libertarian_knight said:
The purpose of laws in society is to prevent people from harming and seriously interfering with the welfare of others. If you don't have such laws, you have anarchy, and that quite simply doesn't work out for the good of all. Yes, you can have too much law, which makes a tyranny, but you prevent that tyranny if you only have laws that help protect each individual's personal safety and promotes their happiness in general. You are a libretarian, which means you probably want the liberties of individual people protected. Laws help to protect such freedoms, but only if you have such laws in not an excess amount.
And the fact is the law would make reasonable people fearful if they did break the law. If I killed someone, I sure would be fearful that I will be locked away for life.
By the way, I do not think abortion is putting too much law onto a society...it's protecting a living person, in my opinion, one of the biggest roles of the state (to protect life).
Law rarely protect, at least crimminal justice laws. Some regulatory laws can, like don'[t throw Mercury in the rivers...(well we see how wells those work, how many lakes can't people eat the fish from now?)
Penal laws do not stop people from murdering, or stealing or raping. I mean if they did, why are prisons as full of violent crimminals as they are? Sure, for the fearful, they may put a dent in the crime rate by having them think over the getting-caught scenerio.
Reasonable people aren't fearful because reasonable people don't see a benefit to common crimes. Fearful people are the say "I shouldn't rape that girl, because I might go to jail" (which of course, when they think they CAN get away with it, they try.)
Reasonable people say "I shouldn't rape that girl." and when reasonable people think they can get away with it, they don't try.
As far as abortion law being too much, I qualified my statements noting I was not refering to it necessarily.
Also, throwing people is jail is not Justice. At best it might stop the bad guy from doing it again, at least for a little while, or just be smarter next time. If someone steals from me, and goes to jail, I probably will never get what was stolen back, and since I am a reasonable man, i'll have to pay taxes to support him. Twice the victim. Justice is about redressing a grievence, not sweeping the bad man under the rug along with some food, clothing, shelter and cable TV.
I guess though, an illusion of Justice is good enough.
An ancient chinese proverb states "The worst thing ever done for Justice, was to write down the law." I believe it. Even worse is letting lawyers define words.
Oh, one more thing, "one of the biggest roles of the state is to protect life"? 1) not according to the Supreme Court, and 2) people are still dying, with 2000+ years of governments. they suck