SJS's Journal: Water Rights

Ran across a pathetic entry on qbit.cc on water rights, but the the page required Javascript to leave comments -- so the site is run by (an) idiot[s].

Not surprising, as the author of the entry was profoundly upset at the idea of water rights. Apparently, this idiot worries about the government enslaving people by controlling the water, but never reflects on the subject for five minutes to think about what the underlying problem might be: else he (or she) might have had an actual thought, and perhaps wondered what would happen if, instead of a government (answerable to all of the people) controlling the distribution of water, a random citizen were to "enslave" people by controlling the water.

Many laws are bloated, twisted, unreadable, useless, and stupid -- but most of the laws that affect most of the people in the country are, oddly enough, not without some sort of justification. They address a problem, concern, or issue, that was or is important. Sure, the law may introduce a different problem, but that, too, is often addressed by the law (which is how we end up with such bloated, twisted, unreadable legal codes).

This isn't to say that laws shouldn't be routinely challenged, or re-evaluated; it just means that we should take a little time to learn some of the history of the issue, and ponder the concerns the law was apparently made to address. It may be that our national values have changed since then (it used to be -- as in before I was born -- illegal for a non-white to own my house, for example, something I find quite offensive), or not (I quite like it being illegal for someone to shoot me just because).