What is the silliest law that is still enforced where you live? Why do you think it still exists?

3 years ago by Bluetreefrog to c/asklemmy

confluence 106 points 3 years ago

It's illegal to have your remains decomposed naturally (or one of those cool new methods like composting or alkaline hydrolysis). You're legally required to be stuffed full of embalming chemicals and buried in a box, or cremated, polluting the air and wasting bioavailable nutrients, to be turned into high pH, high sodium ashes.

I think this is because the laws were mainly created by Catholics (this is Louisiana, where we have parishes instead of counties), and people are still too superstitious to make sense.

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Astroturfed 29 points 3 years ago

We have a lot of weird hangups on dead bodies and disposal. I wish I could just be buried under a tree when I die.

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TheRaven 17 points 3 years ago

This is what I want. It’s a chance to continue living, even after my consciousness has passed. My death will feed new life, and I find that beautiful.

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drcobaltjedi 8 points 3 years ago

A friend of mine has his will or whatever say in regards to his body "gut me like a fish". And I'm with him on this. Harveat whatever organs are still usefull then just use the rest of me as fetilizer. No need for my body to stop being useful to someone somewhere or hell even being useful to the rest of nature.

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GONADS125 15 points 3 years ago

I just want to be tossed in the woods and let nature do its course. No embalming, no wasting my ATP with cremation...

What better legacy than to let your body feed into a food web, and have your energy continually transfered between organisms?

Naturally recycling our bodies is kind of a beautiful process of energy exchange, and I think it should be celebrated instead of being so uncomfortable with death as a society that we want to spend all this unnecessary time and money trying to preserve a dead body and sealing it in concrete tomb. It's just dumb...

I just want to be scavenged and fertilize the damn soil. Just toss my limp ass in the woods when I'm dead.

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confluence 6 points 3 years ago

I love the idea of reforestation through memorial trees

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Apollo 1 point 3 years ago

Sly burial ftw

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the_third 11 points 3 years ago
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PetDinosaurs 4 points 3 years ago

I'd prefer that to formaldehyde seeping into my ground water.

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SatyrSack 9 points 3 years ago

When I die, just throw me in the trash.

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SeaJ 3 points 3 years ago

Be buried in Washington. We invented composting humans.

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PetDinosaurs 20 points 3 years ago

Catholics weren't really allowed to be cremated until Vatican 2, in the 60s.

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Hardeehar 21 points 3 years ago

Vatican 2: The New Vaticaning

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ArcaneSlime 11 points 3 years ago

Vatican 2: Holy Boogaloo

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mack7400 2 points 3 years ago

National Lampoon's European Vatication

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over_clox 1 point 3 years ago path: 0 3261362 3309174, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0
justlookingfordragon 74 points 3 years ago

I live in Hesse, Germany. The dumbest law I know about (that's still in use but rarely enforced) is this:

Aus der Altstadtsatzung der nordhessischen Kleinstadt Bad Sooden-Allendorf: In § 10 Abs. 6 ist geregelt, dass „Sonnenschirme […] beige-, pastell- oder sandfarbig“ sein müssen. Wer dieser Regelung zuwiderhandelt, begeht eine Ordnungswidrigkeit und kann nach dem Gesetz über Ordnungswidrigkeiten (OWiG) mit einer Geldbuße von bis zu 15.000 Euro bestraft werden.

Translation: In that particular town, sun umbrellas have to be pastel/cream colors. If you put one up that is too bright / too dark / too whatever, it can lead to a fine of 15.000€ (ca. $16,700).

Source: https://www.bad-sooden-allendorf.de/...

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GONADS125 31 points 3 years ago

Man that is a way steeper fine than I was expecting!

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kozel 13 points 3 years ago

Is it enforced? And... why?

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justlookingfordragon 23 points 3 years ago

In all honesty? I have absolutely no idea why this law exists. I only know that, when my mother went to rehab there after a car crash, she wasn't allowed to bring her black umbrella because the facility didn't want to risk a lawsuit. It wasn't even a SUN umbrella, mind you, but they still didn't want to allow it. That's the only reason I know about this dumb law in the first place.

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FireTower 10 points 3 years ago

$16,700 is why

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OddrunAsmundr 73 points 3 years ago path: 0 3260770, hotness: undefined, score: 73, children: 12
fubo 29 points 3 years ago

Not only can you buy liquor on Sundays in Massachusetts these days, but they even went and legalized tattoos!

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BlueDepth9279 15 points 3 years ago

Come to the Chicagoland. Not only can you buy alcohol on Sundays but you can buy it pretty much wherever you want (gas stations, Walgreens, CVS, etc.).

