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So, because I watched a John Oliver episode where he talked about the Canadian election in 2015, I am now aware that my country, Canada, has a law that allows us to fine and/or imprison non-Canadians (and only non-Canadians) for telling any Canadian who to vote for in a Canadian election.

That law is so dumb, that I find it offensive that my government thinks I won't feel free to vote for whoever I damn well please because you can't threaten me into voting for someone else when the process of actually voting requires so much privacy, yet is in such a public place that forcing me at gunpoint wouldn't even stop me from voting for whoever I wanted and telling the kidnapper I followed their request and they would have no way to know I was actually lying.

Here's the video about it from John Oliver's show.

https://youtu.be/0V5ckcTSYu8?t=724

Well for dumb laws...

-You have to pay tax for illegal drugs.
-Bingo game cannot last more than 5 hours unless at fair.
-Fights between cats and dogs are prohibited.

tneva82 wrote:
Well for dumb laws...

-You have to pay tax for illegal drugs.
-Bingo game cannot last more than 5 hours unless at fair.
-Fights between cats and dogs are prohibited.

I don't think any of those are dumber than writing a law that only applies to people who aren't citizens of your country.

tneva82 wrote:

-Fights between cats and dogs are prohibited.

Wait, wait, wait. Wait. We need cats and dogs to fight. What happens when cats and dogs are peaceful, when they start living together? Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes! Human sacrifice! Essentially, mass hysteria.

Who ever made that law is surely a herald of Gozer.

It's not a dumb law. Making it illegal to tell citizens who to vote for has a very relevant purpose: preventing foreign lobbyists from trying to influence your elections. Obviously you aren't going to get thrown into prison for a casual conversation with a Canadian friend, but if you, say, buy advertising billboards in support of the candidate that is most favorable to your own country you would be breaking the law. You can certainly disagree about whether or not such a policy is a good thing, but it's not WTF-level stupid like the standard "dumbest law ever" examples.


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 Pouncey wrote:
I don't think any of those are dumber than writing a law that only applies to people who aren't citizens of your country.

You do know that people who aren't citizens of a country can be in that country and are subject to their host's laws while visiting, right?

 Pouncey wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Well for dumb laws...

-You have to pay tax for illegal drugs.
-Bingo game cannot last more than 5 hours unless at fair.
-Fights between cats and dogs are prohibited.

I don't think any of those are dumber than writing a law that only applies to people who aren't citizens of your country.

What about immigration laws? They specifically target people who aren't citizens of your country.

Also, at least you can take a picture of/with a police officer. Try doing that in Spain and you will leave quite a bit poorer. Talk about dumb laws. And it was approved when our local band of merry terrorists had already said they were getting too old for the job and disbanding.

Well a texas law would apply to anyone landing a plane on their beaches reguardless of where the plane originated from.

Galveston
Landing an airplane on the beach is illegal.

america has so many dumb laws they made a web site dedicated to them

http://www.dumblaws.com/laws/united-states/texas

sirlynchmob wrote:
Well a texas law would apply to anyone landing a plane on their beaches reguardless of where the plane originated from.

Galveston
Landing an airplane on the beach is illegal.

america has so many dumb laws they made a web site dedicated to them

http://www.dumblaws.com/laws/united-states/texas

Doesn't sound all that stupid to me. Some of the other ones on the list are stupid, such as...

When two trains meet each other at a railroad crossing, each shall come to a full stop, and neither shall proceed until the other has gone.

It’s illegal to possess realistic dildos.

It is illegal to take more than three swallows of beer while standing.

It is illegal to drive within an arm’s length of alcohol – including alcohol in someone else’s blood stream.

Pi equals 3 in Indiana by law.

They don’t need that .14159etc tomfoolery.

 Nevelon wrote:
Pi equals 3 in Indiana by law.

They don’t need that .14159etc tomfoolery.

Somehow I am not remotely shocked.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:
Well a texas law would apply to anyone landing a plane on their beaches reguardless of where the plane originated from.

Galveston
Landing an airplane on the beach is illegal.

america has so many dumb laws they made a web site dedicated to them

http://www.dumblaws.com/laws/united-states/texas

Doesn't sound all that stupid to me. Some of the other ones on the list are stupid, such as...

When two trains meet each other at a railroad crossing, each shall come to a full stop, and neither shall proceed until the other has gone.

It’s illegal to possess realistic dildos.

It is illegal to take more than three swallows of beer while standing.

It is illegal to drive within an arm’s length of alcohol – including alcohol in someone else’s blood stream.

I think my favorite one there though is the one from Texas saying there can be no religious tests, except for this one which you must pass to hold public office.

It is illegal to peel an orange in a hotel room in California. Maybe we should throw that in the tourist tips thread...

