Bob Whitmire wrote:
> On May 1, 2008, at 12:41 PM, John Hermanson wrote:
>
>
>> HS is worming it's way into all our lives, like we are the criminals.
>>
> John, John, you're so naive. Don't you realize that to any "mature"
> government, rank and file citizens are _always_ the criminals?
>
True even in the probably only theoretical case of a government without
elements wishing to control the citizenry for various purposes contrary
to the legitimate purposes of that government.
Even then, the slow accretion of laws, many of which are not remembered,
let alone enforced, eventually makes it impossible to live an ordinary
day without breaking several laws.
Ever so occasionally, such a law is positively useful. Mono Lake, the
Sierra Nevada streams feeding it and the dry Owens River were all
rescued from the death grip of the LA Dept. of Water and Power
(Chinatown, the movie) through a completely forgotten law from the
latter half of the 19th. century. When desperate folks trying to save
Mono Lake went burrowing through every old record they could find, they
hit pay water.
Nobody had bothered to repeal the law, and it stood up through the
highest courts of appeal. Mono is close to full recovery. The recovery
of the riparian environment along the river course has astounded pretty
much everybody. Put the water back and the flora and fauna return. Way Cool!
Moose
==============================================
List usage info: http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies: olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================
|