‘ If everything is potentially illegal, and government does not have the resources to go after everything, then the government basically has arbitrary power to do whatever it wants… ‘
In effect this is what Code Law does. Nothing is legal unless the Law says so, so there is no protection from arbitrary justice by default. Common Law by contrast is the opposite. Everything is legal unless the Law says not. The default is protection from arbitrary justice. This is why Common Law Countries are, or were, much more free. The Left, but the Right too alas, use legislative law to undermine Common Law and its default protection and there is a shift towards Code Law society. This is particularly so in the UK with its entanglement with the EU which has a Code Law framework which supersedes National Law and was often in conflict with UK Common Law requiring ‘enabling legislation’ to remove Common Law derived legislation otherwise the EU Law would be illegal in the UK.
In the US there is the Supreme Court, a growing threat to Common Law as it increasingly becomes a law-making body.
That’s the fight we have. Protect Common Law - reject Code Law. Good luck everybody.
Elsewhere. Russia provoking its siege? Like rape victims provoking their attackers.
Thanks for referring to Gail Heriot's work. I’m glad Hanania focused on her work although I’m surprised that he had never thought about disparate impact in Gail’s way. Economists know that Gail’s way is not different from our definition of negative externalities and our discussion on how they are/should be internalized. Yes, most of our actions have a disparate impact on others, meaning that under some ideal conditions we can/should internalize the negative externality. One way of internalizing it is through legal liability but to be effective the tort has to be recognized as such. I cannot elaborate on this issue here but I recommend learning about the history of tort law and why we have reached a new stage in which is too easy to abuse/expand it to many sorts of new, fabricated wrongs.
FYI, in ongoing Chile’s Constitutional Convention they have been discussing the possibility of being liable for any wrong —yes, to paraphrase one of Hanania’s old posts on the subject, in Chile, Woke Institutions May Become Constitutional Law. If approved, I’ll write the paper “Chile Constitution Disparate Impact Liability Makes Almost Everything Presumptively Illegal”.
Blockade proof China? Not possible. Imports too many essential materials. Example: China imports 75% of the petroleum it uses. The Middle East and Far East shippings lanes for materials and energy are very vulnerable to naval blockade. See map: https://energyfuse.org/infographic-the-worlds-oil-transit-chokepoints/
‘ If everything is potentially illegal, and government does not have the resources to go after everything, then the government basically has arbitrary power to do whatever it wants… ‘
In effect this is what Code Law does. Nothing is legal unless the Law says so, so there is no protection from arbitrary justice by default. Common Law by contrast is the opposite. Everything is legal unless the Law says not. The default is protection from arbitrary justice. This is why Common Law Countries are, or were, much more free. The Left, but the Right too alas, use legislative law to undermine Common Law and its default protection and there is a shift towards Code Law society. This is particularly so in the UK with its entanglement with the EU which has a Code Law framework which supersedes National Law and was often in conflict with UK Common Law requiring ‘enabling legislation’ to remove Common Law derived legislation otherwise the EU Law would be illegal in the UK.
In the US there is the Supreme Court, a growing threat to Common Law as it increasingly becomes a law-making body.
That’s the fight we have. Protect Common Law - reject Code Law. Good luck everybody.
Elsewhere. Russia provoking its siege? Like rape victims provoking their attackers.
Thanks for referring to Gail Heriot's work. I’m glad Hanania focused on her work although I’m surprised that he had never thought about disparate impact in Gail’s way. Economists know that Gail’s way is not different from our definition of negative externalities and our discussion on how they are/should be internalized. Yes, most of our actions have a disparate impact on others, meaning that under some ideal conditions we can/should internalize the negative externality. One way of internalizing it is through legal liability but to be effective the tort has to be recognized as such. I cannot elaborate on this issue here but I recommend learning about the history of tort law and why we have reached a new stage in which is too easy to abuse/expand it to many sorts of new, fabricated wrongs.
FYI, in ongoing Chile’s Constitutional Convention they have been discussing the possibility of being liable for any wrong —yes, to paraphrase one of Hanania’s old posts on the subject, in Chile, Woke Institutions May Become Constitutional Law. If approved, I’ll write the paper “Chile Constitution Disparate Impact Liability Makes Almost Everything Presumptively Illegal”.
Blockade proof China? Not possible. Imports too many essential materials. Example: China imports 75% of the petroleum it uses. The Middle East and Far East shippings lanes for materials and energy are very vulnerable to naval blockade. See map: https://energyfuse.org/infographic-the-worlds-oil-transit-chokepoints/