At 10:43 AM 9/27/00 -0400, Sampo A Syreeni wrote:

I think it is a workable argument that it is better to have such social rules encoded in law instead of having people come up with them at will and imposing them on others through shunning, lynching or whatever. In theory at least you will then know in advance whether something you have done will be 'illegal'. Besides, current law in most countries holds precisely that sort of stuff. Probably the best Finnish example is conscript duty. (No, I'm not saying that isn't nightmarish.)

The Federal register is a US government pub that goes out every business day. Circa 1200 pages a day of published rules, regs, and other garbage. Just for the federal government not the states. No court decisions or administrative rulings in it. Just reading it to find out your orders from your rulers would take all day and would be very incomplete. But you (Americans) are bound to obey all of them on pain of fine or imprisonment. Social conventions are complex but not that complex and we are hard wired to figure those out. We're not hard wired to read thousands of pages a day of bureaucratese and figure out what it means. DCF ---- Have you read your ruler's orders today? Better start reading they're gaining on you: http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/fr-cont.html