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ddtfrog 6 points 3 years ago

Do drug stores have store brand liquor?

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OhStopYellingAtMe 5 points 3 years ago

Mmm gimme some Walgreens Vodka

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AffineConnection 2 points 3 years ago

AKA homeopathy

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OhStopYellingAtMe 1 point 3 years ago
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ladytaters 2 points 3 years ago

But you can't buy a car on Sunday in Chicagoland. Which is weird.

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BlueDepth9279 2 points 3 years ago

Ha true. I find it nice though. Then I can walk the lots on Sunday’s casually car shopping without being pestered by a salesman.

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JWBananas 2 points 3 years ago

Came here to post this.

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ludw 52 points 3 years ago

Until a couple of months ago it was illegal in Sweden for a restaurant owner to allow spontaneous dancing if they did not have a dancing permit. Since July this year they don't have to apply for a permit but still have to notify authorities about arranged dancing.

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qooqie 5 points 3 years ago
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IOII19 2 points 3 years ago

In Boston Massachusetts a bar needs an entertainment license otherwise patrons aren’t allowed to dance. Apparently they can be hard to get. I got yelled at once in a bar, but I don’t know what you expect people to do in a bar with loud music and lots of drinks

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Interesting_Test_814 47 points 3 years ago

In France, it is illegal to name your pig Napoleon.

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darcy 12 points 3 years ago

common france L

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Skoobie 44 points 3 years ago

Can't buy beer or wine at Walmart before noon on Sundays. But there's totally a war on Christianity here lol.

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PissinSelfNdriveway 15 points 3 years ago

My entire county used to be dry on sundays,..... but I live 2 min from the wv state line and they give no fucks if you Wana get hammered at 7am Sunday so it was pointless. Now we have Sunday sales after like 10 or so I believe, maybe earlier.

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kiwifoxtrot 8 points 3 years ago

You can buy alcohol on Sunday??

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Skoobie 31 points 3 years ago

Only the last year or so. We had a special thing on the ballot because Republicans were sure it wouldn't pass. It did but still has that noon stipulation.

And side rant here but I'm sick of local people acting like I'm an alcoholic for this bothering me. No, I don't need to drink before noon. I do however schedule my grocery shopping for Sundays before noon as I am a mail carrier with Sunday being my only permanent day off. And I shop in the morning while everyone is at church to beat the crowds. Having to go back out hours later for only alcohol is bullshit.

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Dark_Arc 15 points 3 years ago

I don't even drink and I think those laws are insanity

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Dultas 2 points 3 years ago

I worked at a grocery store on the coast when I was in HS. The number of boat trips that the noon alcohol blue laws delayed is astonishing. Every Sunday there would be a line of people wanting to checkout with their alcohol. Something people would wait hours to check out

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Kit 3 points 3 years ago

Can't buy beer or wine at all at Walmart in my state. Or any other grocery store, unless they have a restaurant.

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sapetoku 36 points 3 years ago

It's technically illegal to consume alcohol in your own backyard if you can be seen from the outside.

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CombatWombatEsq 35 points 3 years ago
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DharmaCurious 25 points 3 years ago

Just wait until my father hears about this! Now I'm going home in my 1998 Toyota corola. I only drive it because my parents are trying to teach me what it's like to be one of the poor. They're quite wealthy, you see.

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negativeyoda 13 points 3 years ago

I'd prefer that to rich kids slumming it and cosplaying poor until they get bored of it

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slurpeesoforion 3 points 3 years ago

Common people vibes intensify.

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Mcballs1234 35 points 3 years ago
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Today 19 points 3 years ago

I think most people don't know what the jay walking laws are.

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SomeRandomWords 16 points 3 years ago

I appreciate the law in Massachusetts, USA where jaywalking is so common that the fine was reduced to $1 for the first three times in a year and a whopping $2 for each time after that.

You can't remove the law, but you can make it silly enough that it's never enforced.

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AA5B 2 points 3 years ago

It seems like traffic lights now go red in all directions, with all walk lights on at the same time, so it’s becoming more common to walk diagonally across intersections as the fastest way.

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SomeRandomWords 3 points 3 years ago

Yup, there are a few towns and cities in MA that do this. Walking diagonally across and all-walk intersection isn't quite the same as jaywalking, since in those cases you're allowed to cross (as long as the walk sign is on).

It's also way safer to have an all-walk intersection so cars stop hitting people on right turns.

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AA5B 1 point 3 years ago

It’s also way safer to have an all-walk intersection so cars stop hitting people on right turns.

