Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site dartvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!dartvax!karl From: karl@dartvax.UUCP (Karl Berry.) Newsgroups: net.legal Subject: Re: Too many laws. Message-ID: <2677@dartvax.UUCP> Date: Sun, 6-Jan-85 13:27:48 EST Article-I.D.: dartvax.2677 Posted: Sun Jan 6 13:27:48 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 8-Jan-85 02:53:09 EST Distribution: net Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH Lines: 30 In regard to the spate of laws existing in the U.S., I have no hard facts -- instead, a fictional solution. In Robert Heinlein's book Friday, a pseudo-Earth is depicted in which the punishment is made to fit the law. The example Heinlein gives is a driver running over someone else on the road, breaking a leg. The punishment is to stretch the driver out on the road, run a car over his leg, timing a minute and half before the doctors are allowed to help him, and so on. I suspect that this ``eye for an eye'' [I'm not suggesting the idea is original with Heinlein!] philosophy would drastically reduce both the number of laws needed, and, more importantly, crime. Yes, some people would be punished unjustly, but people are certainly punished unjustly now. And, speaking only for myself, if I, for example, embezzled the college I go to out of $100,000, I'd much prefer to lose $100,000 than to spend several years of my life rotting in a jail somewhere. One of the [theoretical, anyway] goals of our judicial system is to make the punishment fit the crime. Unless one locks up some victim, I don't see how going to jail fits any crime. One word which I've seen rarely come under discussion in conversations about our legal system is ``punishment''. I've already used it several times in this article. Going back to behavior principles, if one wants to get people to engage in activities like cooperation, building, and social responsibility, and not ones like murder, rape, and lying, you'd be better off reinforcing the former than punishing the latter. {If you're only going to do one or the other.} Something which seems to be lost on every government I know about. dartvax!karl karl@dartmouth.csnet