If the majority of us, a democracy, tolerates adding law after stupid law then we, the democracy, get what we deserve. Justice is our own stupidity.
Our copyright laws that make every illegal copy worth $100,000. The consequences of that stupid law itself is the degradation of our legal system. We won’t make people pay the billions they owe for copies on their iPhones, so we just call the laws a deterrant. Now everyone is illegal, whether they know it or not.
Our immigration laws make 10% of the population illegal by where they live or by family members harboring illegals. In my state it is illegal to rob a liquor store with a gun. Just because we are stupid does not mean we are unjust. We treat all people in the same stupid manner that enriches government employees, lawyers, insurance companies and advertisers who sell us public service announcements.
Our laws are so stupid we need to be taught what will put us in prison. The majority believes harsher punishment will cause unthinking people to think, when instead we ourselves need to think better. If we had no copyright laws, no immigration laws, no redundent and silly laws for specific situations we would be better off. Like we were 100 years ago, like a third world country. Our main problem, then, would be corruption.
If we want people to be honest and reasonable we have to teach people how to be reasonable. We have to value being reasonable. People are not naturally reasonable, which is why democracy is problematic. We value our feelings which are often unreasonable. Religious countries teach there is one true religion that can help them, and then when people vote for a religious government they wonder why it doesn’t work. Secular governments value reason over religion but still can’t convince a democracy that cutting off a hand is not justice. Reason is the ONLY accountable system of beliefs and without it every country would have a religious government something akin to the Dark Ages or at the very least we would be under the thumb of a tyrant.
Religion most often teaches one need not be reasonable in every case. It is my personal assertion that the great Teachers Who founded all religion did not teach faith over reason, but Their words were twisted by clerics. Regardless, the teachings of all religion these days have the exception to reason, usually called Faith. We value reason, but we don’t know how to be reasonable.
Judges in the US system of government need not be reasonable except that it is their job to make sense of the laws. They read laws, and interpret the laws, follow the laws, and tell the two sides of a case what to do. They value justice and reason as part of their lives, possibly, but only a secondary relationship to their job. If they are given a law that a third conviction of any sort will put a man in prison for life, and the man is convicted for spitting on the sidewalk, well, that is the law, even though it is against reason and justice. Or is it?
Humanity has a proclivity to make patterns and relationships where there are none. In my book it was very possible that I need to pay $2 million to one of the richest corporations on earth just because the stupid laws are unclear. Maybe the judge cared, maybe not. But regardless the point is that the laws are unreasonable, but they are still the laws. And we need to decide if it is reasonable or not to keep laws that are stupid,
If the majority of the people who make up a democracy stand by while our legal system adds law after law, such as the copyright laws, that mean every copy of a recording or document is worth $100,000 to the owner then who can say that is unjust?
