Re: A2 Trade/Swap ... site ...

["Henrik Gudat" <henrik.gudat@gmx.ch>]

In article <8kfrga$iik$1@merope.saaf.se> , pausch@saafNOSPAM.se (Paul 
Schlyter) wrote:

> Doing anything else besides these two things doesn't make sense.
> It's like, if you see someone crossing the street against a red
> light, yelling "..but it's illegal, but it's illegal, but it's
> illegal..."  which of course serves no purpose even if you say
> something which is correct.  Instead you should call the police, or
> ignore it all.

This is inherently wrong. Because you're outsourcing all sanctioning
to the police. Laws are a reflection of a society's norms and values.
The bad thing about criminal or illegal behaviour is not that someone
was breaking the law but what was considered proper conduct within his
or her community. So, by the above example you're indicating that
direct sanctioning without making the workaround via the police is
meaningless or even bad. Yet, it can be much more effective and allows
for varying outcome in each particular case. A community can deal
improper conduct much more flexible (at times even too flexible). In
the end, your descriptions suggest that the individual is controlled
by a rather Kafkaesque law system. However, it should be the other way
around. Laws are the product of a society. And the more people voice
their concerns, the more likely law will adapt. If citizens are merely
"consuming" laws and completely dispense with direct sanctioning, the
formation of new laws will slow down indefinitely because there is no
new consent among ignorant people.

In the case of piracy, the problem a number of people are having with
it is not that there's a law that inhibits it. The reasoning is that
one should ask the owner prior to benefiting from his creation. You
may call it illegal, I call it unpolite (put mildly). The fact there
is such a law only shows me that there must be others thinking the
same way, nothing else.

- Henrik



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