited… In this case, when permission is granted is does come across as approval.
To whom?
If there has been an old law on the books that no one really knows about because in general we have all agreed that the conduct IS wrong, such as this adultery law, and the law has faded out of cultural memory, then the government comes out and says “We repeal the anti-adultery law”, that DOES say “Go ahead! Cheat on your spouses now! We don’t mind!”
Again, to who? That sounds like the logic some people used after Lawrence v Texas, the ‘oh we don’t want to throw them in jail but we need a way to tell people this is wrong.’ Now, as it happens, I take a very dim view of adultery in the here and now, (historic situations and other places where marriage and remaining married may be a matter of coercion require examining the circumstances) but I take a dimmer view of legislating it.
I take a dim view of leaving something unenforceable on the books just to make a point. That’s how we ended up with Alabama not repealing its anti-miscegenation until 2000 and still have an anti-sodomy law on the books.
“I take a dim view of leaving something unenforceable on the books just to make a point.”
This, does not undermine my commentary that “If there has been an old law on the books that no one really knows about because in general we have all agreed that the conduct IS wrong, such as this adultery law, and the law has faded out of cultural memory, then the government comes out and says “We repeal the anti-adultery law”, that DOES say “Go ahead! Cheat on your spouses now! We don’t mind!””
And leads to precisely the conundrum Jack describes when he says:
“That’s how we ended up with Alabama not repealing its anti-miscegenation until 2000 and still have an anti-sodomy law on the books.”
These are not analogous for purposes of arguing against the situation.
Anti-miscegenation laws do not prohibit harmful conduct and can be argued to cause harm themselves. Anti-sodomy laws are similar. However, adultery does harm.
But, as per the conundrum above, repealing such laws must be handled appropriately, leading Jack to state:
But I don’t agree with Jack’s point. I don’t want the law to send a message. That’s what social sanctions are for. Either you want the law to punish/prevent/regulate something or you don’t, in this case you do, I don’t despite my personal disapproval. Either you think the law will be effective or you think it won’t, I think we can agree that it won’t and as far as I’m concerned that’s reason enough to be rid of it. There’s not a middle ground for validating Mrs. Grundy feelings and to be honest I’m starting to get the impression that the people who will see it as approval aren’t going to go out and get their adultery-on any more than they already are since they very clearly don’t publicity approve of adultery (Newt Gingrich types are going to do it either way whatever their public pronouncements.)
Go back and re-read. You’ve missed Jack’s point.
That you said this: “I think we can agree that it won’t and as far as I’m concerned that’s reason enough to be rid of it.” and simultaneously claim you disagree with Jack when he says this:
implies to me that you didn’t read what wrote.
“I don’t want the law to send a message. That’s what social sanctions are for.”
I’m not sure that shifting terms helps you. Law is a type of “social sanction” and if you don’t want law to send a message, then you don’t want law, because that is precisely what law does, it just happens to send messages with teeth…that is to say messages that work.
Social sanctions, not being invited to balls, not having dinner invitations accepted, no being received after sending a card around, being turned away from and whispered about on the streets as if one were walking around with a poorly tied cravat.
He’s not covering “that which was one forbidden, but now isn’t.” The act of eliminating the prohibition is a tacit and symbolic endorsement.
How on earth is this an argument for anything?
Yes, the biblical law is stating that idol worship is against the value inherent in worshipping a one true God… And any country that actually legislates such is stating that as a value and protecting that value.
America has no such law, and as far as I know never has had such law, so the first amendment doesn’t have the same affect on “make no graven images” as the repeal of the anti-adultery law has on adultery.
The two are similar in that the repeal of the anti-adultery law doesn’t say that adultery is a good thing, but that it merely isn’t a harmful thing and will be tolerated (which of course is nonsense); just as the first amendment states that different religions aren’t necessarily a good thing (matter of opinion) but that they aren’t harmful and will be tolerated.
“The brilliant program will cost $4.9 million over four years, including $460,000 a year in stipend payments.”
Well THAT explains it. $1,840,000 for the “clients” and that leaves $3,060,000 for … whom? Governmental employees. No wonder it was a success in California. The vig, er overhead is twice the actual cost of the project, so called. I’m not sure who’s running the bigger shake-down operation, the criminals or the public workers.
And doesn’t anyone see these sorts of programs as shake-down operations? Has that term been air brushed out of the lexicon?
Also, I think no-fault divorce and these sorts of changes in law have had much less effect upon public morals or mores than Hollywood and celebrity “culture.” Seeing the celebrity media oohing and aahing over a fifty-five year-old guy abandoning his forty year-old movie starlet wife and their “adorable” (of course) children for a twenty-two year-old starlet du jour and have them all saying how happy they are together, is incredibly corrosive. Much more than changing unenforced laws no one even know exist.
When was the last time they oohed and aahed over that?
