How much importance should we put on emotion in crafting and enforcing law?

How much importance should we put on emotion in crafting and enforcing law?

I say that emotion is critically important in *why* we have laws, but should play little to no part in the crafting and/or enforcement of laws, lest we get the obvious unjust imbalances like we have in sexual offender laws where drunk frat kids who pee behind a bush are labeled 'sexual predators'. As just one example. That's exactly what happens when the emotional hue and cry screams that we must "...protect the children at all costs." That being said, once we pass levelheaded legislation, we should enforce it vigorously because presumably the law was thoughtfully considered and not rushed due to emotion.

Personally, I believe any new law should have at least a one year open debate period, especially if they're prompted by specific individual tragic events. Time needs to pass so that people calm down and pass effective good laws, not the crap like mentioned above where in our zealousness we drag in people who should never be included at all.

Disclaimer: If you have an issue such as the recent rise in mass shootings, you obviously can't go a year as a new event comes along too quickly. Besides, the issue has been around long enough that we have had ample time to debate. Unfortunately, each new event whips up more emotion and hysteria, and any progress in debate that we might have had gets flushed, and we're right back where we started.

It's pretty difficult to completely separate reason and emotion. We should try to avoid kneejerk reactions but saying that we can craft legislation solely based on logic and reason with no emotion involved is very unrealistic.

Something else. The idea that individual freedom causes crime, thus the best (only?) way to stop (prevent?) crime is to reduce individual freedom and increase government power and control, is often driven by emotion. The emotional call of "we must do something" is always followed by a (knee jerk?) call to limit freedom and add more government control.

Often, the logical question of "how did we not see this coming?" is not asked at all. In the case of the Floriduh mass shooting at a school we saw multiple signs that the current laws (allowing the arrest and/or declaration of the perp as a danger to himself and/or others) were being ignored and that school security was a complete joke - an expelled former student was unchallenged while entering a school building with a bag full of guns and ammo.

It is not "common" for those under 21 to use a semi-auto rifle to perform a mass shooting no matter what BS staistics are presented to argue otherwise. Criminals lie, ignore or evade personal responsibility and treat laws as mere suggestions of behavior that only whimps or morons would take seriously. Passing more laws, such as a ntionwide ban on many recreational drugs, do not work to stop criminals form using them as avenues to gain tax free riches. The why is obvious, no demand side enforcement is accepted - we pretend the drug users (addicts?) are victims of "pushers".

Since the Foriduh mass shooter passed the NICS BGC and used only 10-round maagzines the emotional response moves rapidly to the type of semi-auto rifle abused and the age of the perp. Obviously, nobody can logically argue that most rifles of that type are used in any crime at all, much less for mass shootings, or that most people under 21 are apt to become criminals, much less mass shooters, but what is being called for as a (emotional?) response (solution?) to the Floriduh mass shooting? Yep, scary looking rifle bans and nobody under 21 can own a gun.

I don't know. My social programming says no, keep emotion as far from crafting law as possible; but if law is blind to human emotion, then it becomes less effective and risks alienating the people it is supposed to protect or regulate. Using emotion to craft law is probably very unwise, but ignoring human emotions' possible impacts on law and its enforcement might be a recipe for disaster too.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.

I think it has no place in justice. Now, that is the ideal. It is what we should strive for. That said, we are human and emotion is going to creep in. But when we legislate by emotion we end up with things like the Patriot Act.

Emotion and logic are yin and yang. I don't believe you should have one without the other.

molten_dragon said:

It's pretty difficult to completely separate reason and emotion. We should try to avoid kneejerk reactions but saying that we can craft legislation solely based on logic and reason with no emotion involved is very unrealistic.

Click to expand...

Which precisely why the BoR was added to limit government power. The emotional "we must do something" to add ever more government power and control, thus limiting personal freedom, was a well known (knee jerk?) response to many problems in society.

radcen said:

How much importance should we put on emotion in crafting and enforcing law?

I say that emotion is critically important in *why* we have laws, but should play little to no part in the crafting and/or enforcement of laws, lest we get the obvious unjust imbalances like we have in sexual offender laws where drunk frat kids who pee behind a bush are labeled 'sexual predators'. As just one example. That's exactly what happens when the emotional hue and cry screams that we must "...protect the children at all costs." That being said, once we pass levelheaded legislation, we should enforce it vigorously because presumably the law was thoughtfully considered and not rushed due to emotion.

Personally, I believe any new law should have at least a one year open debate period, especially if they're prompted by specific individual tragic events. Time needs to pass so that people calm down and pass effective good laws, not the crap like mentioned above where in our zealousness we drag in people who should never be included at all.

Disclaimer: If you have an issue such as the recent rise in mass shootings, you obviously can't go a year as a new event comes along too quickly. Besides, the issue has been around long enough that we have had ample time to debate. Unfortunately, each new event whips up more emotion and hysteria, and any progress in debate that we might have had gets flushed, and we're right back where we started.

Click to expand...

Emotion has no place in the law though of course it can provoke/promote debate and emphasize the need for a law or the removal of one. Every law, however minor, limited, or all encompassing, should be measured with logic, reason, honest facts, and above all, at the federal level, by its constitutionality. And the federal government is given extremely limited authority whatsoever to dictate what laws the state must pass and enforce or what laws it cannot pass/enforce regardless of the emotions and passions involved.

