The NO FAKES act has changed, and it's worse

Unfortunately this is the inevitable outcome of information and computation (and therefore control) becoming cheap. Liberal political systems can no longer survive in equilibrium. The 21st century will be a story either of ruling with an iron fist or being crushed beneath one :(

there is a huge difference between having strict laws and enforcing them and "ruling with the iron fist"

the later inherently implies using violence to suppress people

That is always same thing.

All laws that you want to be strictly enforced, requires violence. This is why people should ALWAYS remember when making laws: "Is this worth killing for?"

I remember some years ago on HN people discussing about a guy that got killed because he bought a single fake cigarrete. IT goes like this:

You make a law where "x" is forbidden, penalty is a simple fine. Person refuses to pay fine. So you summon that person to court, make threats of bigger fine. Person ends with bigger fine, refuses to pay anything. So you summon that person again, say they will go to jail if they don't pay. They again don't pay, AND flee the police that went to get them. So the cops are in pursuit of the guy, he is a good distance away from the cops for example, then they have the following choice: Let him go, and he won, and broke the law successfully... Or shoot him, the law won, and he is dead.

This chain ALWAYS applies, because otherwise laws are useless. You can't enforce laws without the threat of killing people if they refuse all other punishments.

I don't know if the guy you were discussing with is right or not, if digital era result in the need of "ruling with the iron fist", but make no mistake, there is no "strict law enforcement" that doesn't involve killing people in the end.

Thus you always need to think when making laws: "Is this law worth making someone die because of it?"

> Or shoot him, the law won, and he is dead.

if a iron fist rule you shoot them, but sooner or later you will end up with situations where their brother will shoot you, or there is a uprising and they lynch the police chef etc. no one wins

in country with strict rules but no iron fist rule the police person who tries to shoot someone who doesn't pose danger for other just because they try to avoid arrest by running away will lose their job

> involve killing people in the end

this is such a misleading dumb fatalistic argument, yes people will get killed, but there is a huge difference between the context.

> You can't enforce laws without the threat of killing people if they refuse all other punishments.

Except pretty much all of the EU operates _exactly_ that way with minor differences. And it works.

Sure there are edge cases where you threaten shooting at someone, and sometimes police will have to shoot. But only if there is risk to live. And most crimes don't go that far.

>Except pretty much all of the EU operates _exactly_ that way with minor differences. And it works.

Well, it seems to be the same situation as everywhere: you either obey or be killed. As far as I know, in the EU there is no option to disobey and survive.

I do not believe that police are permitted to shoot a nonviolent criminal simply because they might escape (in most circumstances). They do have to actually physically apprehend them.

Disobey is not to escape. In most cases escape isn't possible. Disobey is to put up enough resistance to prevent your restriction of freedom. In Europe, they would absolutely one hundred percent kill you in such cases.

If you limit the definition of “disobey” to mean “use lethal force against law enforcers”, then yes. However, I think that is a narrow and inaccurate definition.