[fastviper]

Hm.. this article is mental slavery.

Also it misses the point that some laws are passed being backed up by well-paid lies. So breaking the law can no longer be any moral issue.

Example: * speed limits * never-ending copyright * exporting cryptography

[wazoox]

People looks for excuses, and I suppose conflating different things like speed limits, copyright and cryptography is some way to nullify their possible importance. These are not on the same level:

* speeding and more generally, driving misbehaviour are directly responsible for deaths.

* Pirating software and music never killed anyone, but is about maximizing profits for some corporations.

* limiting cryptography is about government control, and is almost only a political matter.

Law can change the way people behave, notwithstanding their agreement :

Speed limits have been enforced much more severely in France in the past few years and guess what, people are speeding much less now. I, myself, changed too: I used to drive at 180 kph quite casually, and I don't anymore. In the same time, road casualties fell significantly, though of course this is for a large part because cars are much safer than they used to be (thank you to Euro-NCAP). Almost everybody complains about the speed limits, the radars everywhere, higher fines, but it's hard to deny that the policy was efficient, and that it's good.

Now copyright is an entirely different matter. Copyright is only about maximizing profits; extremely tight and severely enforced copyright, or the absence of it, wouldn't change our lives that much, anyway.

[learc83]

In the United States speed limits are not enforced for safety. They are instead a revenue stream for local government.

Relative speed kills, and if police were really concerned about safety they would prevent people from driving too slowly for traffic conditions as well as too fast.

I'll give you a similar example from recent news. Over the last few years, many towns have installed red light cameras. However, many local governments have discovered that red light cameras work too well.

After people got used to them, they stopped running red lights, and the revenue from citations dried up.

Guess what happened? Towns started removing red light cameras even though they enforced safer driving.

[wazoox]

Sounds a bit too good (in the usual anti-government, libertarian style) to be true. Any reference?

[learc83]

Just a quick Google search, but here's an article about Fort Lauderdale removing their cameras.

http://www.browardcountyduilawyers.com/broward-county-dui/fo...

It's also not really a libertarian no government issue, because red light cameras are basically privatizing traffic enforcement.

It's no secret that companies sell these systems by promoting them as revenue generators.

Furthermore, there are plenty of other ways to decrease red light violations. The most effective is to increase the duration of the yellow light.

According to this report "Straight through violations drop 92 percent after yellow lights are extended by one second in Loma Linda, California."

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/30/3055.asp

Here's some more info on increase yellow light duration.

http://blog.motorists.org/6-cities-that-were-caught-shorteni...

The reason that more cities don't do this is because it leads to a massive drop in revenue. In fact here is an article on 6 cities that were caught shortening yellow light duration to increase revenue.

http://blog.motorists.org/6-cities-that-were-caught-shorteni...

[manuscreationis]

... Speed limits are laws that are set up by well-paid lies?

By whom? That all-too-powerful "Let's drive slow" lobby?

I'm with you on the "When the law hurts the very people it's meant to protect, it's the right and responsibility of the people to fight against it" angle...

But speed limits? That is your line in the sand?

[learc83]

There are lobbying groups in favor of slower speed limits, but he's probably talking about local governments that use speed limits to generate revenue.