So fewer laws do not create loopholes or create less loopholes?
Nobody's perfect; so fewer imperfect laws would produce, in general, and statistically speaking, less loopholes.
You haven't defined 'loophole' but until you provide another definition I'm going to assert that what you mean by it is something like 'allows for a deviation from "true justice" to some degree and in some particular case or set of cases'. The consequence of this is that all laws do not have an equal number of loopholes nor are the equally egregious. If so, your assertion is both a) Not necessarily true (generally and statistically
) and b) Even if it was it begs the larger and seemingly more relevant question as to how well these laws approximate "justice". Since it doesn't take into consideration the degree of the loophole or the injustice caused by having no law at all.
So provide a better definition or I'd say that you really haven't made your point.
So if I have a law who's intent is to stop the use of dangerous weapons which only restricts weapons made of steel and a set of laws that provides specific requirements for each material based on various characteristics. Are you saying the first law allows for less dangerous weapons than the second?
Those aren't laws,
You're arguing by special definition (which is a fallacy!). What I provided sure seems congruent with how the term is used where I live. For example the laws in my jurisdiction disallow ownership of dangerous weapons and do make exceptions for their construction and use. i.e. decorative weapons which are made from carbon steel are acceptable.
Laws prevent injury, enslavement, and plunder, not cause them. To wit, if I make a law which proscribes or obstructs a specific use of your property, I've violated your liberties.
So what exactly are you asserting here? That my examples of laws are non-laws under your definition because they have a loophole? or because there is no possible case where they can prevent injury, enslavement and plunder?
Not to mention this kind of highlights that the term "number of laws" is at least poorly defined. What's the difference between my set of laws - strung together as a single sentence and classified as a single "law" and treating them as a group of laws? Perhaps we need to use terms more like "simple" or "complex". I'm not trying to put words in your mouth here - just trying to think things through.
This smacks of garrulousness, semantics and pedantry.
No. You are talking about "number of laws" I gave an example of laws that could be considered a single law and asserted that this makes the term poorly defined. You have given no rationale as to why "true laws" are somehow exempt from this. I humbly submit that "true laws" notwithstanding my point is still made.
If we can't communicate, then were going to have a problem.
Agreed but to date you have made two arguments by special definition and one via equivocation. I'd suggest that these are indicative of where the communication problem lies.
However on that note this makes me think of the problems involved in approximation. Bare with me here...if we assume that there is some kind of "true" justice then it seems reasonable that such a concept could be defined as a function (of sorts) where each possible situation is the input and the output maps to some set of results - leaving aside for the moment the difficulty in defining "true justice" and some of the other terms - we will call this function T. A law then could be defined as a function attempting to approximate this function - which we'll call L. It's inputs do not necessarily take into account every situation and it's outputs do not necessarily match T for any and all cases. Given all that, what features would L require to approximate T best?
I've actually given great thought to this. I do think it's possible, although, when you include things like imminent physical threats, the approximations become more vague. I haven't yet condensed it into mathemeatical form, I will get there eventually, here's my take on it:
You can argue, mathematically that given a suitable single object for approximation and a function to approximate. The more objects you use the more you can reduce your error in approximation.
Depends on what you mean by "free". Do you mean significantly unencumbered?
Yes, free. Free in the general vernacular and etymology of the word, indicating unencumberedness. Pedantic again?, see above... You know what it meant.
I don't know about "it" but I was unclear about what you meant. So someone who is significantly encumbered is not free? Ergo when you said "Everybody else is free to leave an abusive environment" is incorrect or at least inconsistent. Since it seems like someone who is elderly, disabled or in other ways dependent are "significantly encumbered". I think it's reasonable to ask for a definition when there is an apparent contradiction and doing so should not earn someone an accusation of pedantry? Do you disagree?
Yes and under your system apparently these child abusers are not criminals and are also not punished correct?
If the child feels threatened, cannot express their situation to someone else they trust and feel safe with, nor permitted to leave their environment, these "verbal" abusers would be holding their own children hostage. Kidnapping is enslavement, and is obviously not allowed.
Ok, so is mental abuse illegal now in your world or what? Just being mentally abused does not necessarily imply being held against one's will. Your "trust and feel safe" criteria seems like exactly the kind of 'mental crime' you said we shouldn't have laws against. So the only thing you've prohibited here is holding someone against their will under threat. Even that doesn't solve very much because the abuse while horrible may simply be not as bad as the alternative i.e. starvation.
Technically that's equivocation. Before you used the term 'force' to align with the term used by physicists. Threats of violence are orthogonal to physical force. Now you appear to be using the term to mean something else.
I suppose that's true to some extent. Maybe we could equate threats of violence/force with potential energy, and violence that has already been committed, with kinetic energy. I'm sure we can figure something out here. Most laws should, for the most part, align with measurable and observable physical phenomena. Those laws which include potential threats can be observed/defined as deterministic, or at the least probabalistic, predictable events in progress. It would be like setting the initial conditions of an experiment, then introducing impetus to the inputs, followed by observing the outputs.
This sounds like you're saying that threats are not bad because they are intrinsically so but because they lead to the expressed or implied action. I'd expect that is untrue. What I'd assert is that mental abuse - including violent threats are intrinsically damaging it just isn't an assault on ones person in the "physical" sense.
While the idea that laws should be based on statistics and outcomes I find intriguing. Have you considered turning the same lens on your ideas about property rights?
