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What Do You Owe The Law?
In some ways, I’m one of the nuttier libertarians on Ricochet, always willing to put in a good word for David Friedman and his anarcho-capitalist theories. But I’m also a law-and-order gal: when people come together, it’s easy for me to see that they benefit from agreeing to some rules to guide their conduct (one of the reasons I sympathize with anarcho-capitalists: they, too, believe that rulemaking is such a ubiquitous feature of human behavior that there is a market for law). Moreover, I’m a lawyer’s kid, which means I grew up thinking of due process as a moral good.
For many reasons, I attempt to cooperate with the law. When our home was burgled, though nothing expensive was stolen, I took extensive notes, with accurate hand-drawn pictures of stolen items, and spent several days’ worth of time trying to expedite police action on my case. Not because I thought I’d ever get my stuff back, but in hopes that, if I cooperated with the police quickly, the burglar might actually be caught, and other residents spared the pain we had just been through. Despite my efforts, it took half a year for the police to follow up. The police refused to accept my notes and drawings at the time the case was fresh, and, months later, when a police detective finally took interest, my family had bigger problems to deal with, and we no longer could spare time to help. The material I prepared for the police still sits, collecting dust, on a shelf, a casualty of bad timing.
Even the bohemian crowd I ran with in college made efforts to help the police when we could. We were, for the most part, science and engineering students – the squarest kind of bohemian. When a pervert was roaming the village, half-climbing through women’s windows at night in order to cop a feel, we offered our ground-floor apartment in a rickety, easy-to-break-into house to the police for a stake-out. In retrospect, perhaps this wasn’t a practical offer, but who am I to judge? All I know is we tried to assist them, but were told nonetheless that the police would take no action: it seemed that this fellow (and he was a fellow – I remember his knuckly, hairy hands hovering over me) would have to completely enter someone’s abode and do something even worse before the police would care. Or whatever “We can’t act until he escalates” means.
Even so, when we found a piping plover trapped in a water intake, we called the police again (animal control). The signage posted around the intake had warned of the dire consequences of entering without permission, after all. The police response – a piping plover is too small to shoot, “so it’s not our problem” – is one I almost sympathize with. Or would have, if the poor plover hadn’t gotten himself sucked into the water intake of a generally sleepy town. Moreover, when “Officer Friendly” visited our elementary school when we were kids, he assured us that policemen were friendly, the kind of guys who rescue kittens from trees, not cruelly mock citizens’ attempts to rescue injured birds. Well, the plover was rescued in the end, spirited away in the middle of the night by some college kids willing to break the law, climb into that intake, then transport an endangered species across state lines (undoubtedly a violation of the migratory bird act, too) to a shelter willing to care for the remainder of its natural life. In retrospect, a fine time was had by all (even the bird acquiesced to the long car trip with aplomb). Even so, it left our trust in the law just that much weaker.
I’ve reached the point where interacting with police – for any reason – unnerves me. As Theodore Dalrymple notes, the minor infractions of a basically law-abiding type like me offer bureaucratically-minded enforcers easy pickings. Nonetheless, my respect for the due process of law remains largely intact. Perhaps because I’m a lawyer’s kid. Or perhaps only because I’ve had the good fortune to avoid testifying in court.
When I read then, an account of someone blatantly lying to the court – and not to protect others’ reputations, either, but to defame them – it’s hard for me to sympathize. What reason could possibly be good enough to justify such behavior? According to many on this site, though – and people I assumed were even bigger sticklers for for the rules than I am – “keeping the baby I promised to someone else” may be one such reason. I realize I’m not a mother yet, but this surprised me. It leaves me wondering in what other ways the people who chide me for my “anarchic” libertarian ways might also believe that their own moral principles leave them above the law.
So I ask you, fellow Ricochetoise, what do you believe you owe the law? And what, specifically, do you believe that you don’t owe the law?
When you know you’re breaking the law, how do you justify it to yourself? How do you justify others’ contempt for the law, like that of the woman who allegedly lied to the court to keep her baby?
Do you draw a distinction between ignoring the law for expedience (“I can’t get this permit, but I need to keep working anyhow”) and high moral principle? If you do, how, and if you don’t, why?
Published in General
you know, they say that 1 in 5 women on college campuses … um … something. I’m amazed anyone feels safe, there!
I do not recognize the authority of that marxist–fascist term!
;-)
Aaron’s list of things that undermine rule of law is a good one. I would draw a distinction between seriously unjust laws (which I regard as non-binding) and trivial or needless laws, which have at least some binding force. As others have noted, we have so many laws nowadays that it’s almost impossible to follow them all. No one has time even to learn them, and some are effectively dead letter while others are in sort of a middle state, not totally dead but rarely enforced. In such a state, we sort of navigate a balance between natural and such positive laws as seem most needful and/or likely to get us into trouble if we break them. Not sure how else to manage under the circumstances.
Maybe not… there seem to be many of these perverts out there.
But yeah, the same idea.
After all the attention payed to traffic laws, which are indeed very common points of disobedience even among conservatives, I’ll add another general observation.
Severity of injustice in laws invites disobedience, but so does frequency of undue imposition.
