You might be interested in a book called _The Death of Common Sense_. IIRC, the argument was that in the 1970's, there was a shift in judicial philosophy in the US toward assuming that judges couldn't be trusted with discretion, so laws had to be made more and more specific, leading to odd outcomes because the real world is much more complex than any effort to describe or control it can be.
I'm not sure how much thoughtless application of the law is malice, how much is laziness, and how much is fear of being blamed for dong the wrong thing.
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zvi and
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Date: 2005-06-17 01:08 pm (UTC)I'm not sure how much thoughtless application of the law is malice, how much is laziness, and how much is fear of being blamed for dong the wrong thing.