We break many laws every day without consequence and often with necessity (speed limit on freeways in large cities for instance). Law isn't quite so straightforward. The Myth of The Rule of Law: http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm

I'd wager that most corporations are violating one law or another, without any complaints from the people.

I'm just going to point out that Uber is sidestepping all those "useless regulations" and in the process has had issues ranging from abused customers to abused drivers or combinations of the two, repeatedly, since it's inception.

I'm not saying ALL the regulations were put in place for good reasons, and I'm not going to argue that cab companies don't have a monopoly in most places because they do indeed have that. But then to turn that around and say therefore, the Government shouldn't regulate Taxis in any capacity is equally stupid and not supported by the evidence.

And before you say "Well I didn't say they shouldn't regulate at all" please bear in mind that you just said a corporation should be able to violate laws deemed useless by that corporation and/or the general public, meaning the regulations have no teeth and therefore might as well not exist.

No disagreements, though I am sort of offended that you'd try to straw man me into being some sort of anarchist. There is plenty of subtlety in the interpretation of law, and I'd argue that the origin of law definitely matters, as does intent, which is why we have a process through trials in the judicial system.

I also have very little to say about Uber in particular, I was just responding directly to your comment about how we should follow laws to the letter.

I'm not trying to strawman you, I'm pointing out that you're comparing Uber breaking transportation regs to you going a little too fast on your daily commute. If those things are equal in the eyes of the law, might as well burn the regulations, they aren't useful.

Sorry if that came across a little aggressive, not my intent at all. :)

I see, okay that's fair. I think that the fact that laws are flexible and fuzzy doesn't mean we shouldn't have laws, but it means that until an actual court decision, who knows if uber was "right" or "wrong" in the eyes of the law. For instance like the article mentioned, Uber initially started by breaking the spirit of the law, not the actual law, since the existing regulations didn't take into account the possibility of cellphones as dispatching tools. I don't know if that was ever taken to court but a sharp judge could have nailed Uber for that despite Uber technically obeying the law.

That isn't justification to say because we break law X all the time we can also break law Y. Flawed logic.

I wasn't trying to imply that. I was merely pointing out that the parent's assertion that:

> I don't see why it's suddenly up for debate whether companies need to abide the letter of the law.

Wasn't exactly true. I also have disagreements with other parts of the post, including "Origin of law is irrelevant" (what if the law arose from lobbying by a powerful industry vs for the common good) and "If you disagree you can campaign to have it changed" (and I assume obey it in the meantime) vs something like civil disobedience or jury nullification.