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Re: 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95

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"Peter Flass" <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:2000565630459357561.289565peter_flass-yahoo.com@news.eternal-september.org...
> <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>> On Wednesday, July 22, 2015 at 6:22:35 PM UTC-4, Peter Flass wrote:
>>
>>> I'm sure if we sat down to design a system from scratch any one of us 
>>> could
>>> do better.  The "system" we have now is the result of lots of ad-hoc 
>>> laws
>>> passed at various times.
>>
>> The system varies from one county to another within a single state, and
>> of course varies greatly between states.
>
> The "ad-hoc" part is constant, however.  No one ever sits down and 
> rewrites
> the law code from scratch,

That does happens sometimes, particularly when you
are the loser in a world war or after a revolution.

> much less tries to think of something that might be better.

That does happen too, most obviously with VAT taxes
and happened when income tax was first invented too
and has been proposed with flat tax systems and
negative income tax as well.

> It's a major effort just to get obsolete laws off the books;

Depends on the jurisdiction and happens a lot
after losing a world war or after a revolution.

> usually police won"t arrest and prosecutors won't indict because of them,
> and if they do juries often don't convict or judges throw out the charges.
> However, they are still on the books and someone could be sent to jail
> based on them.

There isn't much of that with the most serious crime.

> On the other hand, my preference for incremental changes makes me think
> that rewriting everything from scratch would be _much_ worse than the way
> things work now.

That isn't what happened with some changes like with divorce law etc. 

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Re: 1973--TI 8 digit electric calculator--$99.95 "JHY" <JHY5566@nospam.com> - 2015-07-24 05:32 +1000

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