Most vague laws have been created to be enforced on some specific population. Now that they could be automatically used against anyone the ruling population which was not supposed to be affected is starting to question those laws. It is OK when mostly blacks, youngsters and poor people get jailed for jaywalking; not so much when upper middle class people are.
That's what a cynical person like me can take from your argument.
I don't think that's a road we really want to go down. Laws exist to solve problems, not persecute minority groups.
I have heard white supremacists use this logic to say that DUI laws unfairly target white people, because in major cities maybe white people have cars and the minority populations use public transportation. You could also use the same logic to say insider trading unfairly effects white people.
> "You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."
Not really true. Many laws still on the books in southern states were created _explicitly_ to persecute minority groups.
You couldn't use the same logic to say insider trading unfairly effects white people because there isn't evidence that enforcement of insider trading is uneven, whereas there is evidence that enforcement (and sentencing) for loitering, jaywalking, and drug laws are biased against minority groups
That's a good point. I should have been more clear. When i said "that's a road you don't want to go down", I don't mean to say no laws have been created that don't have racial bias. That's definitely a problem, especially in the South.
But I have a problem with arkh's assertion that...
>> Most vague laws have been created to be enforced on some specific population.
That's what a cynical person like me can take from your argument.