Should all laws be enforced evenly?
NO. Only just laws should be enforced. (As for the "evenly" thing, see below.)
Unjust laws should not be enforced at all - in fact, they should not even exist. But given that they DO exist and ARE enforced, it is
ceteris paribus always preferable that they be applied to
fewer people rather than to more.
Suppose pot was still illegal and a law was proposed to make it legal, but just for women. Would you consider that a move in the right direction? Is that a move towards more freedom?
If you accept that it is unjust to punish people for some reason X, then why should it be preferred that more rather than fewer people be punished for reason X?
Or to put it another way: other things being equal, if Law A will result in X number of people being subject to an unjust punishment for some unjust reason and Law B will result in Y number of people being subject to the same unjust punishment for the same unjust reason - where those are the only alternatives and X is greater than Y - then why should Law A be preferred to Law B?
If applying an unjust law "evenly" (whatever that might mean) will result in subjecting more people to injustice than would otherwise have been the case, why should any decent person desire "evenness" in the application of such laws? Why should a decent person not think that the more "
uneven" the application of unjust laws, the better?
A "more even" application of unjust laws is NOT a "move towards more freedom" - it is a move towards more injustice.
What if we had a flat tax of 30% but then a law was considered to make it 15% for those making less than 100K? Is that a move towards freedom? I say no.
But why should a flat tax rate of 30% applied to everyone be considered "even?" Someone who makes $1,000,000 will be made to pay $300,000 while someone who makes $10,000 will be made to pay $3000. How is $300,000 vs. $3000 "even?" Does the richer man use tax-funded roads more than the poorer man? Is he that much better defended by a tax-funded military than the poorer man? Add to these kinds of questions (of which there are many more) the fact that $3000 is a MUCH bigger "hit" against a man who makes only $10,000 than $300,000 is against a man who makes $1,000,000. How is that "even?" (And using a constant dollar amount instead of a percentage rate won't make things any better. Taxing everyone at something like, say, $1000 won't be any more "even" - a man who makes only $10,000 will still be hit harder by it than a man who makes $1,000,000 will be.)
Taxation is unjust thievery (no matter how it is done) and should not occur at all. But given that it does occur, there is
no way to make it "even" or "fair" or whatever other euphemism you might care to use. And that is exactly what the use of the notion of "evenness" is in the context of the application of unjust laws - a euphemism. It can only serve to obfuscate or conceal the inherent injustice of an unjust law by giving it the false veneer & illusory appearance of some kind of "fairness."
So again: An "even" application of an unjust law is NOT a "move towards freedom" - it is a move towards injustice.
I think laws should apply to everyone. We should all "share the pain".
Only just laws should apply to everyone - and with regard to such, there should be no need to add euphemisms such as "evenly." There should be no unjust laws at all - and thus, no talk of how "we should all 'share the pain'" of unjust laws. We should not. Instead, we should work towards the abolition of all unjust laws - or, barring that, the maximal reduction of the number of people to which they are applied.
IOW: We should work to maximize the "
uneveness" - NOT the "evenness" - with which unjust laws are applied. We certainly should not desire or seek conditions under which unjust laws are applied "evenly" (which appears to mean, "either to everyone equally, or to as many as possible"). Rather, we should desire and seek conditions under which unjust laws are applied "
unevenly" (by which I mean, "either to no one at all, or to as few as possible").
