Excellent ideas. <But let's extend your argument, to other areas of the law. Laws against prostitution [consenting adults] don't stop prostitution. Let's legalize it.
Laws against drug usage [consenting adults]. One person wants to use drugs, another wants to sell them. That transaction in and of itself, hurts no one else and certainly the laws against it throughout the country haven't stopped drug use. Let's legalize it.
How about traffic signs/signals, e.g., stop signs/red lights? Running a stop sign doesn't hurt anyone. An accident might result, but that is independent of the behavior of running a stop sign. Let's consider stop signs to be "suggestions". As long as there is no harm done, i.e., no accident, all is well. If there is an accident then the individual is charged for the accident where actual harm is done, not the behavior of violating a traffic signal. >
The USA already does that with right turns on red lights. The light is a guide - you stop then proceed if clear. You have the responsibility to give way.
I'm hoping we can get the equivalent in NZ where we all sit looking at red lights and red arrows with empty roads. It is the most mindless waste of time. Similarly at pedestrian lights, where a naughty child pushes the button and walks off. Drivers stupidly sit at the red light for a minute.
Of course roundabouts should replace most traffic lights so people don't even need to stop. The best roundabout is Arc de Triomphe, which is so much fun. Imagine that with traffic lights!
Good point on drugs too. Tobacco and booze, coffee, aspirin, solvents and hallucinatory mushrooms are legal and we grow opium [which is legal here, though maybe production of actual opium concentrate isn't]. Sunbathing is legal. So is mountain climbing. All these things are hazardous to health. But they are legal.
It seems silly to pick on marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamines and stuff. If people want to poison themselves and some of them kill themselves, I don't see why I should pay to prosecute them and put them in prison.
When drugs were legal, people didn't seem to think it a great idea to make a big deal of it and there certainly wasn't the money and violent crime associated with the trade.
On prostitution, some women have always married for money. We are just arguing about the length and type of marriage. De Facto marriage for a week, night or hour is understandable and to me, it's up to those marrying why they want to do what they do. What business is it of mine if there's a payment of some sort for a relationship, albeit brief?
Mqurice |
