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Comment by throwawaylinux | Hacker News Reader

Better to leave the law to the self-proclaimed "experts" who wrote and enforced laws permitting slavery for most of a century.

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You mean people who were elected by other people. There's no difference

Corrupt people who were elected by other people and don't necessarily serve there interests, yes. And I disagree.

Elected officials aren't "self-proclaimed." Election is the best possible example of proclaiming.

In fact many are self-proclaimed experts.

If the definition of "self-proclaimed" includes agreeing with popular proclamation, who is ever proclaimed but not self-proclaimed? You've rendered the "self-" prefix redundant, in which case why include it?

Winning an election is not a proclamation or any other kind of indication that somebody is an expert in law, governing, or anything else except winning elections. I can't work out how you've made that leap.

Election to office is an indication that voters generally agree with your claims of expertise, and thus are proclaiming you an expert.

Voters who want someone in office who is not an expert at governing vote for someone who doesn't claim to be an expert.

It's no such thing.

> You mean people who were elected by other people.

In reality, it was people elected by male landowners.

Slavery wasn't a crime. And the slaves were property, not allowed trial by jury.

Stopping the punishment of crimes is not halting all injustice.

Helping slaves escape was a crime (Fugitive Slave Act) and an early use of jury nullification.

> Slavery wasn't a crime.

Slavery was 100% enabled by the fact that escaping from slavery was a crime.

Yes, but keeping someone enslaved was not a crime by the laws of that time and place.

Yes, but how would jury nullification come into play there?

A jury can’t decide to make something a crime, they can only choose to not punish a crime.

Yes. And whether or how jury nullification comes in depends on circumstances.

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