begin quoting Todd Walton as of Fri, Nov 24, 2006 at 06:57:40PM -0600: > On 11/24/06, Stewart Stremler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >begin quoting [EMAIL PROTECTED] as of Fri, Nov 24, 2006 at 09:59:26AM > >-0800: > >> What is your criteria for when to make a law and when to not? > > > >When to make a law: when it makes sense to do so. > >When not to make a law: when it doesn't make sense, and/or we have one > >already. > > Cop out.
Only in the phrasing. I found the question offensive, so I deleted the first response and composed a flippant response instead. /me shrugs > Or a brutally honest admission that you have no good > criteria to offer. This is not a criticism; I'm not sure what a good > answer would be either. I think that there's no such thing as "good criteria" other than doing one's best to do what make sense. Any fixed set of "criteria" will be sure to eventually run afoul of human nature; will eventually be gamed; and it will, I believe, eventually generate some stupid-ass law that will leave people shaking their heads and saying "WTF?". Asking for criteria is trying to impose a "process" type metric on the system, which is just bogus. (It's like measuring program quality by counting the number of semicolons in the module, file, and function. Sure, it gives you "hard data", but it's totally useless.) I think it's important for legislators to remember that people are people, not numbers, or graphs, or charts, or simulations, or abstractions. I think it's important to remember that laws are a blunt instrument. I think it's important to remember that laws are capable of creating criminals out of previously honest citizens. I think it's important to remember that while there are some really screwed up people out there who think that everything illegal is immoral, and everything legal is moral, that's not actually the case. You want another phrasing? How's this: First, do no harm. -- _ |\_ \| -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
