h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This entry (http://www.h2g2.com/A492338) discusses the reason why we have laws, and the purpose of the penalties applied if we break them. I have found that these issues are not widely considered, and I think they ought to be. Recommend this entry for inclusion in The Guide! Thank you.

Pattern-chaser

Pattern-chaser, your yarn will not be considered (in this forum) because you have submitted it contrary to the guidelines. Eventually this forum will be consigned to the sin bin - a place for wrongly-submitted Peer review submissions.

The subject line should read A492338 - Fundamentals of Law

Like the subject line of this posting.

Do try again

Loony

OK, Pattern-Chaser,

what you wrote here is a very interesting Entry, and I would be glad to see more of these Entries within the Guide.

But (with a Big B, a big U and a big T): The Entry isn't written according to the Guidelines for Edited Entries. You should change the following things if you want to see it withing the Edited Guide:
1. Don't write it from a first-person, but from a third-person view (Rule of thumb: Don't use "I" within an Entry).
2. Don't use smilies (The Editors will take them out anyway, and the lesser work they have to do, the better the chances for you Entry)
3. Submit it to the Peer Review in a proper form, exactly how Løønytünes has written before. (It seems to me that a lot of work in the whole picking-editing-featuring process can be done automatically, and Entries lacking the proper format might fall through the sieve, even if their content is really good!)

Hope this helps

OK guys, I've done what you asked, I think. I've removed the light and active first-person text, and made it sound flat and impersonal. [I accept that this is a Guide requirement, but you may have twigged that I think it's a retrograde step! ) I've taken the smilies out too. Presumably, I don't need to rename this thread, since that's already been done for me.

I am wondering whether a Scout will consider this entry because it doesn't really provide information. What it does is to promote the asking of certain questions, which I think people *ought* to ask themselves. Is this acceptable for a Guide Entry?

Thanks for the helpful comments. Perhaps they'll help me on the way to my first official Entry?...

Pattern-chaser

I missed the incorrectly written version, and what I've read is pretty good! Since no one seems inclined to give you slack about not writing in third person, I'd like to add that you do use rather a lot of "you" at the reader, which you might consider converting to "the reader" or some such thing to make it even less personal.

Not bad at all!

Respectfully,

Pixie

Pixie commented that >>...you do use rather a lot of "you"...<<

A quick scan reveals only two "you"s, in the final sentence, but I've removed both of them. I honestly don't think there's any life left in the text at all now. I've met your standards as best I can, so how about it, Scouts? Will you recommend it for inclusion in the Guide?

Pattern-chaser

Hi!

I disagree whole-heartedly that your article has no life left in it. Its great! Its just now written in a format you're not used to so it feels off. You will eventually become accustomed to this style of writing. I think you're going to make it into the Guide. :D

Respectfully,

Pixie Writer.

Thanks, Pixie, for your kind comments. Now it's all up to the Scouts...

Pattern-chaser

Hi there! Nice one. But... maybe rename it to "Fundamentals of Criminal Law"?
Tube

I think the admonishment about the laws being made at the begining is unnecisairy. Since this article is going to an international audience with a lot of Americans, it might be worth noting that in federal governments laws are made at every level of society. In America, almost all criminal laws are written at the state level and enforced by local agencies. It's actually hard to break a federal law without cheating on your federal taxes or going on federal government property.

It's a fun subject though. I'm always up for a discussion about criminal law, comparitive law, and traffic law.

Two Bit Trigger Pumping Legal Scholar

I think that this entry has a few problems. For a start, it calls itself "fundamentals of law", but fails to detail almost all of the fundamantal ideas of law.
For starters, you have the problem that whenever you write a law, you are assuming that the person doing the writing many years in the past (usually) knows better than the individual on the spot what is good behaviour, and what is bad behaviour. Often laws are writen not to stop the writer doing something that they don't trust themselves not to do, but to stop their neighbour from doing something that is none of the writers business, and which the writer wouldn't even consider doing in the first place. (prohibition of or is a good example of this).
You then have the problem of creeping stupidity, due to case law being binding on future circumstances. What starts out as a fairly harmless idea, or a minor protection for the innocent rapidly gets exploited by the guilty as a protection from justice.
You have the problem of cultural bias, which results in lots of black english prisoners being sent to psychiatric wards for talking to their god, when it is the cultural norm for some parts of black culture to talk to god, and they would be looked at strangely in their own culture if they didn't talk to him.
You also have the problem that if you give governments the power to tax and make laws, they always add to the legal and tax burden that you have to deal with, never reduce it. This is down to the inability of most political systems to elect any people to the job of legislators/politicians who will actually trust the public to control their own destiny, and make at least as good a job of it as the governments who are trying to do it for them.
I hope this gives you some ideas for where to start extending your entry to cover the area that it claims to cover.

