Comment by DanielBMarkham | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DanielBMarkham | Hacker News Reader

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I had a high-ranking local police official tell me over 30 years ago that there were so many laws that the police could basically control whoever they wanted by selective enforcement of the legal code.

Of course that wouldn't work for a rich or famous person -- the cops would be embarrassed -- but for the rest of us we've been in a situation for many decades where there are so many laws that we're basically in a police state. The only reason more folks don't rise up is that so far, mostly, it's a benevolent dictatorship.

I love the analogy between code and the law, because it's so true. We in the IT industry have a unique insight into how complex systems are created and maintained. Our current legal system is way out of whack.

But politicians get elected for doing something -- and that means spending money, passing laws, or fighting wars. That's about all the options they have. So the system continues to spend more and more money, create more and more complex laws, and we end up with "wars" on poverty, drugs, and carbon emissions.

All laws should have an expiration date.

Of course that wouldn't work for a rich or famous person

Martha Stewart might disagree.

In many ways, the rich and famous actually make perfect targets. Prosecutors and politicians can stir up some of the general contempt that many people still quietly harbor against the wealthy. It can be a great way for a budding prosecutor to break into higher office (c.f. Eliot Spitzer).

Your observations are otherwise completely sound.

Yeah, and in many ways, they don't make perfect targets. In the case of Martha Stewart, it seems she only got taken down because there were vested interests more powerful than her interested in that goal.

I agree that rich/famous people certainly can make a good target, but whether a particular rich/famous person will make a good target depends on the power to which that individual has access to, obviously. Money talks, regardless of how many people hate you for having it. I would suggest that the amount of wealth an individual has access to would be a far more accurate predictor of whether that individual will be taken down in court as opposed to celebrity. It just so happens that many famous people are also wealthy.

Sure there's always going to be exceptions, but you can't seriously be suggesting that rich/famous people in general make perfect targets in court? I'm thinking a famous, yet poor person might be the best kind of target.

Of course that wouldn't work for a rich or famous person...

True enough for O.J. Simpson. But Michael Milken could give you a different take on that issue. Prosecutors often want to make a name for themselves, and prosecuting John Q. Public doesn't further that goal as well as nailing Daddy Warbucks.

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