We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Which law would you like to break? Economist Bryan Caplan has posed the question: which law would you like to break? I guess, that being a libertarian kind of guy, he favours giving the finger to those laws that do not protect life and property but instead regulate our behaviour for our own good.
So, it being the start of the weekend, I shamelessly steal Bryan’s idea and pose this question to the Samizdata hordes: which law would you like to break? And also, why?
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What law would I *like* to break?
In my state you can be charged with a felony for carrying a concealed firearm.
I’m right there with you Billy. Or perhaps buy an HK MP5SD and break the NFA.
There’ re plenty of laws I’d love to see broken by somebody, like having issue-wrangling, name-mentioning campaign ads or commercials, or like donating a million dollars to the campaign fund of some candidate I agree with. Anything that would stick “Campaign Finance Reform” in the eye. However, I just don’t have the money required to do that kind of law-breaking.
So the law-breaking that I’d most love to do is carry conceal. I’d love having my gun in my purse at all times. However, my depressingly blue state of Illinois is one of th 10 states left where carrying (conceal or not) is illegal.
*sigh* If I didn’t have so much family here, I’d be out like a shot. Head someplace that didn’t require my victimhood by law.
There are so many to choose from! I’m assuming that you mean “without penalty” and I think probably my favorite would be whichever combination of laws requires me to pay property taxes. They make it impossible to be left alone.
Essentially property taxes convert private landowners into renters with the taxing authority (the county in my case) in the role of landlord. Since they can force a sale of the property for taxes in much the same way a bank can foreclose, it gives them effective title to the property. Which is not to even mention the eminent domain (compulsory purchase) issue.
Furthermore, zoning, building codes, and other regulation also give the state day to day control over the property as well.
My chosen crime: To be a land owner.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/539768/posts
I’d like to kiss for six minutes.
I’d like to be able to travel freely about my country, including on airplanes, without once being asked for identification, having to surrender my sidearms (or fingernail clippers), or otherwise coming in contact with any government employee or “security” person. (Okay, that’s really a whole lot of laws, but it’s only one act…)
Why? Because I’d like to be able to travel quickly, cheaply, and safely anywhere I want.
Being in the UK I’d like to be able to call my life immoral[1] while doing my best to give myself cancer[2]. Because freedom only really means anything if you are free to be an arsehole.
[1]There was a woman arrested earlier this year for saying she though being gay was immoral. I am gay and don’t think it any of her business, but opinions should never be any business of the state.
[2]Smoking has been banned in pubs. I’ve talked to doctors specialising in public health and they say that the risks of passive smoking are negligable, this is being done to increase the stigma against smoking. The state should have no place in deciding what you freely choose to put in your own body, even if it is dangerous.
If every statute and every regulation that comes (as statutory instruments or whatever) from statutes is to be treated as “law”, then all of us break laws already (there are a vast numbers of regulations covering life [forbidding we do things that are in no way aggression against the bodies or goods of others, and demanding we do things that are in no way required by contract], and some regulations contradict other regulations).
What “laws” in particular do I break? Well this is a public site, so it would be unwise to give that information.
Although, doubtless, I break some “laws” without knowing it (ignorance is not held as an excuse in court), I have no desire to point to the “laws” I choose to break.
The laws prohibiting certain recreational drugs.
If there is ever going to be a major libertarian breakthrough it will be on the back of the widespread discontent about these laws.
Completely agree. I’m constantly frustrated with the local Libertarian Party over this. I live in Bloomington, IN, which just so happens to house Indiana University’s flagship campus. There are over 60,000 undergraduates in this town, not to mention hordes of other associates of the university. Needless to say, the Republicans are completely shut out of elections in the district and usually don’t bother to run candidates. It is not unusual for the Libertarian candidate to win 20% of the vote (mostly from people who want to vote Republican, I guess). And yet, our local party chapter thinks it would be a bad idea to stress marijuana legalization in our campaigns.
In a university town.
I mean, how can it honestly fail? It’s completely ridiculous. I have no idea what they’re afraid of. Honestly – it’s in the national party platform after all. Totally frustrating.
Gosh. Where to start?
I already broke the most restrictive law that affected me – the age of consent. I had sex with another man at the age of 17, when the age of consent for gay sex was 21. After years of suffering homophobic abuse at school (while the school claimed it could ‘do nothing’ to stop it due to Clause 28) it was the least I could do.
Nowadays, I’d like to break the law by – not paying the license fee, not pay any part of the council tax I disagree with, drinking an alcoholic beverage from an open container in the street in the part of Brighton in which I live, and (oh, the joy) lining all the chuggers up against a wall and shooting them. Especially the one collecting for the NSPCC who actually came up and kicked me in the leg after I brushed past her the other day.
