The entire US Code is now online in XML • Hacker News Board

Re: The entire US Code is now online in XML

#221

Post by randallsquared » Thu, Aug 01, 2013, 12:10 PM UTC

rmc wrote: post #215

minor_nitwit wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

haha, no. It was meant as a quasi-joke. I'd like to see one though. Certain laws are very cut-and-dry (speeding for instance) and perhaps laws could be proven on a functional basis. You could even make it axiomatic from the constitution and declaration of independence. Of course, you'd need to define the axiomatic meaning of things like 'the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed' - which is…

Certain laws are very cut-and-dry (speeding for instance) Ha! No. * do you want to give an exemption for speeding for, say, ambulances? So how do you define "ambulance"? Do you have to be registered to drive an ambulance? What defines the "duty of an ambulance" (or are they allowed to speed no matter what). What about a van carrying an organ to be donated? * What if I have my sick child in the car and I'm rushing the…

Or, alternatively, you can write the law simply and let people decide for themselves if it's worth breaking.

So, no exemptions for anyone, but then part of the cost of running an ambulance service is paying speeding fines regularly. Given the cost of ambulance services without that, the additional expense is lost in the noise, making it obviously a good choice to speed when useful (for ambulances).

Trying to figure out after the fact whether someone had a good reason to break the law (and therefore shouldn't be penalized) is one of the things that complicates legal systems enormously. Instead, we should write the law clearly and specify the penalties for breaking it directly, and let those who have the best information about the situation, the potential lawbreaker(s), choose whether it is worth breaking the law in a given instance.

Re: The entire US Code is now online in XML

#222

Post by jbooth » Thu, Aug 01, 2013, 12:33 PM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #208

jacques_chester wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With respect, only someone who hasn't studied law could say this. Law is complicated and filled with ambiguity because the world is complicated and filled with ambiguity. Unlike lawyers, we can simply will some of that away. We can make an enum which smooshes together disparate phenomena, that feeds a dropdown list and require the customers to use it. We can ignore very rare corner cases and include a comments field.…

That's one of the reasons I am a libertarian. Less government means less complex law means less bugs and abuses of the law. If your government tries to say what you can or can not eat, for example, you need complex law to figure out what is cheese and how big the holes in it must be. If you can eat whatever you like and the government couldn't care less, you do not need any of that. So tell me - do we really need a l…

Why would 'less government' be less complex law or less abuse of it?

'Less government' typically means spending less money on government employees, when you hear it from libertarians. Paper's cheap, word are free, and abusing the law is usually profitable on it's own.

Re: The entire US Code is now online in XML

#223

Post by Monkeyget » Thu, Aug 01, 2013, 12:34 PM UTC

OldSchool wrote: post #53

Caveat for for many of us overly rational thinkers: the powers that be deliberately are allowed to 'interpret' this code nondeterministically by many different means including its 'spirit,' admissibility of relevant information, manipulation of venue and participants, apparently even extrajudicial proceedings lately. In short, that allows a lawyer to answer almost any question with "it depends," and start billing.

There is this wonderful article by John Hasnas, "The Myth of the rule of law". It brings a number of very interesting ideas:

* The law is inconsistent and possess contradictory rules. From contradictory premises, sound arguments

* It gives concrete examples of legal cases and how completely opposite judgments could be rendered, both being based on correct use of laws and analysis.

* Laws are not applied impartially, are not neutral, apolitical nor objectively applicable by judges. People who believe they live under "a government of laws and not people" tend to view their nation's legal system as objective and impartial. Obey and subject themselves.

* There is a cognitive dissonance between the laws and the people who make them. People generally believe that the law are generally good and should be obeyed. People generally believe that politicians tend to be corrupt and influenced. The people who make the law cannot be trusted but yet the laws they write should be.

Re: The entire US Code is now online in XML

#224

Post by thehme » Thu, Aug 01, 2013, 1:01 PM UTC

Since this is hacker news, I was curious to see which code the subject was talking about and surprisingly not the code I was thinking of. I wonder how much more of this gov code has actually been read by the people in all those countries where it's been available longer.

Re: The entire US Code is now online in XML

#225

Post by joesb » Thu, Aug 01, 2013, 2:57 PM UTC

randallsquared wrote: post #221

rmc wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certain laws are very cut-and-dry (speeding for instance) Ha! No. * do you want to give an exemption for speeding for, say, ambulances? So how do you define "ambulance"? Do you have to be registered to drive an ambulance? What defines the "duty of an ambulance" (or are they allowed to speed no matter what). What about a van carrying an organ to be donated? * What if I have my sick child in the car and I'm rushing the…

Or, alternatively, you can write the law simply and let people decide for themselves if it's worth breaking. So, no exemptions for anyone, but then part of the cost of running an ambulance service is paying speeding fines regularly. Given the cost of ambulance services without that, the additional expense is lost in the noise, making it obviously a good choice to speed when useful (for ambulances). Trying to figure o…

And if speeding repeatedly banned the driver from driving, then you'll run out of ambulance driver after a day.

Or let's put a man in jail because he break the law three times (even if all those cases would be exempted in current system).

