What do immigration and short-term vacation rentals have in common? No, I’m not talking about the movement of people.

I’m talking about cases in which nonenforcement of the law has enabled widespread noncompliance, and reliance on the nonenforcement means that correcting the problem will cause pain. The result: a mess, a degrading of public confidence in law and government, and a weakening of the social order.

Sometimes you know that a rule is bad because there is widespread noncompliance. But one reason for enforcing rules strictly is that you maintain the incentive for a legislative body to change the rule. Nonenforcement usually means that the bad rule lingers, along with its bad effects.

And can we admit that making something illegal usually doesn’t stop it from happening, but only drives it into a gray or black market?

Lloyd Lim

Makiki

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