Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!uunet!airs!ian From: ian@airs.UUCP (Ian Lance Taylor) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Supreme Court Ruling Message-ID: <1234@airs.UUCP> Date: 27 Mar 91 06:54:00 GMT References: <48916@nigel.ee.udel.edu> Reply-To: airs!ian@uunet.uu.net (Ian Lance Taylor) Organization: AIRS, Waltham, MA Lines: 24 In article <48916@nigel.ee.udel.edu> new@ee.udel.edu (Darren New) writes: > >This exemplifies one of the things I see as a problem in our legal >system. Precident becomes law, and bad precident set for expediency or >pragamatism of the moment is very difficult to overturn. > [...] >Income tax (originally started to support a war) is >another example. Income tax in the U.S. was started by the sixteenth amendment in 1913. I don't *think* it was started to support a war, inasmuch as the U.S. was not in a war at the time, but I could be wrong. In any case, it is not an example of legal precedent becoming law. I don't know enough about your other examples, but this seems to be an instance of ``tough cases make bad law'' (that was probably a misquote). It is possible to overturn precedent. What is very difficult to overturn is laws created by congress. How would you propose changing the current system? -- Ian Taylor airs!ian@uunet.uu.net uunet!airs!ian First person to identify this quote wins a free e-mail message: ``Consistency may be the hobgoblin of little minds, but inconsistency does tend to bring one to the attention of the police computers.''