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Comment by barrkel | Hacker News Reader

The end-point of your logic is that bankers are too important to prosecute, which is obviously unacceptable.

There's no problem with prosecuting bankers under laws that are tightly written and which can only be violated knowingly. The apocalypse case can only occur if bankers feel like they have no way to avoid being guilty, which is certainly true under AML laws but not really true under many other kinds of laws (like ordinary fraud).

How can you honestly think that after reading this thread?

The parent comment may or may not be correct (I honestly don't know), but author makes it really, really clear what his logic is, and it's nothing like it.

If you came to such a conclusion, it means that you skimmed through the comments above in 2 seconds, and not even trying to understand what was actually written.

Excellent comment. People need to be called out for this behavior.

I think my comment pinpointed the contradiction at the heart of his logical argument; it was only acceptable if you don't believe in the rule of law.

Believing in the rule of law doesn't oblige you to believe in rule of stupid and illogical law.

It's an analagous moral hazard, though. Even if bringing a bank down threatens the banking system, it must be done otherwise banks act with impunity. It's little different with bankers and "stupid and illogical law" - if we rely on discretion for which laws we apply, then we're entirely corrupt. We must apply the laws we have and live with the consequences, otherwise we don't live in a lawful society.

I see this as an absolute. I don't really see how it can be otherwise.

There wasn't a singpe mention of "bringing down banking system" here. Once again, you arguing without reading first.

Now I know it's you that isn't reading! The comment I replied to explicitly said "it could trigger a collapse of the entire financial system".

This is the justification that sievebrain used for the selective application of what he considers to be poor laws.

I say we need to enforce poor laws too, because otherwise it's rule by men, not laws.

Oh, I read the thread. The problem with his logic is that it leads to the conclusion of systemic importance; it's the same argument as too big to fail, in a different guise. If the evidence truly is enough to convict in court, isn't it antithetical to the rule of law not to convict, and accept settlements instead?

Size of organizations involved was never mentioned, so I really don't see how it's related to "too big to fail". His logic was completely different, and pretty straightforward: that anti-laundering legislation first threw mens rea out, and then ended up in a state where everybody is guilty be default.

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