Of course, “undue” is a judgment call. But the reason so many people are willing to defy traffic laws and risk fines (assuming, as I do, that most people aren’t doing so from carefully deliberated principles) is the that this “burden” affects them nearly every day. It is perceived as constant interference in hurried lives.
If businesses could as commonly away with defying regulations, I’m sure those laws would be similarly ignored.
Upon examination, too many “laws”, whether we call them rules, statutory, or natural, turn out to be the personal preferences of the self-entitled. The self-entitled are naturally self-righteous – I believe that’s a natural law.
Ricochetes (sounds like machetes).
A proper martini is stirred. That is why we have martini spoons – their edges are curved to avoid chipping the ice and diluting the drink. Agent Bond’s preference is an affectation made in aggressive ignorance, seeking an unearned distinction.
I see an interesting similarity in the supposed rule regarding “less” and “fewer.” If it were a matter of logic or clear communication then Midge’s mathematical argument would send it to the dustbin with little comment and less resistance. It being a mere personal preference, however, it must be defended with recourse to “self-respect.” I hear Eric Cartman.
Regarding Mistheocracy and etiquette, I make no inference and intend no implication.
a) Bond’s preference is because he’s working. He’s trying to dilute the martini. In the books, he doesn’t even like vodka. He only drinks it to fit in around Russians. His actual spirit of choice is bourbon with branch water, which one might surmise wasn’t all that easy to obtain in 1950s England.
b) The drink being carried by my avatar isn’t his. He’s merely delivering it to his employer. If he makes a substandard martini it’s because, as a committed misthiocrat, he’s the one who is really in charge and his employer is too foolish to know any better.
Misthiocracy, I had not looked closely at your avatar before and now I see I’ve copied someone’s misspelling of your name. I’ll atone at an opportune time.
Regarding point a), thanks for rehabilitating Mr. Bond. He will have to pay you back for that one, however.
I believe it was Cicero who commented, “The more laws, the less justice.”
Also, another saying that I heard, though I don’t know the provenance, states “The essence of tyranny is not iron law but arbitrary law.”
As a citizen I don’t owe the law anything. I owe my fellow citizens a decent respect for the laws created by lawful authority in my community, state, and nation. If I disagree with those codes, I owe my fellow citizens my efforts to change those laws or alternatively my acquiescence. I also owe my fellow citizens some level of common sense when driving, etc., so when strict obedience to traffic codes creates a safety hazard I need to err on the side of safety. If after all these obligations I elect to ignore some codes for my convenience, I owe the immediate enforcement authorities my acceptance of responsibility and my best manners in dealing with the situation.
As an oath-taking public official, however, the situation is altered. Other than legitimate issues of interpretation and allowable discretion, nothing allows me to decide to what extent I will comply or not comply with existing code. There should be no situations where I get to pursue a course of action at odds with authoritative interpretations of lawful enactments, and I still get to keep my position of public employment.
More than one economist has done the math and concluded that the time saved by parking illegally often outweighs the risk and/or cost of a parking ticket, depending on the circumstances.
I presume the same could be said for many other traffic laws, depending on the circumstances.
For most traffic-related penalties the penalty shouldn’t be monetary, since it allows for this kind of cost-benefit analysis, and the incentives to abide parking/traffic rules are basically nil because the odds of getting caught are close to zero and the benefits are obvious.
If obedience to the traffic code was the objective, they ought to move to a model where fines are non-monetary, and eventually result in a revoked driver’s license. It would also prevent cities from abusing citizens for an off-tax source of revenue, which is basically what traffic/speeding tickets are for in practice, and stick it to those unholy speed-trap towns.
In one European country (I’m too lazy to look it up right now), fines for moving violations are a percentage of income. They adopted that approach because nuisance fines weren’t much of a nuisance for those with financial means.
But I like your approach much better. We all share the roads. If you don’t play well with others, the penalty should be that you ultimately lose your ability to play.
I think it’s Finland.
Well, shouldn’t be monetary if obedience above all else is optimal.
But if obedience above all else may not be optimal – if, in fact, life hums along more smoothly if people get to make cost-benefit analyses about these sorts of rules – then fines may in fact be better, despite their tendency to be abused for revenue purposes.
That’s an interesting question: Whether the greater flexibility of getting to do a cost-benefit analysis on obedience is worth it, given the obvious propensity of governments to abuse fines for revenue. I suspect the answer may be “yes” (though I wouldn’t be shocked if it turned out to be “no”, either).
Part of the question is to what extent the costs are borne by others. If you are not taking into account the additional risk to others’ lives, your cost-benefit analysis will be skewed.
So it matters why certain ordinances are in place. Using speeding as an example again– If the upper limit is there for safety, you shouldn’t be able to make a cost-benefit determination with others’ lives. OTOH, if the upper limit is there to make you save gas, then maybe a financial tradeoff is an optimal way to balance your interests and society’s.
I disagree, because for most circumstances a monetary penalty, and/or the inconvenience of being stopped by police in the first place, is still sufficient incentive.
There’s no need to lose one’s license for running a red light at 4 in the morning on a country road when you’re the only car for miles around, etc. Circumstances matter.
