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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023

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A SCOTUS ruling is not a law. However, the constitution is, and it does suffer from the problem you have observed. Except, is it a problem?

"No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law."

I am not a legal expert, but I think there's nothing in the US Code that explains what the punishment for forcing you to shelter and feed a soldier is. What happens if Major González forces you to shelter and feed one of her soldiers during peacetime? You sue her! Just like the soccer kids, you come up with a punishment you deem appropriate and ask the court to levy it. And the whole judicial process is a solved problem. If Major González is able to avoid trial or punishment, you have bigger problems in the US.

What's the point of laws that include consequences for breaking them, then? When the state itself is a plaintiff you need laws that are written like this to direct the agents of the state that act on its behalf. Why did Hammurabi bother with his code of laws, then? The other point of laws that include consequences for breaking them is simplifying the job of the judges. Common law requires to judges to be aware of existing precedents to avoid unjust unequal verdicts. Having a code of laws for common, typical infractions reduces the burden on the court system.

Should there be a law like this for AA in college admissions, or should there be a bunch of "Wang v. Harvard" lawsuits? I think the latter option is much more American in spirit.

I think there's nothing in the US Code that explains what the punishment for forcing you to shelter and feed a soldier is

Shelter would probably constitute illegal entry under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, section 929(b). Food would seem to be theft or wrongful appropriation under section 921, or, depending on the facts, robbery under section 922

There is a third point to having laws that include consequences for breaking them, which I think is relevant in this case. It's to ensure uniformity of treatment, and therefore fairness, among cases. If we end up with a thousand Wang v. Harvards, it could end up that one Wang runs out of money for lawyers and settles for $100, another Wang loses his case due to an incompetent attorney, while a third Wang gets an eight-digit payout. All while a thousand other Wangs go about their lives completely aware that they had the ability to sue. We know from criminal studies that certainty of being caught (and therefore punished) is more important for deterrence than the magnitude of the punishment, and if instead of having a well-known penalty, Harvard is playing the roulette wheel every time they do a discrimination, the deterrence factor is much smaller.

I agree that a massive sue-fest is hyper-American and it appeals to me on a gut level, but I'm not sure the benefits outweigh the way that it obscures what the EV of discriminating is.