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Comment by morgante | Hacker News Reader

You're asking that we overturn centuries of jurisprudence just because you don't like bankers.

I think that's a much bigger crime than anything financiers have supposedly committed.

What exactly in what I wrote suggests throwing out centuries of jurisprudence? There are already strict liability crimes, much less recklessness or negligence crimes, as well as crimes of omission.

Also what crime were you accusing me of having committed? Unlawful proposing of legislation Morgante doesn't like?

Strict liability crimes are a travesty against justice. They really shouldn't exist; we should be looking to remove the ones we have rather than adding any more.

(GP wasn't claiming that you were literally committing a crime, rather suggesting that making it easier to convict innocent people would be a "crime" in a rhetorical sense)

If financial institutions can commit complex theft on a massive scale without prosecution then the economy will fail. What value does money have if theft occurs on that scale regularly? Why invest in industry when it's more profitable to invest in theft?

Are those centuries of jurisprudence still valuable in these scenarios if they're not working?

How do we know they're not working?

Maybe it's working perfectly to protect financiers from being prosecuted for immoral but legal acts.

That would be what most people mean when they say they laws are not working. Similar to how, if our laws allowed highwaymen to get away with murder, we'd say they were failing us even though they were working perfectly to protect armed robbers.

If an act isn't actually illegal, your problem isn't with the courts. It's with the legislative branch.

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