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Comment by nonethewiser | original | Lawmakers added $1 to car insurance policies. That money paid for Flock cameras
[−]nonethewiser · 2026-08-30 Sun 01:10 UTC · link
“Legal” murder makes absolutely no sense. If its legal its not murder. You mean “legally kill”
[−]aidenn0 · 2026-08-30 Sun 02:05 UTC · link
It can also mean unjustified/immoral killing, which can be a useful definition (otherwise e.g. a true dictator can never murder anyone).
[−]rayiner · 2026-08-30 Sun 04:25 UTC · link
That’s not a useful definition in a democracy. Who gets to define what’s justified if not the duly elected legislature? I bet if you put the current Texas law on the ballot today you’d get the same answer.
[−]ipaddr · 2026-08-30 Sun 05:28 UTC · link
If you put that on the ballot in other states this would be more popular than initially thought by most.
[−]Planktonne · 2026-08-30 Sun 09:30 UTC · link
It is a useful definition, because it allows you to talk about places where the law might be unjust.

You can't have a functioning democracy if it's impossible to criticise the current setup. This is the whole idea behind newspeak [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak

[−]rayiner · 2026-08-30 Sun 13:30 UTC · link
> It is a useful definition, because it allows you to talk about places where the law might be unjust.

Unjust according to whom? Wouldn't it be better to just make our premises explicit?

[−]spolitry · 2026-08-30 Sun 12:41 UTC · link
“Legal” always means with respect to a designated authority.