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Comment by omginternets | Hacker News Reader

There is such a thing as a well-behaved dog. I don't see the social benefit of enforcing every last little law on the books all the time.

I think laws (the kind we're talking about, anyway) are best seen as a tool for maintaining public order. If police encounter something dangerous or immediately disorderly, they can express their reasons for intervening in terms of laws. If you run open headers on your car and cause an actual disturbance, you can be cited. When that relationship between order and law is inverted, the result is cops nickle-and-diming the populace when there was no actual underlying problem.

The real application of law requires, you know ... nuance, discretion and situational awareness. That's the standard we should hold police to, not throwing every single page of the book at people all the time.

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Ok, let's say your dog is well behaved. I think we can agree that lots of other people who think that their dog is well behaved actually have a dog that is potentially dangerous. How am I supposed to know by looking at you and your dog which it is? So now I get to feel in danger so that you can feel slightly more at home.

How does that make sense?

This is an excellent example of 'ridiculous government overreach' that actually makes perfect sense and some people just don't like.

>How does that make sense?

In a word: discernment. If it's a miniature poodle, you can probably chill. If it's a big dog, it's probably worthwhile to enforce the law.

It actually is a pretty good example of overreach insofar as you're advocating the removal of any judgement call from the equation. That is the surest way to build a relentless bureaucratic machine that makes everyone miserable without actually protecting anyone.

The human in the loop is a feature, not a bug.

because if there's one thing lapdogs are known for, it's a lack of violence.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/shortcuts/2021/may/...

Now consider why it is you didn't know this?

You are reasoning in terms of total elimination of risk. That is the source of our disagreement.

I was pointing out your discernment of lapdogs is completely off base from reality, undermining your own point.

You respond with a strawman.

If just seeing a dog without a leash is enough for you to feel in danger you probably shouldn't leave your home, let alone go to the park. That aside, you don't have a right to not feel in danger. You don't even have a right to not be in danger, though you do have a right to not be put in danger deliberately or by negligence.

If they feel threatened by dogs off leashes, that's them, let them live. It seems perfectly reasonable for such a person to go someplace where dogs must be on leashes.

I'm not saying they shouldn't live, I'm saying that if off-leash dogs scare you and you don't want to be scared, you shouldn't be outside. Even if every last dog owner kept their dog on a leash at all times, there would still be some dogs without a leash, and all of them would be outside your house. I assume any person would understand that by the time they reach adulthood and either learn to deal with the fact that some dogs they run into won't have a leash, or they stop going outside if they can't deal with it. Stubbornly refusing to accept reality is childish.

you've never actually been threatened by a dog off a leash have you?

I never understood why my high school buddy was so afraid of dogs. I would tease him sometimes because when he saw a large dog, even on a leash, he would edge to the other side of me and act nervous. He's a big and typically brave dude so it was out of character. Plus I just never had a concept of dogs as dangerous based on my childhood experiences.

He eventually explained that he grew up in the poor neighborhood, where people keep large, poorly trained "guard dogs" that occasionally escape and roam the streets. As a child he had to evade roaming dogs several times, including one occasion where he genuinely believes he was running for his life. Apparently it fucked him up pretty badly. Poorly trained dogs (especially those that are bread for aggression) are no joke, even to full grown adults.

Not that I can remember. Therefore...? What's your point?

knowing vs understanding.

Telling people who have different life experiences and tolerances for risk than you to "stop going outside" is childish, my dude. You seem to struggle with accepting the reality of this person's differing worldview. Maybe take a step back and realize that it's perfectly ok when people disagree with you about stuff on the internet.

I struggle to understand how an adult does not realize that leading a normal life requires taking in some amount of risk, unless the person has some kind of learning difficulty. If you want to go outside, there is a non-zero chance that you'll be mauled by a dog without a leash. There's a much greater chance that you'll be involved in a car accident, and cars are policed much more strictly than dog leashes, not to mention that violations are punished much more severely.

>Maybe take a step back and realize that it's perfectly ok when people disagree with you about stuff on the internet.

