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From: Jasper
Date: Saturday, February 24, 2007
Time: 10:31:18 PM
Jean, …Laws matter only to the extent that custom an practice conform to them. ………..If a speed limit sign says, “Speed limit 35 mph” going 36 miles per hour is breaking the law. But if that sign as been posted for twenty years and no one was busted for going 26 in all that time, the real legal limit is higher than the posted one. Custom and practice tell you how much higher. ………..Thus it is with our reading of laws in this case. The judge is like a baseball umpire behind the pate. The pitcher zips a fast one right down the middle. The umpire lifts his left hand and calls it a ball. The capture is furious. He says, “That was a strike!” The rule book says that it IS a strike but what does the plate umpire say? He says, “It ain’t nothin’ ‘til I say what it is.” ……….. He’s right. –Jasper