 Pouncey wrote:

I don't think any of those are dumber than writing a law that only applies to people who aren't citizens of your country.

We have one of those... The Australian government thinks they can force overseas companies to pay tax on goods bought by Australians.

I cant remember where. But one of my favorites was how you cant jetski near a certain species of whale. But it was a landlocked state

 Nevelon wrote:
Pi equals 3 in Indiana by law.

They don’t need that .14159etc tomfoolery.

It's Bloody Stupid Johnson all over again.

 Peregrine wrote:
It's not a dumb law. Making it illegal to tell citizens who to vote for has a very relevant purpose: preventing foreign lobbyists from trying to influence your elections. Obviously you aren't going to get thrown into prison for a casual conversation with a Canadian friend, but if you, say, buy advertising billboards in support of the candidate that is most favorable to your own country you would be breaking the law. You can certainly disagree about whether or not such a policy is a good thing, but it's not WTF-level stupid like the standard "dumbest law ever" examples.

Canada is not an isolationist country. We don't shut out our neighbours' opinions just because they're not Canadians.

You do know that people who aren't citizens of a country can be in that country and are subject to their host's laws while visiting, right?

Yeah, but when I said that I was imagining those citizens of other countries being in their own countries due to how much time I spend online talking to Americans. I forgot they might visit Canada to do it. My bad.

Banned casino. We must have been built instead "play areas". No one was ever built. Instead - undercovered illegal casinos.

Сitizens can specify any nationality during "population census". Now in Russia there are elves ...

Citizens not allowed to use flag of their country

The rest of the stupid laws are canceled immediately.

But the problem - it is unclear interpretation of most of the our laws. People do not understand clearly how the law should work, even the authorities do not understand how the law should work - soil for manipulation and corruption

 Freakazoitt wrote:
Banned casino. We must have been built instead "play areas". No one was ever built. Instead - undercovered illegal casinos.

Сitizens can specify any nationality during "population census". Now in Russia there are elves ...

Citizens not allowed to use flag of their country

The rest of the stupid laws are canceled immediately.

But the problem - it is unclear interpretation of most of the our laws. People do not understand clearly how the law should work, even the authorities do not understand how the law should work - soil for manipulation and corruption

Elves, that's awesome

Wait til the trekies here about this and the vulcans start showing up

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
Pi equals 3 in Indiana by law.

They don’t need that .14159etc tomfoolery.

It's Bloody Stupid Johnson all over again.

Nah, Indiana only thinks that pi equals 3 whereas Johnson actually made it happen.

The lawmakers in Indiana are incompetent, Johnson is as far from incompetent as being a genius, just in the opposite direction.

Laws are kind of stupid in different places.

Like walking in the right hand side of footpath is meant to be illegal here, so are/were pink hot pants after midday on sundays, taxis need to have bales of hay etc. But it depends on how dumb the person is to enforce such laws.

The interesting thing about many laws that appear stupid and pointless, is that often times the stupid and pointless thing has to have happened for it to have become a law.

I'm guessing someone decided to land a plane on a beach in Galveston, and then they passed a law to keep people from doing that again.

 d-usa wrote:
The interesting thing about many laws that appear stupid and pointless, is that often times the stupid and pointless thing has to have happened for it to have become a law.

I'm guessing someone decided to land a plane on a beach in Galveston, and then they passed a law to keep people from doing that again.

reminds me of the guy in washington the state, he managed to get himself kill by doing something unspeakable with a horse. Then the checked the books and apparently it wasn't "illegal" because they just never considered anyone trying it to need a law against it.

sirlynchmob wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
The interesting thing about many laws that appear stupid and pointless, is that often times the stupid and pointless thing has to have happened for it to have become a law.

I'm guessing someone decided to land a plane on a beach in Galveston, and then they passed a law to keep people from doing that again.

reminds me of the guy in washington the state, he managed to get himself kill by doing something unspeakable with a horse. Then the checked the books and apparently it wasn't "illegal" because they just never considered anyone trying it to need a law against it.

Poor Mr. Hands.

Interesting fact (at least I think my recollection is right), more states in recent history legalized bestiality than legalized same-sex marriage.

 Pouncey wrote:
Canada is not an isolationist country. We don't shut out our neighbours' opinions just because they're not Canadians.

Apparently you do, because that law in your OP exists.

sirlynchmob wrote:
Well a texas law would apply to anyone landing a plane on their beaches reguardless of where the plane originated from.

Galveston
Landing an airplane on the beach is illegal.

That isn't a dumb law, it's a very reasonable law. Landing a plane on a beach is possible, but dangerous if the area isn't carefully kept free of people.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I cant remember where. But one of my favorites was how you cant jetski near a certain species of whale. But it was a landlocked state

I've looked up a couple "can't do X near whales" and "can't hunt whales" laws in landlocked states before.