Exactly what of what I said implies that I have a problem with disagreeing with people? All I said was "if you do these two things, your behavior is incongruous". That's as politely as I can disagree with someone. Maybe your problem is that I said anything at all, in which case I think you're the one who has a problem with disagreement.

> If you want to go outside, there is a non-zero chance that you'll be mauled by a dog without a leash.

That risk lessens significantly if dogs are mandated to be leashed.

unleashed dogs are regularly picked up by the city and if they're not claimed by someone w/i a specific amount of time, they're euthanised.

This isn't actually helping your case.

Dogs are already mandated to be leashed. That doesn't mean they will be leashed. That's my point.

perfect is the enemy of good.

We shouldn't outlaw murder because some people will murder anyway. We shouldn't outlaw rape because some people will rape anyway.

You have no leg to stand on here, you're grasping at straws.

Back in the days people used to shoot any predator in sight, a leash is just a civilized measure that makes everyone happy, but the old way is fine too with me :)

You're making some wild extrapolations here. Have you ever watched your dog be mauled to death violently, literally ripped to pieces by another animal off it's leash that is 'harmless and just playing'? Have you ever tried to unclamp an attacking 'playful' dog that someone didn't feel the need to leash from the broken, panicked, dying husk of something that minutes before was an animal you loved?

If not, I'd be careful with how loudly you proclaim ignorant opinions without consideration for people who might have a wider experience than you. Wisdom is knowing when to shut up and listen, sometimes.

No, society works because we broadly trust that others will follow laws and that institutions will enforce the laws. It has been decided, by the public, that public spaces should not have off leash dogs in them because every dog is a “good dog” until it isn’t and someone or someone else’s animal pays the price.

This is like saying it is okay for good drivers to drive through stop signs, because they’re there for the bad drivers. Just moronic.

If you want to be somewhere where you can behave however you want, move away from other people. Pretty straightforward.

Literally nobody in this conversation is arguing that they should be able to do what they want.

That is what arguments like this are:

> In a word: discernment. If it's a miniature poodle, you can probably chill. If it's a big dog, it's probably worthwhile to enforce the law.

Your whole argument is “judgement is an important component of the law” but what that leads to is differing judgements on what we can do. What individual is so far above reproach that they should have the right to discern whether the situation calls for applicability of a black and white law?

watch and be amazed as I successfully do what you're implying can't be done.

raping a 5 year old should be illegal and there is no grey there.

Go on, explain to me why I'm wrong.

That… isn’t what I said can’t be done. In fact it is the opposite.

I said that we should not empower people to decide when laws are and aren’t applicable, because what they judge as applicable may not be the same as what others judge as applicable. That’s the whole point.

Black and white laws are black and white, you can’t just decide stop signs don’t apply to you because you are a safe driver. You can’t just decide your dog is safe to be off leash in a place where the law requires it. Not sure why this is hard.

you can, however, decide that the rape of child is wrong and intervene.

I don't have to be "beyond reproach" to conclude this.

your problem is trying to apply one to the other, it's an equivalency issue.

jaywalking is not equivalent to murder, and it never will be.

> you can, however, decide that the rape of child is wrong and intervene

I don’t know why you are latching on to this scenario when it aligns with my point. It is illegal to rape a child, you are agreeing with me. This is black and white.

Now, there is some person out there who thinks this is okay, are they allowed to judge this is okay, break the law, and do it because in they judged the child is mature? No. Okay. We agree.

That same exact reasoning applies to other laws that we, as a society, have deemed necessary for public life. Because you don’t get to judge those laws as inapplicable. If you do not like them you can try and have them changed or you can leave to a place that has different laws.

Where I live it is illegal to have a dog off leash in public places, this law exists for a reason. People should not decide the law doesn’t apply to them because they “discern” their dog is not a threat. If someone cant accept that law, they need to move somewhere where they can have the lifestyle with their pet that they want.

Indeed it is. Applying judgement and "you can do whatever you want" are not the same thing.

dogs have attacked their owners, this idea that owners somehow are the best judge of what their pet will or will not do is probably not a reliable one.

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