A lot has been written about the Internet having a dumbing effect on people.
I was stuck for a topic this week, so I decided maybe it was time for another dumb criminals column, but I’ve already done most of the ones that are really good.
I decided to try smart criminals, but lost interest mostly because the crimes were complex, but the most of the criminals still got caught (or died).
Instead, I thought about doing dumb laws and I started to notice a pattern. Aside from these slide shows it seems everyone seems to be doing to maximize advertising exposure, which has pretty much destroyed the Internet as far as I’m concerned, these things are amazingly shallow.
I hadn’t really noticed it much because I rarely read these kinds of lists and news aggregations preferring in-depth journalism from respected sources, but there seems to be a distinct absence of people asking the question why.
Why is, of course, the most important of the journalistic Ws. It is the context. It is the provider of understanding.
One example I found in a list of Canada’s supposedly dumbest laws, was an Alberta law that forbids persons from painting a wooden ladder.
At first glance, it does seem kind of curious. The author of such a list would do well to exercise a bit of curiosity rather than just dismiss the thing at face value for being dumb.
However, when you consider why a jurisdiction would pass such a law, it takes on a different light. This is a regulation under Alberta’s Occupational Health and Safety Code. Paint or other coatings, of course, could mask problems with the ladder that could cause injury. It could also increase the likelihood of slipping depending on the type of coating.
It is not a dumb law, it is a sensible law.
Similarly, a bylaw in Montreal prohibits “For Sale” signs in moving vehicles. I could not find a rationale, but I can come up with one. Having a For Sale sign in the windshield could be a distraction for other drivers. I have long thought that advertising on cabs and billboards on highways should be illegal for that very reason.
Then there is the assortment of dated laws that just never got taken off the books such as not dragging a dead horse down Yonge Street in Toronto on a Sunday, which is funny in a modern, but probably made some sense in its day.
I did find one truly ridiculous Canadian law, however. In British Columbia, it is illegal to kill a Sasquatch.
In that case, I don’t even care why they passed the law. There is no rationale on the planet that could justify passing a law that pertains to something that does not exist.