One thing that's sort of related to the creeping stupidity point is the law of unintended consequences. Laws are often written or changed for excellent reasons. If they worked as they were written they'd be wonderful. When they're put into practice, they don't work quite right because there's a sublte problem with the law, or people's reactions to the law.

One example with which I am unfortunalty familiar is the DUI laws in the US. MADD and other traffic safety organizations pushed for harsher punishements. Now there are brief mandatory jail sentances, license suspensions (I think they're called bans in the UK), hefty fines, and proabation. Professional licenseing organizations like the ABA and the FAA are starting to revoke licenses for DUI.

That's all fine and good, but it's also created one of the most specilzed and overpriced area of the law, DUI defense. The really good ones start at about $5000 not to mention the cost of a trial.

It's also lead to some of the most tightly contested areas of the law. Since it's fairly easy to tell if someone is drunk, the attorneys have created a maze that prosecutors have to jump through to prove a case.

So now, if a person is represented by a half way decent attorney (which costs a bit less than the $5000). Prosecutors will often allow someone to plead to recklass driving rather than go through the trouble of a trial.

The law of unintended consequences has made it more difficult to actually prosecute DUI's.

TBTPM: I take your point about American law being made at state level. I've edited the Entry accordingly (although I can't be sure if the edit worked, as my browser reported that it failed...)

Xyroth: I apologise if I gave the impression that my entry addresses *all* of the fundamental principles of law. This was never my intention. The Entry *does* discuss issues which - I believe - are fundamental to an understanding of law in human societies.

I don't disagree with any of the examples you discuss, but I perceive them as implementation problems, not "fundamental" issues. I think that the zeroeth law of law-making should be: legislate only when there is no just and practical alternative. If this was so, I believe it would answer most of what you say. Sadly, it isn't necessarily the case, and the Real World contains too many examples of bad laws, or good laws deliberately misinterpreted and abused.

"I hope this gives you some ideas for where to start extending your entry to cover the area that it claims to cover." I'm sorry to tell you that I have neither the knowledge nor the inclination to extend my entry in the directions you suggest.

Our differences on the right of a government to coerce its subjects have been covered elsewhere. I don't want to resurrrect that issue again here.

Pattern-chaser

In posting 9, Tube suggested 'maybe rename it to "Fundamentals of Criminal Law"?' Thanks, Tube, for the thought, and for the nice words, but I think this Entry is at a sufficiently general level that it encompasses all aspects of law, not just criminal law. If it doesn't, then that's my fault. It's intended to, and it ought to.

Pattern-chaser

I'm sorry, but I can't really see punishment/deterrence etc in private law (which always aims at enforcing contracts or preserving the status quo ante rather than punishment (the US notion of punative damages excluded), IMHO) or public/administrative law. But, yes, it's your article.
Tube

Tube wrote "I can't really see punishment/deterrence etc in private law". Ah, now I see your point. Shazbat!! I don't want to get mired in details, as this Entry is (intended to be) pitched at the most general level. I'll give this one some thought...

Pattern-chaser

Hi pattern-chaser. Just to let you know that I'm recommending that this thread be sin-binned, so if you want this entry to continue to be reviewed, then I suggest you start a new thread in the correct format, and post a link to it here.

I'll read the entry when the new thread's been posted...

Editorial Note: This thread has been moved to the Peer Review Sin Bin because it doesn't follow the rules for posting Conversations to Peer Review (specifically the subject must include the A number of the entry).

This *isn't* a comment on the entry, and we'd be delighted if you could post another thread to Peer Review, in the correct format. Sorry about this, but we have to be strict on the format for the reasons outlined on http://www.h2g2.com/PeerReview

(It also has to be the first posting that has the correct format, as that's the one that appears in the conversation lists, so although it's been changed, it's still hard for us to scout it properly. Sorry!)

Editorial Note: This conversation has been moved from 'Peer Review Sin Bin' to 'Fundamentals of Law'.

Back to Entry - article deleted.