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Comment by jerf | Hacker News Reader

You committed a felony every day last week. Have you paid the price?

You protest that no you didn't? Oh, you did. You may not know what the felony is, but I assure you that in this country there is no way you got through an entire week without being felonious, probably multiple times a day.

Sixteenth century platitudes about breaking the law and paying the price need to be updated for a 21st century reality in which a careful reading of the law reveals that there is very nearly a law against everything, and the only thing holding society together is that we don't pay the price.

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The problem, I believe, is that politicians use the laws as messages instead of as legislation. When there's media outrage about some subject or the other, the response of the clever politician is to reply with a new law that "helps" for the issue at hand. Once the crisis has passed, we are left for a ad-hoc law that doesn't make much sense anymore. And we end up paying fines or going to prison for some old telegram.

What would be good is more succinct Penal Codes, and to make it much harder to add laws in response to isolated events.

Robert Heinlein had a novel, I forget which, where the legislature was bicameral, but in a different way than the current American one. In his legislature, the first house was responsible for passing legislation (but required a supermajority to do so, IIRC). The second house was responsible for repealing legislation, needing only a simple majority.

"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"

Come on, you can't say something like that without giving a single example....

And I can assure you that he has not committed a felony every day last week. You clearly don't understand the difference between regulatory infractions, misdemeanors, and felonies. A felony is a serious crime punishable by more than a year in prison.

A careful reading of the law will reveal that there is not, in fact, very nearly a law against everything.

Please take your trolling back to Reddit where it belongs.

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