Saturday, November 26, 2011

Abiding the Law

While I was reading about the debate on whether our government should or should not legalize gay marriage, the thought crossed my mind,
 "what is the purpose of law?"
I don't have any strong opinion about gay marriage one way or another.
 Should I?
Does it matter?
What really concerns me is the constant and relentless passing of new laws, every day.
Are we, people, society, community so out of control in our behavior that we need a government to control us constantly and ceaselessly?
Makes you wonder about how civilized we are or tell ourselves we are civilized when we require more and more new laws to control our actions and behavior.
Do you keep up with all the new laws? Yesterday I was talking to a photographer and we were discussing if it was legal or not to take photographs in public spaces. Yes and no. In many instances you require a permit to be able to take photographs. Think about this for a minute...is everybody up to date with the laws governing this area of behavior. What if you're not up to date and as a photographer you unknowingly break the law. You incur a fine if caught and you are a criminal.
If you express an opinion you might be breaking some existing law regarding racial hate crime or worse, you might offend somebody and that offense is covered by the racism/hate crime act.
In some way, at some time, we are all criminals whether we realize it or not.
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2 comments:

Jeannie said...

You are so right. I understood the fact over 30 years ago when I worked for a township office and had to go through the bylaws to find some very old ones on record that should probably be scrapped. I wish I could remember some of them now because they were funny enough then. Instead of making all kinds of stupid laws just for people to unknowingly break, they should have a blanket law that states "don't knowingly do shit that will harm or piss off other people within reason" and give some examples. So if your neighbors are not inclined to have rusted wrecks of cars littering their yards, you shouldn't either but if the neighbors really don't care, then go ahead until someone does have a complaint. And nuisance complaints will not be tolerated.
Gay marriage really doesn't have any effect on anyone but the people getting married - except possibly providers of benefits. But maybe it's the terminology that puts some people off. I think any two or more people should have the right to contract to cohabit or become a family unit under the law - limited to 2 adults and their minor offspring. So brothers or sisters or friends could set up house together and share benefits and income for a stated time period that could be renewed. Sex really shouldn't have anything to do with it.

11:48 am
Lexcen said...

Jeannie,
A blanket law good and King Solomon to administer it I suppose.

8:00 pm

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