I would add to that “taking lots of drugs”, but I don’t really want to. The thing is, I don’t want anyone telling me I can’t!
For me it has to be the manufacture and sale of illegal jam.
I would like to go to Saco, Missouri and wear an outlandish hat that frightens timid people and animals. It’s forbidden for women to do such things there. I’m still trying to decide an the appropriate hat.
A little OT… Missouri considers drunkenness an “inalienable right.”
“which law would you like to break?”
The one forced upon us by our all seeing, all knowing Socialist Nanny State that dictates it will be practically illegal to leave our homes without our ID cards. Can you imagine walking down the street and crossing the road to your local shop for a pint of milk and loaf of bread without an ID card. Oh, the sheer criminality of it. I’m a degenerate law breaker. Call the police and get my prison cell prepared NOW.
I forgot to say why:
1. I’ve always wanted to break a weird archaic law.
2. I like hats.
1. Completely disregard the constitutional amendment that established the income tax for the rest of my life. I hate preparing taxes and keeping all those damned records on a continuing basis. Multiplied by the households of the USA, what a freakin’ colossal waste of time. What kind of economic and inventive energy could be unleashed if all those accountants, lawyers, and IRS goons had to seek honest employment elsewhere and all of the rest of us weren’t so hogtied by that nightmare of a tax code?
2. Buy a sex toy in Texas. Better yet, sell them from a street vendor’s cart on the steps of the capitol in Austin, Texas. Just for spite and to help them Texas chicks with their stress management. *grin*
Please, the question is too easy. I’d like to buy, own, and shoot a .50 caliber Browning belt-fed machine gun. Screw the cost of ammo.
I’m with biskit and kentuck—give me some scary hats and sex toys and I’m ready to party all weekend.
Of course, a lot of the weekend is naptime, but I’ll be scary, not to mention buzzing or inflating or something… yeehaw!
Open season on spammers!
I and most people here break laws all the time. So this question is pretty moot.
Modern western countries have so many laws its almost impossible to go through a day without breaking some kind of law.
Death and Taxes.
No doubt it’s impressive that no one has plumped for the right/privilege to “kill people who need killing,’ but it seems a waste to spend One Free Law on funny hats.
After looking at that list of laws Troy posted above, I think I found one that should be common sense.
Memphis: Illegal for a woman to drive by herself; “a man must walk or run in front of the vehicle, waving a red flag in order to warn approaching pedestrians and motorists”.
Makes sense to me.
Smuggling. Doesn’t the very word make you want to drop everything and buy a speedboat?
Stand outside Number 10 Downing Street and yell, “Blair, You’re a thieving, lying, authoritarian scumbag”.
Breach of: Peace Act, 1361, Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, 2005, Crime and Disorder Act, 1998 and the Police Reform Act, 2002.
All of them.
Well I’m flying to America soon and not being able to smoke on the plane pisses me off. So I’d like to smoke on a plane to America.
And not just a ciggy…
I wanna smoke a gigantic cuban cigar.
And have a go on the controls. I’ve played Mig Alley and Strike Fighters – I’ll figure it out.
the laws of gravity
I’d like to break the second law of thermodynamics and invent a perpetual motion machine.
I’d like to buy the biggest, scariest most ludicrously powerful handgun available and open carry it in the local town centre. While wearing an “I hate chavs” t-shirt.
I would love to break the law of unintended consequences but there would probably be a down side I hadn’t counted on…
I’m generally with “all of them”, but since I can already walk down the street with a belt fed machine gun in hand legally, that one doesn’t turn my crank nearly as much (unless I feel like shocking people who don’t realize its legal here in New Hampshire).
My preference is to simply drive, travel, live, eat, piss, screw, buy, sell, work, hunt, fish, shoot, farm, log, build, etc. without any sort of license, permit, remit, stamp of approval, tax, or otherwise filing of paperwork in duplicate, triplicate, or even in original format, whether with dead trees or electronically, to beg some overpaid underworked overauthorized pompous ass to be able to live my life as a human being.
“I will not be briefed, debriefed, filed, stamped, punched, or numbered, I AM A FREE MAN!”
That being said, I’ll take driving without a license.
““No doubt it’s impressive that no one has plumped for the right/privilege to “kill people who need killing,’ but it seems a waste to spend One Free Law on funny hats.”
Well, “Ha”,
That makes sense to me. I’d like to change my crime. Forget the hat thing. I’d like one day to be free to kill people who need killin’ such as nasty little snide pricks.
The law that says foreign-born immigrants can’t be president
I have not filed any sort of income data with IRS, nor paid a single penny of income tax, since 1977.
Why?
Because what I produce is mine, and nobody can have it without my permssion. Nobody.
That is all.
I fully intend to not have an ID card if and when they are introduced.
“Whaddya got?”
Any one of ’em I feel is restrictive……