Hmm, the problem is that judges and even police officers are generally saner than voters.

Giving the former discretion was a way to sneakily contain the worst excesses of the latter.

Alas, self-interest isn't really something voters seem to really take into account.

Judges and police officers have their own massive "worst excesses".

They do, but letting mob rule decide criminal sanction is beyond fucked. See: Any discussion thread of literally any criminal being sentenced, receiving parole, or better yet, committing any crime after being released for serving a different one.

Its almost like they are sick of people commiting crimes.

How many times have we seen politicians advocate for laws against something, then do a 180 when one of their kids does it? Even if you had that system, I don't think it would work the way you say. People are dumb and politicians are no exception.

This is of course assuming that politicians aren't largely duplicitious and actually believe in a word they say. I grew up in Indonesia, and the number of politicians who were extremely anti-porn getting caught watching porn in parliament is frankly staggering, yet alone the ones who are pro death penalty for drugs caught as being part of massive drug smuggling rings.

You raise an interesting point: One question that I think about developing countries: Most of them have higher perception of corruption compared to highly developed (OECD) nations. How do countries realistically reduce corruption? Korea went from an incredibly poor country in 1960 to a wealthy country in 2010. I am sure they dramatically reduced corruption over this time period... but how? Another example, in the 1960s/1970s, Hongkong dramatically increased the pay for civil servants (including police officers) to reduce corruption. (It worked, mostly.)

I live in a developing country. What I find is that the corruption is generally easier to navigate here that it was in the USA. The corruption in the USA is much more entrenched, in the form of regulatory capture. At the local level this can look like a local ordinance where “only a contractor with xy and z (only one of which is needed for the job) can bid, favoring a specific contractor. Here you just figure out compliance with the person in charge.

Part of how the USA got that way is hilariously enough, anti-corruption policies.

    > much more entrenched, in the form of regulatory capture

I am unsure how to interpret this comment. It is so broad that it dilutes the effect. Are there any wealthy countries that you feel do not suffer from the same issue?

Idk, I’ve not lived in any wealthy countries besides the USA.

Corruption is eliminated by properly aligning incentives. Capitalism is also all about properly aligning incentives. Moving to a more capitalism-heavy system usually causes countries to get much richer.

Eastern Europe went through a similar transition. Before the iron curtain fell, the eastern bloc operated on favors more than it operated on money. This definitely isn't the case any more.

This is probably the best explanation. I didn't consider that when incentives are better aligned through capitalism, that perceived corruption may naturally fall. Your example of Eastern Europe is a very good one.

> Dean Ball made this exact point on the Ezra Klein show a few days ago. I always thought laws would get more just with perfect enforcement -- the people passing mandatory sentencing laws for minor drug offenses would think twice if their own children, and not just minorities and unfavourable groups, were subject to the same consequences (instead of rehab or community service).

The problem with perfect enforcement is it requires the same kind of forethought as waterfall development. You rigidly design the specification (law) at the start, then persist with it without deviation from the original plan (at least for a long time). In your example, the lawmakers may still pass the law because they don't think of their kids as drug users, and are distracted by some outrage in some other area.

> I always thought laws would get more just with perfect enforcement

As Edward Snowden once argued in an AMA on Reddit, a zero crime rate is undesirable for society because it very likely implies that it's impossible to evade law enforcement. The latter, however, means that people won't be able to do anything if the laws ever become tyrannic, e.g. due to a change in power.

The people should always have the opportunity and power to behead the government.

That's tautological without the existence of cylons.

Yep, not ever being able to break a law means that whatever the current set of laws are will never be able to be changed. If people can't ever push the boundaries of the law, we can never realize that the boundaries are in the wrong place.

Take some examples of laws that have changed over time. Say, interracial marriage. It was illegal in many places to marry someone of a different race. If this had been perfectly enforced, no one would have ever dated or see couples of different races, and people would have had a lot harder of a time exploring and realizing that the law was wrong.

The same thing could be said about marijuana legalization. If enforcement was perfect, no one would have ever tried marijuana, and there would have never been a movement to legalize by people who used it and decided it was not something that should be banned.

We need to be able to push boundaries so they can move when needed.

The US has traditionally solved this problem by having dozens of political entities that can compete (at least for elites) and, since the creation of the interstate highway system, the oppressed can flee.