Of course the federal government has been ignoring those restrictions on its authority for a very long time now and the courts have far overstepped their authority by making, changing, or abolishing law passed by the elected representatives of the people. Which is a very dangerous situation for any country/people founded on a principle of individual liberty.

Every law must pass a stringent test:
1. Why do we need such a law?
2. Will the law correct the situation that exists? If not, then it should not be passed.
3. Is the law doing what it was supposed to do? If not, then it should be abolished.

At the federal level it is the people's elected representatives who are authorized to make laws the people must live under and nobody else. Not the President who can sign and veto a law but cannot make one. Not the courts who are not elected but are to interpret the law and settle disputes about the letter of the law only. And certainly not unelected, nameless, faceless bureaucrats who are currently and unconstitutionally making the huge lion's share of the laws the people are forced to live under.

Emotion closes the mind to as yet un thought of alternatives. It is the very basis of cognitive dissonance.

Far too many laws are crafted by lobbyists for special interests and by feather brained elected fools who have the power to push a purely personal agenda.

Certainly at state level politicos are motivated by the success of sponsoring bills. Notches in their legislative belts.

I have testified before several state legislative committees (anyone can, very few people do). The process makes you want to go home and take a shower and then binge drink to forget.

AlbqOwl said:

Emotion has no place in the law though of course it can provoke/promote debate and emphasize the need for a law or the removal of one. Every law, however minor, limited, or all encompassing, should be measured with logic, reason, honest facts, and above all, at the federal level, by its constitutionality. And the federal government is given extremely limited authority whatsoever to dictate what laws the state must pass and enforce or what laws it cannot pass/enforce regardless of the emotions and passions involved.

Of course the federal government has been ignoring those restrictions on its authority for a very long time now and the courts have far overstepped their authority by making, changing, or abolishing law passed by the elected representatives of the people. Which is a very dangerous situation for any country/people founded on a principle of individual liberty.

Every law must pass a stringent test:
1. Why do we need such a law?
2. Will the law correct the situation that exists? If not, then it should not be passed.
3. Is the law doing what it was supposed to do? If not, then it should be abolished.

At the federal level it is the people's elected representatives who are authorized to make laws the people must live under and nobody else. Not the President who can sign and veto a law but cannot make one. Not the courts who are not elected but are to interpret the law and settle disputes about the letter of the law only. And certainly not unelected, nameless, faceless bureaucrats who are currently and unconstitutionally making the huge lion's share of the laws the people are forced to live under.

Click to expand...

This is precisely what I am fearing in the current gun/school shooting debate.

Suppose we get certain weapons banned. Then significant time goes by and said ban wasn't the cause at all, school shootings either stay the same or increase. It's obvious it wasn't the guns, right? But, will we get the ability to legally own those guns back? Phfft!, of course not. Yes, we have the ability on paper to repeal laws, but reality is that we almost never do. Once enacted, a law on the books is virtually impossible to get rid of, even a bad law.

Let's go back to the sexual offender list example in the OP. Sexual predators are bad evil people. It's actually logical to want to punish them. It's logical to deem that type of crime as being worse than other crimes, hence the draconian punishments and the public branding. And I'm sure that somewhere in the debate when these laws were initially crafted somebody tearfully related an experience where some guy lewdly exposed himself to her (which would be a legit complaint, don't get me wrong). And I'm sure that that emotion stirred everybody up into a :2mad: frenzy and they all agreed to include 'public nudity' to the law. Did anyone ask, "What about the drunk guy at a frat party who pee's behind a bush?" Doubtful. Did anyone ask, "How do we ensure that overzealous win-at-all-costs prosecutors go after only the true threats?" Highly unlikely. No, the emotion, and the political pandering, is whipped up to such a degree that it's 'full steam ahead' to make a statement.

Fast forward several years. Many people have got caught up for drunkenly peeing behind a bush. Many people have been labeled 'sexual predators' simply for being 18 yrs old with a 15 yr old girlfriend, and they can't even attend their own kid's school functions because he eventually married said girlfriend and the law doesn't allow for that. Yet, he is in no way a predator of any kind.

I forget the names involved, but there was a case in Maine where some righteous do-gooders knocked on a guy's door, then kidnapped, tortured, and killed him... because he was on a list as a sexual predator. His crime? He was one of those 18 yr old guys with a 15 yr old girlfriend. These examples are not so uncommon as to be irrelevant.

This is what we get when we allow emotion to rule the legislation process. A more reasonably crafted law would avoid the vast majority of "collateral damage" yet still allow the true predators to be dealt with.

Talk to almost anyone and they'll agree that we need to dial back these offender list laws to be more reasonable, to go after what and who they're actually intended for. Talk to most police, and even politicians, and individually they'll agree the same thing, these laws need to be reassessed and dialed back. But... no one will do it. If someone does, sure as **** their next opponent will portray them as being "soft on child molesters", and the people... who don't bother to actually research anything... will get all :2mad: again and vote for the opponent. Bottom line: Reason doesn't satisfy, and reason doesn't get votes.

People who make decisions based on emotion and justify those decisions with logic afterwards are poor decision makers. Looking back the past 100 years of the history of our country, it's laws that were based on emotion that have led to some of the worst in our history and the consequences have been great starting with 21 trillion dollars in debt.