Naw, not really, but I saw this overly-opinionated exchange and was wondering what people here thought.
*previous, unrelated argument with redneck troll, not involved in the exchange below*
Lawyer: Do you seriously believe that you, personally, should understand every law that passes or otherwise that law is a bad idea?
IT guy: YES! Absolutely!
IT guy: If I am responsible for knowing the law, then they are responsible for making the law knowable. The impossibly complex myriad of laws is a big part of the reason why this country is fucked up.
Beltway dude: It's really simple to imagine a country with incredibly simplified laws that is also terrible.
Peanut gallery: Could you provide an example?
Lawyer: [@ IT guy] You want to be responsible for knowing the entirety of the law?
Peanut gallery: We're already responsible for knowing a bunch of the law, including the laws of every foreign country and state that I purchase stuff from.
IT guy: We are held responsible, and no one, not even an expert that spends their lives studying the law can know all of the laws that apply to them.
IT guy: This has created a society where we pretty much do what we think is right, and we hope not to break the law. This empowers through selective enforcement (itself not a bad thing), certain people to use the law to harass just about anyone they want, because everyone is constantly breaking laws they are unaware of. This also breeds a disrespect of the law, and law enforcement. All of this is bad for society.
The lawyer in that is a friend of mine, a very reasonable and intelligent guy. The Beltway guy is sort of an acquaintance and is an interesting guy, but is also a bit of a dick (one day he sort of decided he makes too much money to actually hang out with any of us IRL). The others are just Internet People whom I don't really know well.
So is this the next stage in the evolution of the whole right-wing/libertarian subversion/dismissal of government as a useful institution? I mean, if so, it's well done. That's a much more attractive way to frame things, not to mention it's also subtler.
On the other hand, I can at least see the attractiveness of it. I mean, a penchant for long-winded posts aside, I actually appreciate clarity, brevity, and simplicity a lot.
But again, I also think there's a bit of bullshit to the "nobody really knows the law" and "everybody just does what they think is right" claims. I think people know the substance of the law in most of the ways they touch on them in daily life. Take driving for example: When people speed or run red lights, or whatever, they're pretty cognizant of the basic law and it's penalties. Maybe they don't have the exact legislation memorized, but is that actually analogous to not knowing the law?