RE: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Old laws

[Michael <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

The problem with what you say is that the state gets to decide when it
follows it's own laws after-the-fact and when to apply those laws to
others after-the-fact. If your law of working for $.50/hr did exist they
could suddenly decide to charge us all with crimes and in some cases do
just that or these old shitty laws. You can't randomly decide to enforce
or not enforce laws or they don't really work at all. It is insane but
randomly ignoring things won't help the problem any. There is a long
history of such laws showing up many years later and being used to
accomplish various nasty things. I seem to remember a few years ago a big
trouble because lots places were using old laws against oral/anal sex to
punish homosexuals or anyone they felt like targeting.

Again this is why I think all non-constitutional laws should be on a time
limit and have to be reenacted to keep them on the books.

> I understand your point, but my idea was that we are dealing in this case
> with a situation where the state made a law and could have repealed it.
> Instead of repealing the law, they broke it and are now they plan to
> penalize themselves.  I agree that the age of the law isn't really the
> important thing, but isn't it an awfully strange situation?  If they had
> been aware of the law, they would have changed it.  To make your example
> of kidnapping more appropriate, imagine that the kidnapper had written the
> law against kidnapping and he had the power to change the law to legalize
> kidnapping at any time.  Strangely, he did not legalize kidnapping, he
> kidnapped someone anyway and now he was planning to sentence himself to a
> prison term for breaking his own law against kidnapping.  Now doesn't it
> sound ridiculous?
>
> Even stranger, students agreed to pay tuition (or 'fees', if you prefer)
> and they did not know about the law and they did not challenge the tuition
> requirement.  It is as if (in addition to the weirdness just described)
> the person being kidnapped had said "yes, please kidnap me, I'd like to be
> kidnapped."  Sure, students would like to pay less tuition, but you might
> remember that just a few years ago U Missouri was considered the #1 best
> value in education in the US News and World Report because tuition was so
> low!!  It was a very good deal and students who were unhappy should not
> have been unhappy.
>
> Another layer of absurdity is that I'm hearing that it is possible the
> state will want to reimburse people for their tuition payments.  That is
> incredibly foolish.  So the state broke it's own law, what of it?  Where
> does it say what the penalty should be?  They can send a letter of apology
> to the students who were charged illegal tuition, but I think they
> shouldn't waste that much time and effort.  They should say "oops," repeal
> the old law, and get on with their lives.  If any student complained that
> the fees were illegal in advance of paying the fees, perhaps they owe that
> student a reimbursement.  Does even one such student exist?
>
> Suppose that you were to learn tomorrow that there is a law on the books
> in Missouri that says "No man shall be paid more than $0.50 per hour for
> any work he has done to aid the communication of electronic computers.
> Any man who accepts a higher rate of pay for such work is in violation of
> this statute."  The courts would have to decide if your job was paying an
> illegal salary.  Suppose that they determined that you had been paid too
> much for the past several years.  Should you have to give back the amount
> of your pay that exceeded the legal limit?  I certainly hope so.  A law is
> a law, right?
>
> In Massachusetts, where I grew up, there were many famous laws on the
> books that were never enforced, or so I was told.  For example, supposedly
> it was illegal to dance on Sundays.  I think the laws stayed on the books
> because it would be work to change the law and nobody wanted to work on
> something that silly and unimportant.  The situation is different with the
> law against tuition in Missouri, but I think the law is silly and should
> be laughed at.
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