There Oughta be a Law.....

But it should be outlawing bad laws!

Note: This article builds on ideas of government overriding your personal preferences discussed in previous articles here and here. These articles may be worth reading if you haven’t!

We’ve all been there — we’re in a group of people minding our own business when somebody does something annoying. Maybe a radio is bumping too loud, maybe kids are screaming out of a car window, or one of a million other annoying things.

Almost inevitably, somebody speaks up, proclaiming “There oughta be a law against that!” This has been a problem presumably since the dawn of human history. In fact, a comic strip in the 1950s titled “There Oughta be a Law” commonly featured such situations:

The instinct is understandable. This person is doing something that annoys me, therefore he should be stopped from doing that thing by a law. And that’s as far as the thinking goes.

But this is exactly the wrong attitude to have. When the government passes laws, (or more recently, edicts and executive orders) they must also decide what to do with the people who won’t follow along. And here we discover the crux of the problem: When it comes down to it, government only has one tool at its disposal, and it looks like this:

“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence,—it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”

These words might or might not have been penned by fiery-headed George Washington, but they are true regardless. The proper role of government is to suggest and inform but not coerce or force.

Let’s take the most powerful example of this in the modern era:

“People shouldn’t do drugs.”

Generally, this is solid advice. Drugs screw up lives and often keep you from being the person you could be. I fully support government running informative campaigns to keep people off drugs and even opening treatment centers for people struggling with drug addiction.

But notice what happens when we change one simple word:

“People can’t do drugs.”

If people CAN’T do drugs, that means punishment for those who ignore the law and continue to do drugs. What does that look like? Well, because government only has that giant sledgehammer in its bag, it looks like a trillion dollars fighting the drug war. A boom of the incarcerated, focused mostly on minorities and the poor. And it doesn’t stop when the sentence is over. If you can’t get a job or assistance after you get out because of your conviction, where do you turn to get by?

And that’s when the drug war works as intended. When things go horribly awry, the drug war looks like this:

A memorial in remembrance of Breonna Taylor at Jefferson Square Park. Credit to Scott Utterback/Courier Journal

Breonna Taylor was collateral damage in the drug war, but is dead nonetheless. The silver lining to her tragedy was Kentucky’s reform of these dangerous no-knock raids, as well as the Justice for Breonna Taylor Act. (The bill has gone nowhere.)

Even worse, the drug war provides incentives for police to lie, sometimes with deadly consequences.

Prosecutors say both Bryant and former HPD officer Gerald Goines, 56, who led the narcotics squad that executed the raid, concocted a story about a confidential informant who purchased heroin from the couple’s home in order to obtain the warrant.

In the ensuing raid, both Tuttle and Nicholas were shot and killed, along with their dog. Goines and four other officers were also wounded, according to court documents.

While Goines was hospitalized, an investigation later revealed that he invented the story, police said.

Just lying and planting heroin at the scene of the ‘crime’ is way easier than doing actual police work! And you get to be called a hero and get awards and everything! (Silver lining here: Art Acevedo, Houston police chief at the time, was recently fired from his gig in Miami. In addition, many of the involved officers are facing charges.)

So we’re spending gobs of money, ruining millions of lives, literally killing people, and filling our prisons — all because we went from “shouldn’t” to “can’t.” But surely after all that sacrifice and evil, we’re winning, right?

The State Can't Keep Drugs Out of Prisons. How Was It Ever Going to Keep Them Out of America?

Officials say inmates' friends throw drug-filled soccer balls, drones and other such items over the walls of some facilities. That shouldn't be hard to stop. Most drugs apparently are coming from visitors and employees. Unions have been accused of imposing obstacles to more thorough searches of guards. That's another feature of government: you can't change anything without the unions' OK.

This is the nature of government. It can't stop the flow of illicit substances in a sealed and militarized building that's under its total control. It throws hundreds of millions of dollars at the problem. It holds hearings, as officials ponder what to do. Decades from now, when some new type of drug is all the rage, prison officials surely will be theorizing about how to control it. Only the name of the official task force and the size of the budget request will be different.

We can’t even win the war on drugs IN PRISON. And the economics of it all?

Luckily, after FIVE DECADES of failure, we’re finally starting to wind down some aspects of the war on drugs. Oregon decriminalized drugs in 2020, with measurable positive results. Focus the money and attention on the people who need (and want) help. Stop caring if somebody is getting high and watching Netflix.

This doesn’t mean we need to scrap all laws, of course, only that we need to ensure that the laws we DO have are worth killing to uphold. Early in covid some town or another in California passed a rule like this one stating you had to wear a mask outdoors. Days later, the council was just SHOCKED that police had roughed somebody up for not wearing a mask. But the stories are common, because (say it with me!) the only tool the government has is force.

I can almost hear you now. “Surely you this is hyperbole! We don’t kill people enforcing all our laws!” And mostly, that is true. But, as in the case of Breonna Taylor, sometimes enforcement spins wildly out of control.

So “you can’t sell loose cigarettes” leads to the death of Eric Garner. (Who wasn’t even selling loosies that day!)

And “you are being too loud” leads to the death of Ryan Whitaker.

Even things like “this kid is playing in the park” can lead to tragedy.

And when the authorities REALLY turn up the heat, they can rely on a group of citizens turning into snitches and doing their dirty work for them!

Disclose.tv @disclosetv

JUST IN - Six adults in #Berlin insult and beat a 17-year-old girl to hospital for not wearing a mask, WELT reports.

All because the authorities said “must wear” instead of “should wear.” So next time one of your friends says “There oughta be a law….”, you know what to do*:

* - Do not hit your friends! They are your friends!