Re: The entire US Code is now online in XML

#226

Post by randallsquared » Thu, Aug 01, 2013, 3:31 PM UTC

joesb wrote: post #225

randallsquared wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, alternatively, you can write the law simply and let people decide for themselves if it's worth breaking. So, no exemptions for anyone, but then part of the cost of running an ambulance service is paying speeding fines regularly. Given the cost of ambulance services without that, the additional expense is lost in the noise, making it obviously a good choice to speed when useful (for ambulances). Trying to figure o…

And if speeding repeatedly banned the driver from driving, then you'll run out of ambulance driver after a day. Or let's put a man in jail because he break the law three times (even if all those cases would be exempted in current system).

The whole point of the proposed system is to capture all the downside of a given action in a single penalty. Therefore, escalations based on repeated actions wouldn't make any sense.

Re: The entire US Code is now online in XML

#227

Post by skriticos2 » Thu, Aug 01, 2013, 5:33 PM UTC

joesb wrote: post #212

skriticos2 wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking about it, it probably can be done.. just not in a free society (which I think is all about doing what you want as long as you don't hurt others in the process). You probably can create black and white laws in a despotic rule. "The Ruler has all right, you have none. He decides." There, drafted an entire legislature with very black and white rules..

Then who decides if you have broken the law? Obviously cops have no right either. Only the ruler can decides? So ruler spent every seconds telling people whether they can talk/walk/eat?

Based on history it would be defined by corruption and the whims of who are awarded stewardship.

Re: The entire US Code is now online in XML

#228

Post by smsm42 » Thu, Aug 01, 2013, 6:08 PM UTC

jbooth wrote: post #222

smsm42 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one of the reasons I am a libertarian. Less government means less complex law means less bugs and abuses of the law. If your government tries to say what you can or can not eat, for example, you need complex law to figure out what is cheese and how big the holes in it must be. If you can eat whatever you like and the government couldn't care less, you do not need any of that. So tell me - do we really need a l…

Why would 'less government' be less complex law or less abuse of it? 'Less government' typically means spending less money on government employees, when you hear it from libertarians. Paper's cheap, word are free, and abusing the law is usually profitable on it's own.

You talked to wrong libertarians then, or didn't listen very carefully. Spending less money on government functions is a consequence of less government, but far from being the goal of it. The goal of it is to lessen government intrusion in private lives and transaction costs for private persons caused by it. If the government does not regulate how your health insurance policy must look like, and leaves it to a contact between two private parties, you do not need a huge law that meticulously describes what such contract must cover and what the sides must do in order to be allowed to enter into a contract. If, however, the government wants to have a say in it, creation of such a law is inevitable.

Not having certain laws trivially prevent abuse of such laws - if there's no law prohibiting possession of certain plant, cops can not extort somebody in possession of such plant, can not hide such plant in somebody's vehicle in order to incriminate them, can not force one to perform illegal acts threatening that otherwise they'd be found guilty in possession of such plant, can not seize one's home, vehicle or money because they suspected him in possessing a prohibited plant. This made possible only by existence of the law that makes certain behavior a crime. If less behaviors are made a crime or deemed worthy of government intervention, less complex laws will be needed and less abuse of these laws will be possible - you can only abuse a law that gives you a power over somebody, but you can not abuse law that does not exist.

Re: The entire US Code is now online in XML

#229

Post by smsm42 » Thu, Aug 01, 2013, 6:45 PM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #211

smsm42 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's one of the reasons I am a libertarian. Less government means less complex law means less bugs and abuses of the law. If your government tries to say what you can or can not eat, for example, you need complex law to figure out what is cheese and how big the holes in it must be. If you can eat whatever you like and the government couldn't care less, you do not need any of that. So tell me - do we really need a l…

There's a difference between legislation/regulation and case law. Hayek is particularly good to read on the distinction.

US code is legislation/regulation. Case law of course would still exist even with minimal regulation, but absent byzantine network of legislation/regulation, it will be less complex, since less factors will be involved in the lawmaking. If you do not regulate how big soda cups must be to be able to be sold in a retail establishment, you do not need case law that defines what "sold in retail establishment" means, what "soda cup" means and is selling two small cups the same as selling a large one and what happens if two small cups look exactly like one big cup with a wedge in the middle. And so on. Congress creates over 50 federal crimes now each year, this makes the system more and more complicated every day, with bad consequences for everybody except lawyers that get to earn tons of money on navigating this insane labyrinth.

Re: The entire US Code is now online in XML

#230

Post by rmc » Thu, Aug 01, 2013, 8:26 PM UTC

randallsquared wrote: post #221

rmc wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certain laws are very cut-and-dry (speeding for instance) Ha! No. * do you want to give an exemption for speeding for, say, ambulances? So how do you define "ambulance"? Do you have to be registered to drive an ambulance? What defines the "duty of an ambulance" (or are they allowed to speed no matter what). What about a van carrying an organ to be donated? * What if I have my sick child in the car and I'm rushing the…

Or, alternatively, you can write the law simply and let people decide for themselves if it's worth breaking. So, no exemptions for anyone, but then part of the cost of running an ambulance service is paying speeding fines regularly. Given the cost of ambulance services without that, the additional expense is lost in the noise, making it obviously a good choice to speed when useful (for ambulances). Trying to figure o…

Some countries do a "penalty points" system where you get (say) 2 points if you're speeding, and if you get (say) 12 points, you're off the road for (say) 2 years. Your proposal of "let people break the law" means that you'd run out of ambulance drivers.

You then have the problem of whether someone can be fired as an ambulance driver if they don't speed. Many countries employment law says that you can't fire someone if they refuse to break the law for the job. So what happens there?