As a former center-leaning conservative-slash-libertarian, I do understand the sentiment behind the whole “we have too many laws!” trope. If one is fed a steady diet of opinion that “bad people are going to break the law anyway” and “the only purpose of laws is to restrict our freedoms” and so on, and if one has no balancing source of information and critical thought, then it’s no surprise when one ends up with that mindset.

So it was also no surprise to me when a family member posted this meme today: a photo of a skeleton sitting on a sofa, looking out the window, with these words typed onto it in ALL CAPS and without punctuation:

“Just sitting here waiting for someone to explain how more laws are going to stop someone who has already decided to break all of the existing laws.”

I don’t feel sorry for the skeleton; it’s his own fault he waited for an explanation instead of searching it out on his own or using his critical thinking skills to figure out where his logic went wrong.

The primary logical fallacy committed here is the argument from incredulity, which says: “I don’t understand something; therefore it’s wrong.” The meme’s messages is also, of course, an oversimplification, hyperbole, and a straw man.

It’s a straw man because no one has ever argued “more laws are going to stop someone who has already decided to break all of the existing laws” — or anything close to this. It’s hyperbole because of the word “ALL” — no one has “decided to break” ALL of the existing laws. It’s an oversimplification because of the fundamental misunderstanding of what laws are for, what they do, and why we have them.

(Based on context, such as recent posts and the current national debate, I assumed the topic here is gun control and/or mass shootings, but the meme fails regardless of topic. Mass shootings, of course, have a variety of causes and solutions and can’t be solved by 27 ALL CAPS words in an image file.)

Laws don’t exist to keep lawbreakers from breaking the law; that’s absurd. I don’t think anyone has ever argued that “we need a law to make sure people obey the law” — yet that’s what this meme argues against.

Libertarian logic says: Good people aren’t going to rape anyone and rapists are going to do it even if it’s against the law. So what purpose is served by a law against rape? Safe drivers aren’t going to speed excessively, and excessive speeders are going to do it regardless of an anti-speeding law. So why have speed limits?

A more fundamental question from that point of view is: Why have laws at all? Even without laws, wouldn’t good people do the right thing? And aren’t bad people going to do the wrong thing, even with laws?

I admit I struggled with this question a bit as I matured into adulthood. There were days when I was philosophically tempted to slide past libertarianism to anarchism — a completely lawless, stateless society. Most people do the right thing — or at least avoid doing hurtful things — most of the time, I reasoned. If all governments and all laws magically ceased to exist overnight, I sincerely believe that most of us wouldn’t wake up tomorrow and begin raping, murdering, looting, assaulting, stealing, and parking on sidewalks. Some of us would, of course, because they do it even with the laws. So how would life be any different?

It was not difficult to reason myself out of that position, having observed and conversed with human beings. The simple layperson’s answer is: because we don’t all agree on what constitutes acceptable behavior. It doesn’t matter whether the behavior in question is of little or major importance. From leash laws and loud music ordinances all the way to rape and murder laws, humans have vastly differing concepts of what’s okay. I personally know people who think it shouldn’t be considered “murder” to fatally shoot a fleeing burglary suspect in the back, and other people who think it should be considered “murder” to kill someone in self-defense. (Both are in disagreement with current state law.)

The law forces a consensus between these disparate viewpoints and ensures that each of us lives with the same sets of rules. So, while you consider it your right to play music as loud as you want and anyone who’s bothered by it should soundproof his home, and while I think you should be imprisoned for repeated use of your volume knob, the law is a compromise between us — a small-fine reminder to you to be considerate and a brake on my overreaction. Though neither of us agrees entirely with this law, we each agree that it’s better than the other person’s view.

The vast majority of us go along with this system for the most part. We occasionally break a law unintentionally or justify to ourselves a reason for breaking a particular law, but few of us have a desire to actively and intentionally live as lawbreakers — not only from fear of the penalties (fines, imprisonment, loss of rights, etc.), but also because we implicitly agree that the law serves a purpose. When a big enough majority disagrees with a law strongly enough, it typically gets changed.

