Thursday, October 19, 2006

Without Further Comment #6 (Vice edition)

Last week President Bush signed a law that will try to impede online gambling by prohibiting American banks from transferring money to gambling sites....

If a free society is to work, the vast majority of citizens must reflexively obey the law not because they fear punishment, but because they accept that the rule of law makes society possible. That reflexive law-abidingness is reinforced when the laws are limited to core objectives that enjoy consensus support, even though people may disagree on means.

Thus society is weakened every time a law is passed that large numbers of reasonable, responsible citizens think is stupid. Such laws invite good citizens to choose knowingly to break the law, confident that they are doing nothing morally wrong.


via today's NYT

posted by Geoff G. @ 3:19 PM  

9 Comments:

  • At 3:39 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I agree with his ideas on "reflexive law-abidingness" but then, what do we do about regulations that are supposed to protect people? Is it just a matter of making them less stupid? Sounds like a good idea. Or is there a certain part of a human being that likes and perhaps needs an authority to work against? Maybe we'd all be less smart and less happy if we didn't have to try and interpret tax laws to our benefit while not drawing the gov's attention. You saw the Matrix, people don't like being perfectly happy, they need conflict!

     

  • At 10:21 AM, Blogger Geoff G. said…

    So, basically, you applaud this law because it'll make me feel like a gangsta when I have to make a yearly trip to Canada or Mexico to transfer funds into my online poker account?

    I mean, it would be one thing if this was like the 65 mph speed limit and merely a helpful suggestion from your freindly federal government, but my poker site had said once the new regulations go into effect (about 270 after the signing of the bill), they're going to start blocking US servers -- clearly this bill means business.

    Nevertheless, the silver lining of this idiotic legislation (which, of course, you can't vote against as a congressman, because then you'd be against "port security") is that it continues to make Republican look out-of-touch, Big Brotherish and (wait for it) Big Government Telling the Independantly Minded Liberty-Loving Capitalist What to Do With His Money.

    Uggggh.

     

  • At 7:56 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    oh no, you misunderstand. I don't like the law at all. I think this is going too far. I was merely discussing the idea of reglexive law-abidingness and how it could or couldn't be applied to other laws.

     

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