Post No.: 0572
Fluffystealthkitten says:
Cultures shape laws, and laws shape cultures. But cultures and communities should ideally shape the values, standards and in turn laws we have i.e. laws should reflect and react to the circumstances of a particular time and place, rather than dictate them.
Because laws should respond to the present culture and community, this means that laws from one country won’t always work in another. We cannot over-simply presume that if a law appears to work elsewhere then it’ll work here, or vice-versa, without comparing and assessing the details. Even within one country, there can be many different subcultures and disagreements (which is why it’s almost always impossible to please everyone).
It must be noted however that just because many people do something within a particular community or something is part of a particular culture, this doesn’t necessarily make it morally right to be legal on that basis alone (e.g. pirating copyrighted works, systemic gender discrimination)!
If, say, a new technology creates unforeseen moral plights that reveal an inadequacy of the current legal regime then (although there’ll be resistance from parties who profit from the status quo) new laws should evolve that are more fit for purrpose.
But for generally reacting rather than anticipating, the law is inherently conservative since it generally does not precede community thinking, standards or affairs but lags somewhat behind. Oftentimes, it’d arguably be better if new laws were passed pre-emptively before new problems surface, like when anticipating the major consequences of a new technology, before people die or society is irreparably harmed. Some thus complain that laws are often too slow to keep up with the times. Waiting until the aftermath, as well as the usually very sluggish and cumbersome process of passing new common laws through parliament, may be too late for some people and their families.
Some smoke alarms sold in the UK are poor at waking children up because of the frequencies they emit. But there’s currently no regulation to make it mandatory for all smoke alarms to emit a wider range of frequencies. The reason given by a representative of several alarm manufacturers was because there was yet any practical need to address this flaw because parents will simply wake their children up! Basically, many children must die first in a situation where every second counts before there’s external, or self, regulation to make the solution mandatory – even when the solution appears incredibly cheap and simple. The answer from manufacturers was to merely make it clearer in the instructions that the alarms mightn’t wake children up(!)
For a long time, restaurants in the UK only needed to provide limited food allergy warnings regarding their dishes. But several allergy death cases in recent years grabbed the media, which spurred the law to catch up. E-cigarettes have only recently been looked at more closely in light of several vaping-related deaths in the US too.
The UK didn’t have drink-driving laws until 1967, after enough drink-driving deaths were considered enough. The law was even considered controversial at the time, with many arguing that it was against individual liberties and that it harmed the profits of publicans. Similarly, using a mobile phone while driving only became an offence after evidence of lots of accidents that involved them. Eating a banana whilst driving, meanwhile, isn’t an offence in itself (unless one has an accident as a result), and highly likely won’t be unless a spate of accidents occurs that involve bananas or eating similar things while driving. Meow.
The use of consumer drones in any context wasn’t specifically regulated from the outset but only after a number of accidents involving them urged the introduction of new regulations. But there are some signs of forward-thinking prevention here – even though, as of the time of posting, there haven’t been any fatalities caused by drones flying into aircraft yet, the law concerning non-military drones flying near airports has been extended.
Well laws must balance between any foreseeable conflicting interests and unintended consequences e.g. cycling with a helmet and hi-vis clothing isn’t compulsory in the UK despite their obvious benefits for riders. But cycling is an activity that’s encouraged for various reasons (e.g. for the environment, the health of oneself, as well as others because no exhaust fumes are being pumped into other people’s lungs) and so laws for wearing them will arguably make it less attractive for many people to cycle. There are also arguably many other ways to make cycling safer, like improving the cycling infrastructure.
Governments aren’t out to curb people’s fun and freedoms for the hell of it! There has been a wave of vehicle-based terrorism in recent times across the world, yet it wasn’t a conspiracy to get us to stop driving, and no government is even contemplating a vehicle ban as a result of them. Well-functioning parliaments try to think about both the costs and benefits of new laws, and preferably the real rather than imaginary ones (e.g. the imaginary protections that owning a firearm really gives to one’s family against criminals with firearms and their true intentions to kill and their advantages of choosing when they do so hence always catching their victims by surprise).
However, imaginary fears and imaginary solutions do matter to a frightened public, hence irrational laws can exist or persist. (Corporate lobby power plays a part too.) Guns overall create more costs than benefits in society but some citizens care about their imaginary benefits that don’t match the objective statistical costs (of gun-related crimes and accidents); whereas cars overall create more benefits than costs (petrol and diesel emissions are a pertinent environmental issue though, hence supporting the infrastructure for electric and hydrogen-powered vehicles is the plan for many governments around the world).
