trc@houti.UUCP (06/14/83)
Response to Guy Harris, on the nature of government: How many times is it necessary to re-write a law declaring the intent of a government to forbid and punish murder? Once should be enough. There is little need for further political consideration of the question. All the laws that I consider to be proper for government CAN be done once and mostly correctly. There may be some need for adjustments, but such should not be left to a small body of men, nor to a simple majority. Only unanimous agreement of the governed people should cause the creation of laws. It is true that judges are men, but there is a vast difference between a judge that serves his own whims and one that follows the law to the letter, no matter what his personal feelings. You write of interpretation as if you thought it was some sort of "trick" by which judges are able to get around a clearly written law. Do you also see interpretation of BASIC by a computer in this light? And yet, that is a fairly good analogy - a small, fixed set of rules for interpreting all circumstances and determining the appropriate action. It is not always as simple to do with the law, but people are a lot smarter than computers. It is true that a judge might be crooked and so deliberately render a misinterpretation of the law. That can be true no matter what system of laws one has. Is such a crook more likely to get away with it in a system of a few clearly stated principles, understood by all; or in a system with a tangle of vague, contradictory, and incomprehensible laws? Tom Craver houti!trc
guy@rlgvax.UUCP (06/15/83)
How many times is it necessary to re-write a law declaring the intent of a government to forbid and punish murder? Once should be enough. There is little need for further political consideration of the question. All the laws that I consider to be proper for government CAN be done once and mostly correctly. This is merely an assertion; do you have any evidence for it? And even if the laws YOU consider proper for government can be done that way, that does NOT mean that those "are" the all the laws that are proper for government. The proof of such a proposition cannot come purely from philosophy; governance, like science, includes the experimental as well as the theoretical. Merely saying some scheme of government will work is not proof that it will. Also, can you define a set of laws that is 1) small enough that they all fall into the same category as laws against murder and 2) is sufficient to cover all cases encountered now and in the future? And, to pick a hypothetical example, suppose we were able to construct computers that passed the Turing test with flying colors. Is pulling the plug murder? Would you expect the Founding Fathers to have written a law that would UNAMBIGUOUSLY answered this question? Only unanimous agreement of the governed people should cause the creation of laws. I suspect this is equivalent to saying "long live anarchy", but that's neither here nor there. You would certainly have few enough laws; somebody who was honked off at his brother-in-law might decide that a law against murder would get his way. And given the requirement for unanimous agreement of the governed people, you'd see people calling for recounts for a long time after the election. Unless you forbade recounts, in which case you'd merely have to settle for laws which weren't unanimously agreed to being passed anyway... It is true that judges are men, but there is a vast difference between a judge that serves his own whims and one that follows the law to the letter, no matter what his personal feelings. Yes, it would be nice if we could have judges that followed laws to the letter. Then again, it would be nice if we had laws that were so simple and unambiguous that they could be followed to the letter with NO contro- versies about interpretation. Would you care to propose a full code of laws for the U.S. that fits this criterion? - no single examples, please, that's begging the question; you can always pick specific situations that can be fit by such laws. You write of interpretation as if you thought it was some sort of "trick" by which judges are able to get around a clearly written law. Do you also see interpretation of BASIC by a computer in this light? No, but then I don't see judges and laws as computers and programs either. And yet, that is a fairly good analogy - a small, fixed set of rules for interpreting all circumstances and determining the appropriate action. No, it's a very poor analogy. First of all, it's historically naive - that's not what the law has historically been, and if you want to make it something radically different I'd suggest you set aside AT LEAST a couple of hundred years for this project. And second of all, I repeat that you have provided NO evidence for your assertion that such a set of rules is possible. It is not always as simple to do with the law, but people are a lot smarter than computers. People are not only more devious than computers, as well, but they are FAR less literally-minded. Again, give me an example of a COMPLETE CODE of law that you think is not subject to ANY misinterpretation whatsoever, and we'll see how many different defensible interpretations we get. It is true that a judge might be crooked and so deliberately render a misinterpretation of the law. That can be true no matter what system of laws one has. Is such a crook more likely to get away with it in a system of a few clearly stated principles, understood by all; or in a system with a tangle of vague, contradictory, and incomprehensible laws? I repeat, for the Nth time, my call for something more than the bald assertion that this ideal code of law can exist. A couple of hundred years ago (and even more recently than that), people thought there would be such a set of laws to describe the natural world. To (mis-)quote Alexander Pope, "Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night; God said, 'Let Newton be!' and all was light." Unfortunately, the response written to this goes, "It did not last; the Devil crying 'Ho! Let Einstein be!' restored the status quo!" Admittedly, this is unfair to Einstein - Heisenberg or Bohr might have been a better choice, as it was quantum mechanics rather than relativity that really put "realism" aside - but it illustrates the point; it's not clear that the world is as as our systems of philosophy would like them to be, and it's definitely clear that that the world is under no "obligation" to be that simple. So, using your "CHECK #n" scheme, I differ at: There can be a simple set of unambiguous laws to govern human behavior in society. (CHECK #0). It is this implicit assumption (never stated in your comments) that I disagree with; the burden of proof is on YOU to show that such a set of laws is possible, as you are the one proposing a different scheme of government that the one we have. Guy Harris RLG Corporation {seismo,mcnc,we13,brl-bmd,allegra}!rlgvax!guy