tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3390131129621471741.post200839387513138939..comments2018-01-07T22:20:13.408-06:00Comments on Divisionist History: The Paradox of Free Markets.Geoff Stricklerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15337736620921197055noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3390131129621471741.post-75064841835294443452011-10-14T10:20:52.800-05:002011-10-14T10:20:52.800-05:00"It seems to work best when we broadly define..."It seems to work best when we broadly define laws, then throw out the weak cases in court...", exactly.<br /><br />As for the jerks, who will try to sue for stuff that's clearly not in the spirt of the law, you can address in several ways: First, in some cases, you can write the law in a way to exclude minor infractions, "no harm" clauses, etc. Second, you can make the penalties start very low so that it's impractical to sue for minor infractions. Third, you can implement "loser pays reasonable court costs" an option for the judge/jury in all civil (and maybe even in criminal) cases. Economic sanctions work very well at controlling lawsuit abuse.Geoff Stricklerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15337736620921197055noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3390131129621471741.post-85531587954737413552011-10-14T09:54:26.565-05:002011-10-14T09:54:26.565-05:00Minor note depending on where you live: The spitba...Minor note depending on where you live: The spitballs would be Battery or unwanted touching, assault is the threatening that usually comes before the battery. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assault<br /><br />The trouble is in the definition though. If you are too broad with it to keep it simple, you wind up validating claims that a law was broken when it wasn't in the spirit of the law; like when a player draws a penalty by tricking the referee. If you narrow the definition sufficiently to prevent convicting the innocent, you inadvertently make legal things that should be within the spirit of the law. Your law's definition is for the past and foreseeable future problems. We cannot effectively predict all future possibilities, and the cleverness of people to find new perversions is amazing.<br /><br />Just by the normal definitions of assault and battery, a person could be jailed from riding the subway at a busy time of the day. A grandmother could be jailed from how she mishandles her shopping cart in line bumping the ankles of the customer in front of her. Sporting events would be jailing many of the fans who shout out jeers against the opponents.<br /><br />It seems to work best when we broadly define laws, then throw out the weak cases in court, but then theirs always the dick-head's who will press to the supreme court to get the misdemeanor battery charges filed because their neighbor's lawn mower crossed the property line and cut his lawn wrong.<br /><br />A similar subject is computer viruses, and their is mathematical proof that we can't prevent the next virus. The guardian software's like McAfee, Norton, etc. have laws defining legal inputs into the computers environment. It is common to have your spyware or anti-virus stop the normal operation of good software that you want to use. It is also common that a new virus written by a dick-head gets by all the protections and ruins things. You can't prevent that, but you can edit the definitions to stop that newest security breech. That's how laws get messy over time. As for the good software that looks like a virus, you can tell the security to leave it alone, but that is asking a virus writer to make a virus that looks like that exception software and back doors the security. Eventually the security system becomes so cumbersome that the computer doesn't work fast enough to please. <br /><br />The real solution is to build a dick-head detector and deal with them appropriately. We wouldn't need any laws if we could just segregate all the dick-head's to a safe place.WNYmathGuyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10290094562090209786noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3390131129621471741.post-55722547289968470112011-10-12T12:19:15.585-05:002011-10-12T12:19:15.585-05:00A rule law prohibiting assault or actions which ha...A rule law prohibiting assault or actions which have the effect of assaulting another), covers all the situations you described and more. Punishment appropriate to the type and effect of the assault. Simple, to the point, and there are no loopholes. Stop trying to define every type of assault, or every action that could be considered an assault and you eliminate the loopholes.<br /><br />Simple rules work, when you keep them simple.Geoff Stricklerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15337736620921197055noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3390131129621471741.post-17329162760716725782011-10-12T11:26:00.028-05:002011-10-12T11:26:00.028-05:00My experience with laws and regulations is the spi...My experience with laws and regulations is the spirit of all of them is, "don't be a dick-head."<br /><br />My experience with people of all ages and varied other demographics is a small percentage of any group are dick-head's.<br /><br />Simple law's or regulations imply a great deal of things that are innate to non-dick-head's. All the implied things in a simple law or regulation is an open invitation for a dick-head to break the law or regulation and win financially, and in court when claims are made against the said dick-head for obvious flagrant perversions of the law.<br /><br />[Jonny blows spitballs through a straw at many people in class]<br />Teacher: Johnny stop doing that!<br />Johnny: Nothing says I cant do that anywhere.<br />Teacher: Honestly! Jonny, do I really have to write down, don't blow spitballs at people or things in school?<br />Johnny: Yea.<br />[teacher writes it on the top edge of board boldly in chalk]<br />Teacher: Okay there it's written down.<br />[Jonny lobs a spitball at teacher with ruler used as a catapult]<br />Teacher: Are you fucking kidding me?<br />Johnny: I didn't blow it at you.<br />[Teacher fired for swearing at a student]WNYmathGuyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10290094562090209786noreply@blogger.com