Frequently, when we don’t understand why a certain law exists, or doesn’t exist, we’ve got to look less myopically and consider all of the competing interests. But we tend to only understand our own interests and those within our own selected ingroups. A democracy doesn’t mean ‘everything should accord to only what I understand and believe is right’(!) Generally, in well-developed democracies at least, the laws that exist today have their debated and deliberated reasons for existing rather than being ‘oppression for oppression’s sake’. A proposed new law (bill) must go through several hoops and be agreed by lots of different people before passing into legislature. In the UK, new bills must be agreed by both houses of parliament before they can become Acts of Parliament or laws.
Having said that, some laws are incredibly archaic now and have little to no relevance for today’s culture and community, and that’s when they need to be reviewed. Yet leaving them there might cause little to no bother precisely because they affect virtually no one anymore (e.g. it’s still illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament wearing a suit of armour!) Parliamentary time really shouldn’t be wasted unless they become problematic.
Some laws seem excessive to some people, like treating harassment as a crime, whether as a principle and/or because there are limited policing resources to make them effective. Some lawyers also argue that there are sometimes already laws that sufficiently cover an issue but more broadly rather than specifically, and so these new laws are unnecessary, knee-jerk-reaction, extra red tape to deal with. An area of law may consequently become messier and more confusing too.
But laws are often used to set the desired tone for the kind of society we should wish to have (as expressed through elected representatives). More specific laws can also clarify what’s deemed illegal (e.g. holding a mobile phone whilst driving, even though driving without due care and attention was already an offence).
After a while, some people will question why we have certain regulations because no one’s getting hurt? This can be like a healthy person questioning why she/he bothers eating a healthy diet because she/he never gets sick(!) It’s usually precisely because of those laws, regulations or features e.g. motorways were designed with hard shoulders for a reason, then some in the UK questioned why an entire lane is always under-utilised when there’s so much congestion that could be eased if the hard shoulder was opened as a regular lane. So ‘smart motorways’ were introduced in some sections. But – whether because of the current technology, poor implementation, or the idea itself – dozens of fatal accidents have occurred that would’ve been avoided if the hard shoulder was left only for broken-down and emergency vehicles. There have been a tremendous number of near misses too.
Some things can, ostensibly, appear like a waste of money upfront, but will save costs down the line. Dealing with a spark is rationally better than dealing with a fire, whether we count the monetary, human or societal costs (e.g. ‘gateway drug’ use can lead to harder drug use, harassment can escalate into physical violence (well harassment can itself cause psychological harm)). Of course, the pros and cons still need to be weighed up, and the weights assigned to each pro and con are where most disagreements occur (e.g. concerning the debate in many countries regarding legalising marijuana or not, or some other lateral-thinking solution, because incarceration overall doesn’t work yet marijuana still causes psychoactive effects and can be addictive).
For many people at the time, salmonella was just some made-up thing by government scientists because the bacterium couldn’t be seen with the naked eye in eggs, and the chickens that laid them seemed fine too. The British egg industry almost went under but it was all for our safety, and now stricter regulations mean that British eggs are currently some of the safest in the world to eat raw or runny. Thus government interference isn’t always bad.
Democratic governments are typically guided by scientists and think tanks, as well as the media and public ourselves. Laws or regulations are seldom ‘out of the blue’ – even though they may appear that way from the outside. Many are based on scientific research and recommendations made decades ago but only now some real-world problem highlighted by journalists has made us pay attention to and finally act upon them (e.g. university applications that have names removed so that administrators don’t pre-judge applicants, clearer food labelling).
So laws don’t ban things ‘to control us for the sake of controlling us and curbing our fun and freedoms’, otherwise they’d have banned lots of things such as sex or swearing! (And I would’ve been ****ed regarding the latter!) Things are banned to protect us in the wake of evidence of their dangers to individuals or communities. New psychoactive substances once known as ‘legal highs’ were only banned after the death statistics from such substances were confirmed – the law didn’t bother with them until the death/health toll was mounting and could no longer be ignored. Lots of children/people do assume that if something is legal then it’s safe, hence making something illegal will signal that it isn’t. If certain pesticides prove to cause harm to humans then they’ll get banned from human consumption, as some have been; but if they don’t then they’re left alone – bearing in mind combinations of pesticides, their harms to other life and the pros of their use versus their cons, which might mean limiting the amount used rather than banning them outright because growing food is necessary (whilst those recreational drugs aren’t in comparison).
Don’t follow the fear – follow the statistics, and then don’t ignore them. If people aren’t being harmed then pay attention to that statistic (although some harms have a delayed effect or only accumulate over time). If people are being harmed then don’t ignore that statistic either.
Meow. Our laws don’t always seem appropriate for the ever-changing present culture or community, but that’s all the more reason why they must keep being adapted. And the media and public (like you and me) play our important role in shaping new laws too!
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