Because presumably the laws about the sale, use and disposal of tables-of-mass-consumption where written for a reason, and dodging them by adding or removing a leg would result in criminals getting away with terrible table crimes because of the technicality. Let alone what the police will do to poor students sitting in their “tables” (you know, the ones with four legs and a small horizontal working surface).
Silly definitions enshrined into law are why cameras arbitrarily limit the length of the videos they will record, lest they be accused of being video equipment and thereby subject to additional tariffs.
>dodging them by adding or removing a leg would result in criminals getting away with terrible table crimes because of the technicality
If it's a crime to do X on a "table" and you do X on a not-table, by definition you're not committing a crime. Saying that you're getting away with a crime in such a situation is like saying that you're getting away with a crime by driving your car within the speed limit, whereas if you were an honest criminal and drove a little bit faster the police would be allowed to ticket you. If there are clearly demarcated limits that people are allowed to stay within, it's not a technicality whether you're on one side or the other.
>Let alone what the police will do to poor students sitting in their “tables” (you know, the ones with four legs and a small horizontal working surface).
Sorry, I don't understand the argument.
>Silly definitions enshrined into law are why cameras arbitrarily limit the length of the videos they will record, lest they be accused of being video equipment and thereby subject to additional tariffs.
What the alternative, given that the government wants to tax "professional video equipment" but not "consumer video equipment" and there's a gradient from one to the other?
If adding an extra wheel to your vehicle lets you drive at 120 mph on a 55 mph road, that's not getting away with a crime. It's not a crime. You didn't "get away" with anything. Your modified vehicle is subject to different laws.
Iunno. There could be reasons why it should, there could he reasons why it shouldn't, or it might not matter either way. Maybe the government wants to encourage people to modify their cars to have an extra wheel, and it does so by allowing their drivers to drive faster.
If you want a less contrived example, where I live motorcycles require different licenses depending on their engine displacement, but since electric motorcycles have a displacement of 0, they can be ridden without registration or license. Is this due to oversight or to encourage use of electric motorcycles? Are people who ride electric motorcycles without a license getting away with exploiting a loophole, or are they using the law as intended?
Totally - especially when people are incentivized to try to find loopholes, it's extremely hard to find an airtight definition of anything.
Three wheeled cars used to be made to bypass the definition of what a car is and avoid needing to be subject to crash testing and other safety regulation. My parent's home is a complicated 'single-unit condo' which is as far as I can tell, basically a lie to get past regulations on building new houses.
I guess my point is, if you agree that the law is good then you should not want the definition to be easily bypassed with a loophole, and having something that's flexible helps a lot with this. And if the law is bad then you'll be glad for one though it makes things silly compared to repealing the law.
And if you see someone using a loophole for a law you like, especially if they are doing so in a cheeky way like the billionaires playing games with shell companies to avoid taxes, it's fair to be mad at them even if it's not "technically illegal".
I prefer rigid, clear-cut laws that may be bypassed by loopholes to flexible laws that may be applied at the whim of judges. I worry less about people doing clever tricks to save a few bucks and more about the government abusing loosely-written laws against me.
Silly definitions enshrined into law are why cameras arbitrarily limit the length of the videos they will record, lest they be accused of being video equipment and thereby subject to additional tariffs.