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tfrancisl • yesterday at 7:26 PM • 2 replies • view on HN

I would rather we have plain language legislation than playing this dumb waiting game of "well, I felt like interpreting these 20 laws and 16 cases this way today, and my successors will overturn this with the flick of a pen". It doesnt help that our legislature, and even many of our jurists, are bought out ever since the Citizens United decision.


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betterunix2 • yesterday at 7:52 PM

> I would rather we have plain language legislation

I doubt that you would be happy with the outcome, certainly not if you had to actual deal with such a legal system. Plain language laws sound great in theory, but in practice the result is a rigid system that is easily manipulated by bad actors and which becomes oppressive to honest people.

"No, I am not marketing a tobacco product, I am marketing a product that produces nicotine from other chemicals, then vaporizes it to be inhaled!"

"If I had not done it, my children would have been seriously injured, are you really going to imprison me for protecting them?"

In general, whenever a society tries to apply its legal code, it will begin to develop judicial law by necessity -- at some point you will have to deal with borderline cases where it is not clear if the law was broken, no matter how clear the language of the law might appear. Here is an ancient example taken from the bible: the death penalty shall only be imposed on the basis of testimony from two witnesses. OK, seems pretty clear, but we know from the Talmud that questions arose when the law was applied -- who counts as a witness, what counts as testimony from a witness, etc.

Also keep in mind that no matter how plainly laws are written down, over time you will wind up with a large number of laws as society deals with changing conditions and unforeseen circumstances. Inevitably you wind up with contradictory laws and you do need some process for resolving the contradiction and determining which law should be applied.

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freejazz • yesterday at 9:18 PM

Did you read the legislation? It's fairly plain language. The idea that something plain language will somehow end debates is pretty funny IMO.