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WHARRGARBL@lemmy.world

What is your quintessential example of a historical ruling or law of unintended consequences? (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 days ago by WHARRGARBL@lemmy.world to c/askhistorians@lemmy.world

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I just learned that the egregious US Citizens United (2010) decision is a convoluted result of several altruistic campaign finance reforms beginning with the 1907 Tillman Act to FECA (1971) and Buckley v. Valeo (1976).

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[–] mech@feddit.org 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Legalism in China was the philosophy that if laws regulate every aspect of life and are strictly enforced for everyone equally, including local rulers, the state will function and justice will prevail, even if the local rulers are corrupt or incompetent.
This lead to harsh punishments for breaking the letter of the law, regardless of intent or circumstances, even if what the law demanded was impossible to do.
So a ruler could be sentenced to death for a failure that was outside of his control, and have no other alternative than to rebel against the emperor, even if he was actually loyal to him.

[–] BCsven@lemmy.ca 4 points 5 days ago

There's that law if you injure somebody there you have to help support them for life, and then the result was the videos of people hitting a pedestrian and then driving back over them a few times to ensure they died. Fine/jail for killing was less than lifelong payments to support the victim.