# Laws Don't Always Work as They Should in a Complex World **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 23, 2016, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laws-dont-always-work-as-they-should-in-a-complex-world/749945 "2016-03-23T13:32:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laws-dont-always-work-as-they-should-in-a-complex-world/749945/41 "2016-03-28T15:15:37Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Er, what? Should it be against the law for employers to do dumb things in general? Generally no, but when such behavior has no logical justification and is arguably against the public interest, then I think government does have the right to intervene. > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > A candidate for employment doesn’t have much privacy anyway. Employers are going to know where you live, how much you make, whether you’re married, and all sorts of shit that would otherwise be private. I don’t really see why a credit history is special in this regard. This is a bot of mixed bag. Employers generally know what they pay you, but they generally cannot know what you make if you have another job, or supplemental income. Where you live is not private in any meaningful sense. You can Google almost anyone who owns a house, and not only see how much they paid, when they bought the house, and a street view picture, but you can also often see pictures of the inside of the house via websites like Redfin and Zillow. Marriage records are often public too. > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > If I have a philosophical problem with the practice (I have no objection to the law banning it on the grounds that it disproportionately disqualifies minorities on principle) it’s that credit histories are maintained by private vendors with almost no incentive to verify their accuracy. That’s a good reason, but I think, more generally, employers should have at the very least, and demonstrable rationale for discriminating against prospective employees. Doubly so when such a policy has broad distortive effects. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2016, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laws-dont-always-work-as-they-should-in-a-complex-world/749945/42 "2016-03-28T15:52:27Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > As a matter of fact, I’d like a constitutional amendment passed that no law can be enforced except on behalf of a victim or potential victim. No victim, no crime. So your proposed solution to the problem of laws that you don’t like is not to repeal them but to prevent their enforcement (exactly what you accused liberals of doing) by passing not only _another_ law, but a super-law that would itself be very difficult to repeal or amend, and would almost certainly have enormous unintended consequences, and has absolutely no evidence showing it would benefit society. If you think your idea is so great that it should be enshrined in the Constitution, why not just convince people to ask their legislatures for fewer/different laws instead of creating an enormous limitation on the freedom of citizens to enact laws that reflect their actual desires and interests? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/laws-dont-always-work-as-they-should-in-a-complex-world/749945.md?page=2)