I find that the answer to that question is determined largely by culture.
I happen to believe strongly in the principle of prosecutorial discretion, but many other Ricochetois have expressed the belief that “the law is the law, and police shouldn’t get to decide which laws to enforce”.
I, personally, think it’s precisely that attitude that results in absurd outcomes, like childrens’ lemonade stands being shut down for not having a license, but I concede that reasonable people can differ.
(This is similar to why I don’t believe it’s necessary to legalize marijuana in order to curtail the worst effects of the Drug War, when “selective” enforcement seems to work well up here in the Great White North. I still think decriminalization is a good idea, but not necessary.)
But liability rules, insurance premiums, and general guilt at hurting or inconveniencing other human beings already help us internalize the risk we pose to others when we’re behind the wheel.
Generally, as your likelihood of causing accidents increases, so does your likelihood of being in an accident, no? We can all imagine scenarios where some jerk who cuts someone off causes a pile-up behind him while he escapes unscathed, but that’s a retrospective take, not a prospective one: prospectively that jerk has reason to fear that his jerkiness puts him at increased risk of getting into an accident himself. And once you are in an accident, you mark yourself out as liable if your recklessness caused it. Which is as it should be.
Speaking of the law,
Most people are not rational about their own abilities, and most people are quite irrational when it comes to estimating risk. A person may think that a shortcut late at night the wrong way down a one-way street is an acceptable risk. That person may correctly gauge that there won’t be a cop there. That person may also completely misjudge that others — also late at night — are not being vigilant for wrong-way drivers. A retroactive increase in insurance premium for the driver, or even a large legal settlement, won’t be much comfort to to the victim who was driving or walking within the law.
And even if a person gets the risk probabilities right, even with low probability bad things happen. Actuarial calculations that work for large populations break down at the individual level, where the realized probabilities are 0% or 100%. Some laws need to be absolute to protect others.
And moreover: The person driving within the law can estimate certain probabilities of bad things happening. But what gives a person who violates the law the right to increase those probabilities for everyone else?
On the other hand, if there weren’t so many terrible/reckless drivers around then this wouldn’t be an effective strategy for raising revenue.
The objective is to disentangle law enforcement from monetary incentive to enforce traffic rules. If there’s no revenue for traffic fines enforcement would probably be re-prioritized to deal with actual crimes naturally. So in my reasoning it’s not so much about the citizen as it is about law enforcement.
(I’d also argue that the same reasoning can apply to the war on drugs and the problem perverse incentives create, but that is a conversation for another day).
Not that we don’t need some traffic enforcement, but demonstrably this job can be done far better and with less error by red light cameras and other automated solutions.
People would go rightfully get up in arms about automated traffic enforcement if they just started getting extra bills in the mail constantly for dumb traffic nonsense. That’s just a cash grab. But if the rules were made in such a way as we gradually eliminated the bad drivers and encouraged better behavior on the roads, most people would be on board with that. Certainly they would welcome the elimination of traffic fines.
This is sort of the problem with attaching incentives (for the City/County budget) to bad behavior. In a way, the city depends upon you being a bad driver and parking where you ought not for a significant portion of its revenue. It is aggressively interested in you not being a good driver.
It’s a corrupting arrangement.
I can’t speak for others here, but aside from light speeding, most of my violations of traffic laws have been accidental.
I have gone down a one-way street the wrong way twice, but in neither case because I assumed I could get away with anything. Rather, it’s mundane stuff like not knowing that a two-way suddenly becomes one-way and missing the sign, or not knowing that the direction of a one-way street has recently been reversed. Moreover, I was raised to genuinely fear the hit insurance premiums take if you make a mistake – it seems a common-enough bourgeois fear to me.
Possibly, my womanish nature comes into play: men have unwarranted self-confidence; women unwarranted self-doubt. The reckless things I do behind the wheel aren’t done because I think I’m hotshot enough to get away with it, but mainly because I’m an easily-distracted person who’s not so great at interpreting social cues, even in the form of street signage and other cars.
Knowing myself as I do, I’m fairly frightened of causing an accident. Non-ticket deterrents like liability rules work pretty well on me. I cannot control my distractibility and ineptness entirely, but I can take steps to minimize it, like not thinking about other things or turning off the radio when I drive. I don’t know how many other drivers are like me – maybe more than a man might think there are.
German drunk driving laws are like this. Drunk driving + Autobahn = good way to kill people, so drunk driving + caught = good way to lose your license, permanently.
It used to be that the most actuarially expensive group of drivers was males below age 25. Now, the actuarial cost of accidents for women below age 25 is just about the same.
But leaving the realm of driving, consider leash laws for dogs in public parks. A dog owner may rationally believe it’s safe to disobey them — either because no one else is around, or because his dog is so well-mannered and obedient. But the law is there because of the person who thought the exact same way, and figured wrong. As humans, we are often rational in maximizing our own self-interest, but not rational about the risks we run. We can often delude ourselves and/or rely on faulty mental tricks, and as a result underestimate the true risks — especially risks to others. The prospect of a fine may shift the cost-benefit analysis more toward rationality, but will rarely truly cover the cost of the externalities.