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Comment by marcus0x62 | Hacker News Reader

Quite a bit more boring, but a co-worker once paid a contractor to install some blinds in his house, for a few thousand dollars. Dude took a down payment and then never delivered/installed the product, wouldn’t return their calls, etc.

My coworker went to the local police, who wouldn’t do anything, but then his lawyer advised him to go to the postal inspector (he had mailed the check to the contractor.)

The contractor ended up getting five years in federal prison for mail fraud.

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The US justice system seems very odd to this European. Then I realize that if the EU project ever were to reach its presumed goals (by some), we'd probably end up with something pretty similar in terms of "oddness complexity".

Oh, it is absolutely wild, which I don't think is a very good characteristic for a legal system, especially one where the rule is that 'ignorance of the law is not a defense'.

I think we need a new take on that phrase, something like "ignorance of the law must not be a reasonable defence" — when the law is too complex for most people to understand, it is vulnerable to capricious enforcement, malicious compliance, and unwitting everyday violations being held against the politically undesirable.

Not only do I have absolutely no idea how to get from here to there, I also assume the degree of simplification I desire — to the point that normal people know what's going on most of the time — is the legal equivalent of saying "Twitter doesn't need 6000 employees because Mark Zuckerberg wrote Facebook by himself in college" in a software engineering context, and wrong for much the same reasons.

One of my favorite saying is this: "The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state" (thousands years old saying and nothing has changed).

And, oh boy, do we have many laws.

It is by design, to oppress the people.

At work do you also say the legacy projects that are a pain to work with are by design, to oppress the programmers?

You don't even need to consider ALL laws. Just look at the tax code in isolation for good examples.

I think we could start by requiring mens rea for any felony offense.

It is directly based on the UK's legal system. I am sure the same oddities are present there as well. Probably moreso since they are an old country.

I'd say you're already there.

In terms of law enforcement: I disagree. It's like 97% national still.

In terms of civil disputes between citizens from different member countries - well, we don't have any phone/internet/post police.

But you have the European arrest warrant now, right? So it may all be national, but also kinda international.

> The US justice system seems very odd to this European.

I very much agree. And I live in the US.

I’m sure to anyone in the UK these ancient oddities seem pretty familiar.

I often think it’s because Europe doesn’t typically have federalism.

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