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nomilk • today at 3:17 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

Snideness aside, your argument is that laws ought not apply to someone who is poor.

That's sometimes reasonable - e.g. the apocryphal loaf of bread being stolen to feed a starving family. But it's not a universal defence. And not all illegals are poor in the first place.


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datsci_est_2015 • today at 3:31 PM

If a law can only possibly impact the poor, then that law is effectively written to impact the poor - the purpose of a law is what it does.

If you make it illegal to sleep on the street at night (by extension, sleeping anywhere that isn’t a legal residence), you are de facto making it illegal to be homeless.

That a law applies to everyone is not a “universal defence” in its fairness.

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