In this way, the laws are a reflection of the behavioral intentions of a society. (It doesn’t always match perfectly, and sometimes it’s off by a few years.) And the opposite is true as well: the behavior of members of a society is coerced by its laws.

What was once the exclusive purview of family heads or tribal chieftains later fell under the scope of kings and emperors, but then came to be influenced by a wider band of people — courts, business owners, the intellectual elite, and eventually citizens themselves. When a broad enough consensus is reached, laws change to reflect that.

Some things that were once outright prohibited and thus driven underground are now completely legal and broadly accepted in our culture: interracial marriage, gay marriage, and shopping on Sunday for example. Others aren’t “broadly accepted”, but were eventually determined to not be terribly harmful to anyone and thus legalized, like witchcraft or burning the U.S. flag as a protest. On the other hand, things that used to be accepted, common, and legal in the U.S. are now either banned or on their way out — including child marriage (some loopholes still exist), smoking in businesses or on airplanes, Jim Crow laws, drinking and driving, most experimentation with human subjects, slavery, spousal abuse, lobotomies, marital rape, child labor, and so on.

Society eventually decided en masse that these things weren’t acceptable, and codified prohibitions into law. Certain individuals might still think it’s fine to smoke in supermarkets, but society at large overruled that opinion by passing laws. As late as the late 1990s, people (both customers and employees) were smoking inside supermarkets in Arkansas — legally. When new laws were passed, did it stop them from smoking in supermarkets? Yes. Yes it did. Because if someone lit up on Aisle 3, the nearest customer would remind them it was against the law — if they didn’t put it out, the manager would be called, and so on. That process couldn’t happen before the law passed.

Today, we as a society are once again discussing where we want to be on gun control. Obviously, not everyone agrees. But if the vast majority of us do agree on some small bits of progress, it will eventually be codified into law. For example, about 90 percent of Americans want to close background check loopholes. Seventy percent support greater restrictions for assault rifles (despite how difficult it is to define that noun). Even conservatives are suggesting raising the minimum age for firearm purchases and banning those with a history of domestic abuse from buying guns, and other conservatives are pushing for strengthening the background check system — a clear sign that society’s desires have shifted toward safety — refocusing from the right to bear arms to the right to not get shot.

Even the most libertarian-leaning person, if they’re informed, must acknowledge that part of the solution WILL BE new laws. We aren’t going to simply encourage each other not to shoot anyone and then learn that the problem was magically solved.

 

Comments From Original URL

Anderson Connors, 2018.02.27:

This is really good, Wil. I’m glad you were able to reason your way out of libertarianism. I understand the draw of it, but that worldview simply doesn’t reflect the reality of human behavior.

Also: how did someone manage to make a meme without spelling errors?

Wil C. Fry, 2018.02.28, in reply to Anderson Connors:

Yes, I too was surprised this meme didn’t have extra apostrophes, random commas, and/or spelling errors. I’m still bugged by the all caps. :-)

“…you were able to reason your way out of libertarianism”

I wish I knew then what I know now about thought experiments; it might have gone more quickly. Back then, what I used in place of thought experiments was writing science fiction (and I didn’t realize this substitution). I began a story called “Planet Anarchy”. (It sounds more exciting than it actually was.) The setting was a colonized planet with no government; the central character was a Federation spy sent to scout out the place to see how easy it would be to take over. I used all my libertarian-leaning effort to explain how it all worked, but kept bumping up against very weak spots in the fabric… (1) What would stop someone (anyone who wanted to) from setting up a government? (2) How would anyone even know it was happening until it was too late? (3) Everything depended on the free flow of accurate and dependable information, and upon almost everyone being in agreement about the lack of government. It also turned out to be a fairly violent world (because ALL justice was vigilante justice) and I have always been a pacifist of some sort so it didn’t sit right with me.

Anderson Connors, 2018.03.04, in reply to Wil C. Fry:

It DOES sound like an interesting story…