Comments on: Obeying the law is not enough – you have to read politicians’ minds, apparently

By: Paul Marks

Paul Marks — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 05:07:30 +0000

lucklucky – the Glenn Reynolds quote from Atlas Shrugged is good.

But he is mistaken, things ARE “that bad yet”.

By: lucklucky

lucklucky — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 20:13:00 +0000

Glenn Reynolds Instapundit just made text about “Due Process When Everything Is A Crime”

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/161893/

Results of evolution that turns Democracy into Totalitarian Democracy.

By: Paul Marks

Paul Marks — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 06:12:00 +0000

Yes veryretired – the media (especially the entertainment media) present businessmen as the threat to ordinary people, and the education system (the schools and the universities) has already made many people open to such propaganda.

As for the lawyers – they are not just greedy, they are ideological (power hungry). As you know.

PersonFromPorlock – yes Legal Positivism is absurd (Hans Kelson and co led the study of law to a dead end, indeed to the death of law – they are really the return of Thomas Hobbes, and therefore the natural enemy of a “student of the common laws of England”). Jurisprudence has basically become a dead subject now – which is why modern lawyers are so hopeless with things like the Ninth Amendment (which was intended to be the First Amendment – Madison messed up the order, the Ninth was intended to be the First and the Tenth was intended to be the Second) and the introduction to the Constitution of Texas (1876).

Nick (nice guy) Gray – yes that does appear to be the plan of the collectivists (sorry the “liberals”).

By: veryretired

veryretired — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 01:10:05 +0000

We are under an extreme threat of possible economic and social collapse due to our falling victim to two damaging and intertwined ideas—

First and foremost is the fundamental progressive idea that the public is in danger from the actions of private people engaged in entirely lawful behavior if that behavior is economic in nature, and that the necessary antidote to that threat is to continuously enlarge the power of the allegedly benign state in order to protect the public from the depredations of their fellow citizens.

Second is the unintentional, but very real, takeover of the apparatus of government by one very self-interested guild of lawyers, which has legitimized the idea that any and all problems are amenable to a legalistic solution, which is written, enforced, interpreted, and adjudicated by a single small group of legal professionals who control all three branches of government.

Removing, or significantly weakening, these underlying foundations will make it much easier to reform the over-arching state and bring its powers and spending back under control.

By: Nick (nice-guy) Gray

Nick (nice-guy) Gray — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 00:04:42 +0000

You can avoid the whole mess by giving all your money to the government! Who needs to live, anyhow?

By: PersonFromPorlock

PersonFromPorlock — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 21:42:46 +0000

It was bad enough under “legal positivism” (i.e. the doctrine that government could make any rule and declare it a “law”)….

Paul Marks
January 21, 2013 at 7:24 pm

I can get whole choirs of Lawyers upset by declaring that “In a legal positivist world, Lincoln’s famous dog really does have five legs.” Then I top it off with “The real translation of ‘befehl ist befehl’ is ‘the law is the law’,” and finish up with “The ‘rule of law’ isn’t a suicide pact.”

Law is fun and easy once you realize that most of its complexity comes from lawyers trying to find principled reasons for having their cake and eating it too.

By: Paul Marks

Paul Marks — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 19:24:52 +0000

In Britain and the United States we are moving further and further away from clear laws – towards government by “discretion” (whim).

It was bad enough under “legal positivism” (i.e. the doctrine that government could make any rule and declare it a “law”), but now (as J.P. points out) we are into the world of guessing the rulers whims – and trying to please them.

It really is a bad as this.

By: Sam Duncan

Sam Duncan — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 17:33:53 +0000

Andrew: What interest?

By: nemesis

nemesis — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 15:16:34 +0000

Guardian Newspaper Group not exactly whiter than white with their tax affairs;
http://order-order.com/2012/11/26/the-guardians-offshore-secrets-guardian-media-group-still-operates-caymans-company/

By: Johnathan Pearce (London)

Johnathan Pearce (London) — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 15:11:39 +0000

Simon, I know, but given his ignorance not just of economics, but even of basic legal concepts – such as the difference between avoidance – which is not criminal – and evasion – which is, there is no way I would want this man to do my accounts.

By: Lee Moore

Lee Moore — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 14:52:23 +0000

I don’t want to alarm you unnecessarily, Andrew, but I am willing to bet you a fiver that the tax free income from ISAs will be capped before, say, 2020. I am not willing to bet on the figure – which will in any case change, as the reform will initially be brought only to hit “the rich.” Say income of £25,000 or more pa in an ISA. It’s a matter of fairness, you see.

I agree with y’all about the wickedness of extra-legal tax threats, but that ship sailed a long time ago. The real problem is not so much venal politicians or the Grauno-Beebist sections of the media, it’s the courts. Starting with the Ramsay judgment, the courts have progressively abandoned any pretence of sticking to the rule of law in the field of tax. It started off by being cloaked in a fog called “the new approach” , it then morphed into a sophistry called “purposive construction” and is now simply a straightforward acknowledgement that tax is not a legal but an administrative exaction.

By: Andrew Duffin

Andrew Duffin — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 13:58:42 +0000

I await with trepidation the loss-making Guardian’s campaign to name and shame people (such as myself) who do not pay tax on the interest they receive on their ISA’s.

That’s the next logical step is it not?