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I agree with you on not imprisoning non-violent drug offenders. As far as penalties, there is great room for improvement, and I love your idea about having criminals work to pay back their debt to society...would be a huge improvement over a prison system that (I agree) is very corrupt. But the system and the laws are not always the same thing; you continue to paint them with the same brush and I understand you have some major distrust of both. But I would be careful about throwing the baby out with the bathwater when the fixes may not mean dismantling everything society has built to address its problems. Regarding criminal law, the crimes are pretty similar in most states and the legislatures revisit them on a regular basis. Many of them do go back a very long time; take a look at the Ten Commandments and compare with any state criminal code. You can just take the 'easy way out' scoundrel's argument that government created all of it and therefore it's all evil, but to a large extent, this is society''s way of dealing with these problems and if you create new solutions, then over time they pretty much will end up in the same place.
Overall, I don't think I agree with you on very much. You are very, very far off on your concept that eliminating statute law will save any sort of money. Courts and trials are by far the most expensive aspect of the system. That is precisely why, at every step of the process, courts and judges try like hell to get everyone to settle and keep their cases out of court. Believe me, you do NOT want a world where the rules come only from case law. That would be a full on nightmare.
Hey at least we agree on some things. Yeah some of the laws are based in part on some principles and that's fine. A lot of this discussion is based on perspective too. I'm speaking more from an idealistic & theoretical standpoint and just presenting alternatives. We're creatures of habit and governments are typically slow to adapt because there just really aren't enough competitive free market forces to make government processes efficient. It's good to check in at the local DMV every once in a while to see what 'progress' looks like. Sure governments have some constraints to be efficient only enough to maintain solvency and as long as they can continue taxing people. We can go down the line about foreign policy & wars, healthcare/welfare, education, commerce, money etc and it's common for people to theorize about alternatives that are better. Most may not say these areas are completely broken, but I think most will agree that they can significantly be improved. I say the judicial system is no different. It just may take many decades to improve for all I know.
Good thing is that technology gives us some potential for significant change. We're experiencing that with Bitcoin/Bitshares in the area of money & commerce. Blockchains and smart contracts may make commerce more efficient and eliminate legal friction. Once we start seeing more collateralized smart contracts that execute agreements with code there will be far less disputes. Possession is 9/10ths of the law. You can extend that out further and envision a society where people are bonded and insured for many activities with smart contracts. Who knows technology may eventually make much of government obsolete in the distant future.
BTW another random idea about mutual aid... I've seen startups working on security mobile apps and I think there is major potential there. You can create a mutual aid defense & security system simply with a mobile app and GPS. Anytime you're in trouble you just click a button on your smartphone and notify members in your area for help. Will mutual security be made illegal?
Anyways much of what I talk about are theoretical and so I'm not expecting that things will change overnight, but I'm optimistic about potential progress over the coming years and decades.
Topic: Mutual Aid Societies (Read 32470 times)
