Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (17425)	6/27/2001 11:51:38 AM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

It is true that law may be considered as an attempt to codify "right" conduct. Not sure that's quite the right use of codify, but I get your point. It's right, but without the "may be." What else might it be considered as? Do you think people pass laws intending to codify wrong conduct? Or no conduct (impossible; law always regulates conduct.) Every substantive law has one of two purposes. To force people to take "right" actions (such as treating sewage before discharging it into common streams) or to prevent people from taking "wrong" actions (such as taking property that belongs to somebody else, except in certain circumstances.) BTW, theft is also an elusive term. In the far north woods, where I used to spend part of my youth, there is an unwritten law that if you come across a cabin and you are lost or injured or just need a place to sack out for the night, you use the cabin. Technically it's trespassing, but it is completely acceptaed in that culture. And anybody who leaves a cabin for the winter is expected to leave food in it for people who might get lost or injured or be out of food and run across the cabin; they don't expect to find the food there when they return in the Spring. Eating the food technically would be theft, but again, it's part of the culture. In a harsh environment, you look out for others. That's the moral code there. Too bad it hasn't carried forward to "civilization."