Informal Renegotiation of the Law

[snow]

On Thu, 12 Sep 1996, Duncan Frissell wrote:
> Many people on this list and in the larger world focus on laws and
> regulations and sometimes act as if that is the only way that the relative
> rights and duties of governments and civilians are established.  In fact,
> there is a lot of informal negotiation going on all the time.  This is
> significant because an unenforced law isn't a law at all.

     Does does the phrase "Selective Enforcement" mean anything? 

> For example, you will not read anywhere that compulsory education laws have
> been repealed -- but they have.  When the home schooling movement started in
> the late 1970s, there were occasional harassment and prosecution of parents.
> The home schoolers won some and lost some.  As time went on, the authorities
> came to accept home schoolers so that at this point, legal problems are
> rare.  Compulsory education has been effectively repealed by the actions of
> refusenicks in both the subject population and the enforcement population.  

     Their children are still getting educated. Not thoroughly enough in 
some cases, but educated in the basics. 

Petro, Christopher C.
petro at suba.com <prefered for any non-list stuff>
snow at smoke.suba.com