
What is the purpose of issuing laws/regulations without penalty? (2017) - searchableguy
https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/26724/what-is-the-purpose-of-issuing-laws-regulations-without-penalty
======
supernova87a
I'll tell you, I hate the idea of half-measures like laws that don't get
enforced. (I'm not talking about hundreds-of-years-old archaic laws that are
ignored by everyone, I mean real current laws that have some implications. )

Why? Because good law-abiding people -- we want people like that, right? --
follow them with inconvenience and cost to themselves, while the people who
don't care just go on with the undesired activity the law is aimed at. Think
about when you have had to pay extra or buy something, or do something where
you found out no one was actually following up on it.

This creates a lot of frustration among the law-abiding. If you can't see that
and understand why that's a problem, you need to seriously think about it --
if you're of the opinion "what harm can it do?" or kind of "go with the flow"
about it. Just try taking an example from what you would feel at work if this
kind of thing allowed to happen. You would not be pleased.

I have to say, that is in no small measure a certain part of why people are
unhappy right now in public discourse. It seems like everyone is picking and
choosing the laws they feel like following. And the law-abiding on every side
are asking, "why are we suckers for wanting laws to be enforced"? Pick the
issue and you'll find examples of it. Maybe we should retreat a little from
our self-confidence and think "maybe I should follow rules even if I don't
agree with them" \-- inject a little of this approach for everyone's benefit
until we figure out what's wrong with us lately.

~~~
throwaway0a5e
If so many people don't wanna follow all the laws maybe there's too many laws.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
That's short sighted and I'm guessing, wrong.

People, in general, don't want to follow speed limits when they are
comfortable with a road or running a little late. This doesn't in any way mean
there are too many laws or even that the speed limit is too low. It is just an
instance of not wanting to follow laws.

In Indiana, people are required to pay sales tax on online orders.
Voluntarily. Technically, you can be charged the tax, but there is little
enforcement and little voluntary tax paying. This doesn't mean there are too
many laws. The problem here is generally that it is too cumbersome to follow:
If the sales tax is added at point of purchase, people pay since there is no
need for recordkeeping or saving money for tax time.

Sometimes, laws simply aren't aligned with the wants/needs of the people. I
think this is a large part of why states are decriminalizing recreational and
medical pot: It more reflects the will of the people and enforcement doesn't
help the population. Enforcement simply costs money and tends to ruin lives
(by putting a drug charge on their record for something less destructive than
alcohol).

A contractor might cut corners to save money. It doesn't mean we should have
fewer building codes, though, since so many are there to keep folks safe.

Not wanting to follow laws doesn't mean too many laws.

~~~
closeparen
Low probability selective and/or random enforcement is a pernicious effect.
The real effect of a speed limit that’s too low according to most road users
is _not_ to declare society’s intentions about how you should drive. It’s a
way to fund the police department by taxing the unlucky, at best. And more
likely a pretext to pull people over for looking like they don’t belong.
Contemporary traffic engineers understand that you modulate speed with road
design, not signs.

------
xphilter
It’s to solidify a certain position before someone can. Suppose a state or
states have a law that is consumer friendly and has teeth behind it through
private right of action and penalties. Businesses don’t like that so they
lobby US senators and Reps to pass a law that preempts those state laws it has
no enforcement or penalties. Even better, the new law will, on the surface,
appear to “take the issue seriously.” But how can it if it has no penalty?
This can happen on the state level too—a good example is the Michigan VRPA
which sought to limit data sharing through penalty. It started to work, so
state legislature took away the penalties. Oh well.

------
praptak
There might be no penalty for breaking a regulation but if you do that and
cause harm, then you are at fault, which obviously has legal consequences.

I think a large part of the road code is like that in many places.

~~~
throwaway0a5e
Unless there's breach of contract involved you've usually got a basic tort
lawsuit. The bar for civil infraction charge is generally lower in practice
than for a tort judgement. The state can pass whatever stupid law it wants and
then get conviction based on the fact that the law was broken even if nobody
is injured. For a lawsuit you need injury. A prior civil or criminal case can
be pointed to in order to establish a fact pattern but a fact pattern doesn't
win you a lawsuit.

That said, in reality there's generally an exception if the person you're
suing is a class of person that doesn't in practice get equal protection under
the law (people who are drunk when the problem happened and people who have
been convicted of certain crimes are the most common classes of people who
suffer this fate).

------
ggambetta
This might be a very naive take, but perhaps you need to spell out what people
are supposed to do, so they can do it? "Murder bad" is obvious, but there's a
ton of much subtler regulations that might not be obvious or intuitive unless
they're explicitly written down.

~~~
watwut
But if there is no penalty, you are just limiting rule followers while giving
advantage to rule breakers.

~~~
luckylion
It's strange that a comment like this is downvoted.

I agree wholeheartedly. A law without enforcement is pressuring people not to
follow it. I think generally everyone understands that (hence tax laws are
enforced), but it's a more practical approach: you can never get 100% of the
population to comply, and you don't need to. If you can achieve the minimum
desired compliance without spending money on enforcement, you have what you
need and saved money.

It's naive, because it discounts the damage it does to lawfulness. When people
see that law-breakers are not punished (and are defacto rewarded in most
cases), they lose respect for the law, the state the is supposed to uphold the
law, and the states' institutions. I believe we can witness that in many
Western societies.

Murder investigations don't make a lot of sense economically, in most cases.
Unless it's a serial killer or a career criminal, the chances are slim to none
that they will commit the same crime again, so why -in that line of thinking-
should we spend money on finding out who did it and then imprison them for
even more money, especially when, ostensibly, our prison system isn't for
punishment? It wouldn't be a problem to let the few murderers in modern
European societies go free, but it would create a giant problem by what it
does to the population.

------
jgalt212
Because if you put important people in office, public servants cannot earn
$5MM a year, or more, when they return to private practice.

google: Eric Holder

------
onetimemanytime
Purpose is to get the money and to shift the blame to employers since they
"were told" to renegotiate. So suck it up employees.

