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 d-usa wrote:

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.

Is there a Venn-Diagram of states the legalized Bestiality but not Same-Sex Marriage?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Is there a Venn-Diagram of states the legalized Bestiality but not Same-Sex Marriage?

Wasn't there a baker who refused to make wedding cakes for gay couples because he believed in the sanctity of traditional marriage or something?

Arguments like that get a lot harder to describe as "not being excuses for bigotry" when the person making them was refusing to make a wedding cake for a gay couple but thought making one for two dogs who likely have no concept of marriage entirely is just fine.

If i remember arizona still has a law that if you steal a person's mule it is to be punished with a hanging. At least i think it was arizona. More of a super outdated law though.

I think texas also had a law against shooting somebody with their back turned towards you. Once again super odd and outdated.

Missouri had an actual Mormon Exterminatus on the books until 1975.

 Nevelon wrote:
Pi equals 3 in Indiana by law.

The bill was never passed (un?)fortunately, if it had been then that would certainly be a prime contender.

 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.

The beach is the only place on Barra where you can land a plane

I wanted to run for Governor of PA but since I was in a duel I'm disqualified. Sucked when Harrisburg informed me

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
If i remember arizona still has a law that if you steal a person's mule it is to be punished with a hanging. At least i think it was arizona. More of a super outdated law though.

I think texas also had a law against shooting somebody with their back turned towards you. Once again super odd and outdated.

It was probably arizona, they have a lot of weird laws about mules. You can't even wash them in your bathtub for some reason

In France, you can't name a pig "Napoleon".

I'm curious to know which is THE dumbest law.

 godardc wrote:
In France, you can't name a pig "Napoleon".

I'm curious to know which is THE dumbest law.

Huh, I wonder whether that came about before or after Animal Farm was published.

I suspect several years before.


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

European or African?

 Azreal13 wrote:
I suspect several years before.


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

European or African?

What? I don't know that!

Lol the last 2 posters are awesome. I love that monty python and the holy grail reference.

Here in Michigan it's expressly illegal to use a decompression chamber to kill a dog. Wierd.

 godardc wrote:
In France, you can't name a pig "Napoleon".

I'm curious to know which is THE dumbest law.

Not being able to hunt whales in Oklahoma.

There's dumb laws, then there's impossibilities

As always, one should never let truth get in the way of entertainment.

The law, as I understand it, is about 'inducing' people , so for example "vote Steve Harper or we withdraw our investments" would be illegal.

 malamis wrote:
As always, one should never let truth get in the way of entertainment.

The law, as I understand it, is about 'inducing' people , so for example "vote Steve Harper or we withdraw our investments" would be illegal.

Edit: Just read the thing you linked. Yeah, that makes sense now. Thanks!

Pretty reasonable law to me. It came up during the elections when Harper hired an Australian consultant known for his mastery of running successful campaigns (though more infamously known) to help 'fix' the Cons campaign.

No law was broken, as per officials with Elections Canada, but it made for an interesting discussion at the time.

 LordofHats wrote:

 godardc wrote:
In France, you can't name a pig "Napoleon".

I'm curious to know which is THE dumbest law.

Not being able to hunt whales in Oklahoma.

There's dumb laws, then there's impossibilities

Guess if you where from OK and wanted to hunt whales you could always drive to KS...don't think whale hunting in KS is illegal yet

 Blacksails wrote:
Pretty reasonable law to me. It came up during the elections when Harper hired an Australian consultant known for his mastery of running successful campaigns (though more infamously known) to help 'fix' the Cons campaign.

No law was broken, as per officials with Elections Canada, but it made for an interesting discussion at the time.

I think the most damning thing about this for John Oliver's show is that he didn't bother to ask a lawyer in either America or Canada about it. The Canadian lawyer would've told him what "induce" meant. The American lawyer would've told him what "induce" probably meant since the USA has a similar law he would've equated it to.

Also I imagine that the term "induce" would've been defined somewhere in some sort of dicttionary-like document for legal terms to prevent confusion.

He literally didn't fact-check it at all or even try to find out why the law was written. Passing that law would've required disccussion which he could've turned up fairly easily.