Quite often it's hard to actually find a source for the claims that "hunting whales in [state] is illegal", but when I was able to find an actual law it turned out that it didn't actually say that. The law usually ended up being something like "it's illegal to fish/hunt threatened or endangered wildlife" followed by a "for threatened or endangered wildlife see this list compiled by the federal government" clarification.

But then again, saying "[state] prohibits the hunting of all animals declared endangered by the federal government in accordance with the Endangered Species Act of 1973" isn't near as funny as "look guys, it's illegal to hunt whales in Oklahoma, stupid Okies, they don't even have whales, lol" .



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:
Well a texas law would apply to anyone landing a plane on their beaches reguardless of where the plane originated from.

Galveston
Landing an airplane on the beach is illegal.

That isn't a dumb law, it's a very reasonable law. Landing a plane on a beach is possible, but dangerous if the area isn't carefully kept free of people.

Well, it's one of those laws that I think can be considered "dumb" because it falls into "that should be obvious, it's dumb that there has to be a law for that" territory.

But then that just brings me back to the "many 'stupid' laws exist because someone did the stupid thing that caused the law to be written" issue.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
Canada is not an isolationist country. We don't shut out our neighbours' opinions just because they're not Canadians.

Apparently you do, because that law in your OP exists.

sirlynchmob wrote:
Well a texas law would apply to anyone landing a plane on their beaches reguardless of where the plane originated from.

Galveston
Landing an airplane on the beach is illegal.

That isn't a dumb law, it's a very reasonable law. Landing a plane on a beach is possible, but dangerous if the area isn't carefully kept free of people.

all planes are equipped for water landings, why aim for the beach?

sirlynchmob wrote:
all planes are equipped for water landings, why aim for the beach?

Because you want to take off again instead of buying a new plane?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 d-usa wrote:
Well, it's one of those laws that I think can be considered "dumb" because it falls into "that should be obvious, it's dumb that there has to be a law for that" territory.

Except it isn't, because landing on a beach is a thing that happens. For example, in WA there's an "airport" that is just a section of beach designated as a runway. Whether or not a property owner or government wants to allow aircraft to use their beaches is a legitimate policy decision to make.

sirlynchmob wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
Canada is not an isolationist country. We don't shut out our neighbours' opinions just because they're not Canadians.

Apparently you do, because that law in your OP exists.

sirlynchmob wrote:
Well a texas law would apply to anyone landing a plane on their beaches reguardless of where the plane originated from.

Galveston
Landing an airplane on the beach is illegal.

That isn't a dumb law, it's a very reasonable law. Landing a plane on a beach is possible, but dangerous if the area isn't carefully kept free of people.

all planes are equipped for water landings, why aim for the beach?

For the same reason why despite all boats being equipped for land landings no one really does it.

 Peregrine wrote:

sirlynchmob wrote:
all planes are equipped for water landings, why aim for the beach?

Because you want to take off again instead of buying a new plane?

Sometimes you have no choise and just have to figure how to get into ground safely ASAP.

tneva82 wrote:
Sometimes you have no choise and just have to figure how to get into ground safely ASAP.

And in that case you have authority from the FAA to violate any law or regulation required to have a safe conclusion to the flight. In this case if you have a clear section of beach you aim for it over ditching in the water depending on the conditions (length of beach available, fixed gear vs. retractable, water temperature, etc). If I look down and see that the beach is clear I'm taking that option over a water landing every time.

What this law is about is people voluntarily landing on the beach. The FAA has no specific regulations about doing so, which means it's up to local governments and/or property owners to decide if they want to allow aircraft to land on their beaches. If there's no law banning beach landings you're free to land as long as you can ensure that you have a sufficiently long section of beach cleared of people. The city of Galveston has obviously decided that they'd rather not have people flying into their beaches, so they made a law to ban it.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Pouncey wrote:
Canada is not an isolationist country. We don't shut out our neighbours' opinions just because they're not Canadians.

Apparently you do, because that law in your OP exists.

That's why the law is the least Canadian thing imaginable. It goes against our very concept as a country.

We also had a law for a while a few years ago that literally told women what they were allowed to wear while taking the Canadian Citizenship Oath.

One woman affected by this law, who told reporters at one point that the reason she chose to come to Canada was because she knew we're a country with a large degree of religious freedom, sued the government for her right to wear traditional Muslim clothing where only her eyes were visible while taking her Canadian Citizenship Oath, if that was what she chose to do. The courts agreed and the law ceased to exist.

I would hope the law I'm referring to in the OP would be struck down the first time it's challenged in court. Frankly, that might've happened already, as the thing I got it from is well over a year old.

But just because we pass a law doesn't mean we can't then remove that law from existence.