Well that part doesn’t seem to have worked out. I don’t know if this is part of forgetting how to drive during COViD or just that I started walking around town more, but people turning right on red no longer stop, and barely slow down. It can be dangerous crossing streets, even on a wall signal or with flashing pedestrian lights

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randomperson 7 points 3 years ago

I don't even know what j walking is

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AnUnusualRelic 16 points 3 years ago

A made up crime created by the auto industry.

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OhStopYellingAtMe 9 points 3 years ago

Crossing the street at a place that is not a designated crossing area.

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SuddenlyBlowGreen 4 points 3 years ago

That's a crime?? Wtf.

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Blumpkinhead 3 points 3 years ago

It makes more sense once you have someone blindly step out in front of your car, almost causing an accident.

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GONADS125 5 points 3 years ago

I've j-walked (at safe moments) repeatedly in front of cops over the years and they never cared.

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BeanCounter 34 points 3 years ago
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FrullaPapaya 5 points 3 years ago path: 0 3262534 3268890, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 1
BeanCounter 7 points 3 years ago
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uriel238 29 points 3 years ago

Well, the DMCA is ridiculous luddite garbage. But it stopped being silly years ago, and shows us our laws are stupid and made by silly people.

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shinigamiookamiryuu 24 points 3 years ago

The police vow to make a visit if you tie a giraffe to a telephone pole.

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ElBarto 4 points 3 years ago

Where else you supposed to tie a giraffe to?

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dropped_the_chief 22 points 3 years ago

They still don't like smoking weed here in Atlanta, GA...Or the rest of the state.

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cubedsteaks 9 points 3 years ago

It's legal here in Oregon. Only, most places will tell you that you can't smoke on the property. And you're not supposed to smoke it outside in public either.

So it's legal to smoke in private outside only. And everyone just smokes inside anyways cause it's fucking dumb how specific that is.

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bionicjoey 16 points 3 years ago

Tbf I like all those restrictions for cigs. It shouldn't be different for weed. At the end of the day, people shouldn't have to breathe in someone else's polluted air if they don't want to.

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IronKrill 5 points 3 years ago

Yeah, certain strains of the stuff smell absolutely awful and seem to permeate every crevice in a half km radius. I would find it very obnoxious if that was all over public areas.

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HerbalGamer 0 points 3 years ago
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cubedsteaks -1 points 3 years ago

But it doesn't make sense for it to be legal if there is almost no where to actually smoke it.

And what happens instead is people just smoke indoors anyway.

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funkless_eck 7 points 3 years ago

It's a fine (as in they fine you, I'm not Mario), which is better than before, but ive seen the MARTA police go after plenty of people

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jasondj 18 points 3 years ago

A dozen states still have sodomy laws on the books and only aren’t enforced because of Lawrence v. Texas, a 2003 SCOTUS decision.

Be interesting to see how that plays out the next couple of years.

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who8mydamnoreos 17 points 3 years ago

The government should have a say in how you cum. Get off the wrong way with the wrong people ; thats a paddling

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darcy 11 points 3 years ago

insane wording but ur right

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floppy 17 points 3 years ago

Something about weeing in a policeman's hat. There's another one about weeing behind a car as long as you have one hand on it.

Ooh, source: https://www.scotsman.com/... Most other places say that policeman's hat one is nonsense though.

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SeaJ 10 points 3 years ago

Walking across the street outside of the permitted area even if there is not a car in sight.

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HerbalGamer 2 points 3 years ago
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son_named_bort -11 points 3 years ago

My city has an ordinance where you can't park within 20 feet of a crosswalk. It's an absurd amount of space considering that the average car length is 15 feet. They do ticket for that even if the car is completely clear of the sidewalk by several feet, which is what the spirit of the law is about. The weird thing is that there's an ordinance where you can't park within 15 feet of a fire hydrant, which seems more important to have more space cleared than a crosswalk, but what do I know.

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Storspoven 20 points 3 years ago

Can't see the silliness in that at all. Over here (Sweden) the required clearance is 10 m (~30 feet) (before the crosswalk, none after). The intent of the law is to allow full visibility of pedestrians about to cross the street.

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son_named_bort 1 point 3 years ago

Here it's before and after the crosswalk. Before I get, that's designed to make sure the driver can see the pedestrians crossing the street. The city sets up no parking signs in that situation for that reason. The silliness comes in when you park on a one way street beyond the crosswalk, which does not block the view of the driver and does not block the crosswalk of the pedestrian, yet it's still a ticket for reasons despite no signs or painted curb or anything that would indicate that you can't park there.

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Empricorn 3 points 3 years ago

the average car length is 15 feet.

I know what you said is wrong, but what did you mean to say...?

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Blumpkinhead 0 points 3 years ago

It sounds about right to me.

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