And that's why I decided to stop watching his show. He can make me believe things like what he said despite everything I knew saying that law shouldn't exist.

I'd rather get my YouTube entertainment from something like WoW comedy machinima where it's not also making me believe things that probably aren't true anyways.


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 Chute82 wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 godardc wrote:
In France, you can't name a pig "Napoleon".

I'm curious to know which is THE dumbest law.

Not being able to hunt whales in Oklahoma.

There's dumb laws, then there's impossibilities

Guess if you where from OK and wanted to hunt whales you could always drive to KS...don't think whale hunting in KS is illegal yet

I've heard that in one US state, you can own and fire explosive missiles so long as you don't blow anything up you're not allowed to blow up. You have to get a permit for it. The fine for doing that without a permit is like 100 dollars.

I imagine that law was written a long, LONG time ago when 100 dollars was a CRAPLOAD of money and the rockets they had weren't like anti-tank missiles today.

Also the law about whale hunting is just extrapolating the usual laws about not hunting endangered species in the state, and some types of whales are an endangered species. That law doesn't mention whales at all.

Another thing about "stupid" laws is that they're often very old and just haven't been repealed, like those where you'd have to have a guy with a flag walk in front of your car to warn peasantry to get out of the way. It was useful and maybe even needed back when cars were new, since then it's fallen into disuse but not been removed. Or Finnish laws on beekeeping which are copy-pasted straight from the 1789(?) Swedish law book. It's just never been important to update them so they do hold some pretty odd turns of words and some allowances that any city council ordinance would strike down today (except they can't cause it's the law).

IIRC the Romans had the same show. Rome never managed to remove any old laws, they were just left in an old book when no longer needed. One time when Caesar (the legendary conqueror of Gaul) needed to scare some political opponents he had a look at some old Roman laws. Oh well, turns out there was a special court that could handle crimes against the city where exactly Caesar himself and two other living nobles were eligible to serve as judges (because ofc the law defined which families could render judgement). And the requirements to charge someone in that court weren't exactly strenous...

Spetulhu wrote:
Another thing about "stupid" laws is that they're often very old and just haven't been repealed, like those where you'd have to have a guy with a flag walk in front of your car to warn peasantry to get out of the way. It was useful and maybe even needed back when cars were new, since then it's fallen into disuse but not been removed. Or Finnish laws on beekeeping which are copy-pasted straight from the 1789(?) Swedish law book. It's just never been important to update them so they do hold some pretty odd turns of words and some allowances that any city council ordinance would strike down today (except they can't cause it's the law).

IIRC the Romans had the same show. Rome never managed to remove any old laws, they were just left in an old book when no longer needed. One time when Caesar (the legendary conqueror of Gaul) needed to scare some political opponents he had a look at some old Roman laws. Oh well, turns out there was a special court that could handle crimes against the city where exactly Caesar himself and two other living nobles were eligible to serve as judges (because ofc the law defined which families could render judgement). And the requirements to charge someone in that court weren't exactly strenous...

Given what happened with Rome... well, at least we can strike down outdated laws nowadays if anyone tried to enforce them.

Outdated isn't really excuse since laws aren't set in stone. They can be changed or even dropped

tneva82 wrote:
Outdated isn't really excuse since laws aren't set in stone. They can be changed or even dropped

They can but someone qualified would have to go through and decide which ones aren't valid. Even ones that might appear stupid on the surface would have to be carefully analysed and investigated and governments already waste enough money.

tneva82 wrote:
Outdated isn't really excuse since laws aren't set in stone. They can be changed or even dropped

Also they exist only in the minds of humans.


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AllSeeingSkink wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Outdated isn't really excuse since laws aren't set in stone. They can be changed or even dropped

They can but someone qualified would have to go through and decide which ones aren't valid. Even ones that might appear stupid on the surface would have to be carefully analysed and investigated and governments already waste enough money.

Or... you could just leave them there, and if someone tries to enforce a stupid one for dumb reasons, you let the court system decide to strike down that law if it's deemed necessary to do so.