Re:There's no easy way to say this
by lazaroclapp on Tuesday October 04, 2016 @08:46PM
(#12640839)
I did never meant to say that made it a good/reasonable thing (although, if we are going down that path, why is it right to pay someone $200 a month to clean toilets and not to write code? If anything, it is a shittier thing - pun intended - to offer that deal to people who don't have the means and options to refuse or get other jobs... but I suspect we would both end up agreeing that the Mexican minimum wage should be higher). My point is that there is likely no legal recourse here, which is an important detail.
How does that compare to the similar argument when people bring up free speech (and a person responds that if the best defense is that the government can't make it illegal, etc.)
That's pretty much exactly my argument in those cases, too. The government not finding a piece of speech so objectionable as to be criminal is a far cry from a positive moral defense of its existence.
"This is so shitty that the nicest thing that can be said is it's not actually illegal" doesn't merit the exculpatory nature of this sentence. And the sentiment behind it isn't really worth much in the first place.