A Dirty Little Secret
Aug. 9th, 2007 10:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alixtiiYou want to hear a dirty little secret? Here it is: there is no such thing as "legal" or "illegal."
You know the "stupid law" memes that sometimes get passed around? How it's "illegal" to drive with your windows down in some town in Winsconsin, or to eat chocolate ice cream on Tuesdays in some place in Florida, or whatever? I'm fairly sure they still eat pickles in front of children even when it is raining, and no one cares.
"Fanfic is copyright infringement" or "Chan is illegal" are meaningless statements. Nobody but the Forms in their Platonic Heaven really cares. Is going one mile over the speed limit on I-95 illegal? If so, how many pretty white girls with cop fathers have gotten speeding tickets for it? So here's my existential question: is a law which is not enforced really a law at all?
The dirty little secret of government (and I don't just mean political states, but anybody who makes rules, whether it be SixApart or my parents) is that there are plenty of rules which pretty much act as reductio ad absurdums (anyone know the real Latin plural?) of the process of law-making. Remember that law in, I think, Virginia which seemed to read as banning marriage altogether, not just homosexual marriage as intended? Obscenity or child porn laws which seem so broad as to outlaw classic literature might also fall here.
But you know what? The system doesn't fall apart. People who own Lolita don't get dragged from their homes. The laws get enforced in mostly sane ways--even when the laws aren't even written that way.
What it does do is create the potential for abuse. That dark-skinned guy nobody really likes who lives across the street? When you find Lolita in his house, he gets dragged from his home. Just not anybody else. It creates confusion because no one's sure what rules/laws they need to follow and which they don't. It creates disrespect for the law.
So don't (you nebulous hypothetical implied "you" which probably has nothing to do with anyone reading this, but let me get my rant on) tell me that what I'm doing is illegal, or against the TOS, or whatever. Tell me whether what I'm doing is illegal like jaywalking is illegal, or illegal like serial murder is illegal.
You know the "stupid law" memes that sometimes get passed around? How it's "illegal" to drive with your windows down in some town in Winsconsin, or to eat chocolate ice cream on Tuesdays in some place in Florida, or whatever? I'm fairly sure they still eat pickles in front of children even when it is raining, and no one cares.
"Fanfic is copyright infringement" or "Chan is illegal" are meaningless statements. Nobody but the Forms in their Platonic Heaven really cares. Is going one mile over the speed limit on I-95 illegal? If so, how many pretty white girls with cop fathers have gotten speeding tickets for it? So here's my existential question: is a law which is not enforced really a law at all?
The dirty little secret of government (and I don't just mean political states, but anybody who makes rules, whether it be SixApart or my parents) is that there are plenty of rules which pretty much act as reductio ad absurdums (anyone know the real Latin plural?) of the process of law-making. Remember that law in, I think, Virginia which seemed to read as banning marriage altogether, not just homosexual marriage as intended? Obscenity or child porn laws which seem so broad as to outlaw classic literature might also fall here.
But you know what? The system doesn't fall apart. People who own Lolita don't get dragged from their homes. The laws get enforced in mostly sane ways--even when the laws aren't even written that way.
What it does do is create the potential for abuse. That dark-skinned guy nobody really likes who lives across the street? When you find Lolita in his house, he gets dragged from his home. Just not anybody else. It creates confusion because no one's sure what rules/laws they need to follow and which they don't. It creates disrespect for the law.
So don't (you nebulous hypothetical implied "you" which probably has nothing to do with anyone reading this, but let me get my rant on) tell me that what I'm doing is illegal, or against the TOS, or whatever. Tell me whether what I'm doing is illegal like jaywalking is illegal, or illegal like serial murder is illegal.