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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 2620145" data-attributes="member: 11760">Since neither you or I is 300 years old, it would be a mistake for either of us to speak for our great-great-great-great-great grandparents.Except that there have always been harsh sentences handed down by some judges. The public wanted THOSE sentences more consistently. It absolutely is a reaction against chaos.I submit you're ignoring regular discussions of these very issues. I think anyone still bothering to read this thread knows there's a difference in sentences for cocaine and for crack, for instance, despite very little difference between the two drugs other than who takes them. This information got out there because there is a significant number of people who are upset about it.America has a ton of laws.Except, of course, we have a system built up of multiple layers. The several hundred page traffic code at the local muncipality applies to the individual just as much as the federal code does, as well as the state and often the county. There is a huge accumulation of laws each individual is subject to, with federal law trumping the diversity of state and municipal laws when there's a conflict. The system favors law over chaos, and even many of the individual states have massive amounts of law an individual is subject to -- the bar in California and New York isn't tough to pass because it's written in Pig Latin.Except that the nation went to war with states that wanted more freedom to do what they wanted to on a local level, and the victors have painted that chaotic desire as being mostly the freedom to do evil, which most historians agree is a gross oversimplification.The federalists, the Lawfuls, have won.There are guaranteed individual rights, but they're specific carve-outs from an expectation that the government has a huge amount of power over the individual, and not just one layer of government, but many. And in this highly politicized age, many Americans will cling to a few guaranteed freedoms, but will view with suspicion people wanting to exercise different ones (this goes for all sides -- the letters ACLU and NRA evoke a strong reaction from people, depending on where they are on the political spectrum, because they choose to cling to their rights too zealously/expand their rights, which offends the deeply Lawful streak running through American political culture).I don't see chaos in endless amounts of treaties, regulations and restrictions on businesses and in tariffs and subsidies. Commerce moves in an incredibly regimented fashion and when chaos exists, it's regulated away within a few short years, although that didn't help those affected by the dotcom bubble. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Just because the system is more successful than the Lawful Stupid system across the ocean doesn't mean it's Chaotic. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />I'd say the country, on balance, is more or less Neutral, although we tell ourselves we're Good or Lawful or Chaotic. But the pendulum stays pretty close to the middle, given all of the influences on it.</blockquote>

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