“The law expresses societal consensus about acceptable and unacceptable conduct; it also reinforces and strengthens that consensus.”
The law expresses state consensus about acceptable and unacceptable conduct. The jury determines societal consensus (in microcosm), and reinforces and strengthens that consensus. At least under the laws of our nation.
This isn’t a nitpick. At least not in my opinion.
—–
“In other words, the officials who make laws often don’t have a clue what they are doing, and neither does anyone else.”
With this I agree completely.
—–
“The reason adultery is illegal is that it hurts people, wrecks families, traumatizes children, and destabilizes society.”
Everything is a fine reason except the destabilization of society. I don’t believe that the societal interest trumps the familial interest here# (adultery just has too little of a societal impact compared to the interpersonal [familial] impact). All to often when writing and enforcing the law those who are socially inclined reify their own disposition over all others (Our nation’s operating rules for the election of
politicianslawmakers already favors those who are socially biased in a very strong way). This is a sincere blind spot on their part, but it must be recognized for a state which represents the mores of its citizens to have a chance to exist. Historically too few laws or legal rulings have acknowledged that personal or interpersonal rights trump societal rights. And some of those laws (e.g. interpretations of the 2nd amendment) do so indirectly by claiming a societal interest in the right instead of a personal interest.# – or in most other parts of the law which claim a societal interest.
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“What critics, usually from the left”
Many of these critics are also socially biased, and on that point their arguments fail.
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“but making the prohibition civil rather than criminal was the right and only practical approach. Keeping a criminal law that will never be enforced sends exactly the wrong messages.”
I agree with this, and agree with such civil laws. Though for poorer people (given the state of legal aid), it would be nice if the state prosecutes the civil matter.
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“City Council unanimously approved a bill this week establishing a program in which up to 200 individuals at risk of violence but without criminal cases pending will receive counseling and job training, and cash stipends for not getting arrested.”
My gut is in agreement with you on this. But empirically such programs have (so far) been shown to work. Are you for evidence-based laws even if you find them personally distasteful, and if so, under what conditions?
I guess I’m in favor of this, though I’d rather see a paid work program to keep these kinds of people out of trouble (as it’s usually those who don’t have stable jobs who are amenable to having their behavior changed by this kind of law).
1. “The law expresses state consensus about acceptable and unacceptable conduct.” In a democracy, the state’s consensus is supposed to reflect the public’s desire’s and best interest. “We the People”…The People V. OJ Simpson. It’s not just a word.
2.”Everything is a fine reason except the destabilization of society. I don’t believe that the societal interest trumps the familial interest here# (adultery just has too little of a societal impact compared to the interpersonal [familial] impact).” You have to be joking. Adultery cripples the financial prospects of women; it causes long-term psychological harm in children; it encourages lying as a life-style; it breaches a contract (society had an interest in seeing contracts fulfilled.) It diverts funds from family and child support to the affair; it frequently exploits women, who are lied to about a marriage being imminent for them when they are in fact being deceived and exploited for sex. Adultery frequently leads to violent crimes, and suicide. Government policy is aimed at seeing stable family units formed, and thus it has an identical stake in not seeing them DEformed.
3.One small California city with a different population doesn’t prove anything.
4. If they are unethical, it doesn’t matter: they are wrong whether they work or not. Distasteful is the “Ick” factor, and that isn’t ethics.
re:#2
Perfect.
Guys,
We’ve been here before.
…and I’ve already provided the perfect solution.
–Dwayne
Good catch, Dwayne. I should have checked. But at least I’m consistent.
“BTW — did you just acknowledge that poor children suffered en masse before the advent of social services?”
No, I didn’t acknowledge this.
I did use it as a basis for a counter argument, that pretending that premise is valid, my solution is better than yours. Of course, if that premise is NOT valid, my solution is still better, because yours would be unnecessary.
I can use the hypothetical, because it’s validity doesn’t change the superiority of my solution…whereas it’s validity is absolutely necessary for your solution (and mine is still better then)
” Do you mean that there are holes in your “the world would be better with less gubment” thinking?”
This is a silly comment 101. Though I know, viewing the world through your Leftist lenses, you don’t know what federalism is, I have always made the argument that government power has a role at a variety of levels in our MULTI-LAYERED system. I have merely opposed the atrocious conglomeration of power at the national level. Which, of course, to a statist like you, looks like my argument boils down to “less gubment”. (which is a juvenile way of addressing that by the way, as though people who believe that decentralization and empowered citizenry must be raving rednecks that can’t pronounce words correctly. Bigot) But of course, if you’d bother to recognize the nuances of Federalism, you’d know that my argument doesn’t boil down to “less government”.
(Though to clarify, as long as the powers that you support pretty much can’t keep from increasing the size of government as a solution to everything on this planet, then increasingly, yes, the rational people who oppose such measure will always look like they say “less government”)