@Batman, regarding the relationship between drinking and being drunk, you’re messing up necessary and sufficient conditions. You have to drink to get drunk, but drinking does not necessarily lead to getting drunk. By your logic, buying axes should be illegal because axe murderers use them. Regarding voting age, I’m suggesting we think about alternative criteria. Intelligence is one possibility, though not a very good one. Re: reasons behind laws, I agree that it seems like laws are written and voted on without much understanding.

@H, businesses are not democratic. The owner does not choose things with his/her employees, but chooses for them. That’s why there are so few holidays.

@Publius, my point about the rocking chair was that when you share music, it’s not stealing because, although you get the item for free, the person you ‘took’ it from still has it. I’ve explored this issue much more thoroughly in a serious of posts on the RIAA.

@osc, I agree that it’s reasonable to restrict things that pose health hazards. However, there’s no evidence that public nudity is any more dangerous than going shopping while having the flu or swimming in a public pool. At what level of danger do we make things illegal? Going nude does not increase your risk of malaria compared wearing a skimpy bathing suit. Since head lice seems unproblematic in our society, I suspect pubic lice would not pose much problem.

@Dave, these are brief illustrations intended to provoke a thoughtful response. They are not intended to be bulletproof arguments, like some of my previous posts. Sometimes it’s more fun to let the arguments come out in the discussion, as has happened here. You’re right, I have not researched the fundamental reason for jaywalking laws. Care to enlighten us? BTW: have I mentioned how helpful it is to have a cop for a reader when you write about law all the time? I appreciate your perspective, even when I disagree - no, ESPECIALLY when I disagree.

@Dude #2, it’s ok to swear on my blog if it’s how you feel, but try to be a little more coherent. This isolationist stuff is totally off topic.

@James, I don’t know if you can infer much about government intentions from laws because the system of law making is an uncontrolled, ambiguous, poorly stuctured, amoral, dialectic boondoggle where nobody seems to have a fucking clue what’s going on. More on this in a later post.

@Dave and H, I give cops a lot of shit in this blog because there’s so much abuse of power out there, but this isn’t an enforcement issue, it’s a there’s-too-many-stupid-laws issue. There’s plenty of real crime going around to keep the police busy if we stopped wasting their time with all this piddly bullshit. For instance, in many parts of Canada, it’s become difficult to prosecute shoplifters because the police don’t have time for it. Shoplifting is a genuine crime, unlike the items above.

try being a cop, then come back and give us a report.

You’re right though, a famous person (i forget the name) said something along the lines of “The only power the government (police) have is against criminals. When society runs out of criminals, the government makes more. So many things become crimes it’s impossible for people to live their lives without breaking some law.”

So yes they are trying to justify their existence. Very few real crimes happen. So many cops would have no job if they were restricted to real crimes.