On Wed, Apr 20, 2016 at 4:16 PM, <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

On 20 Apr 2016 at 16:39, Bruce Johnson wrote:

> oBTrav, since the entire economic system of the OTU is pretty much
> based on this model (fer gawdsakes the ONLY thing covered by `law
> level´ is just how big of a gun you can carry in public) I´d
> expect it to translate right on over, so there are probably a crapton
> of worlds that are essentially mined-out toxic dumps. After all when
> corporations can have military divisions, the concept of rule of law
> was gone a long long time ago; Ol´ Cleon 1 built his empire on
> economic warfare and genocide, and the 3I took it´s cue from that.
> This is what `Rule of Man´ entails.

Law Level does also cover the rate of police harrasment of off-worlders. It's darkly
amusing that Traveller links these, given that the US experience is that they're not
linked at all.

I think that what the CT Law Level was trying to mirror - particularly at the higher levels - was how totalitarian regimes tend to severely circumscribe what outsiders are allowed to do. While the same thing might be technically illegal for a native, that native may have access to some sort of unofficial workaround. Foreigners seldom have such access.

As to harassment at the middling [e.g. US] Law Levels . . . maybe MM was trying for something like the "rural speed trap" effect; local law enforcement selectively pulling over cars with out-of-state plates, because the owners of such vehicles were likely to simply pay the fine (rather than return in a month or two to dispute the matter in court).

> The member worlds have nominal autonomy, but since the 3I controls the
> `space between the worlds´ any place that gets out of line can be
> Shock Doctrine´d into submission tout suite.

Or just trade embargoed into submission. Even if the world is self-sufficient the local
elites will be missing their luxuries pretty quick.

Even if they don't, the stigma of being blacklisted might be enough encouragement to seek some sort of settlement.

Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident." Robert A. Heinlein

"I studied the Koran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as Muhammed." Alexis de Tocqueville (1843)

"We know a little about a lot of things; just enough to make us dangerous." Dean Winchester

"It has been my experience that a gun doesn't care who pulls its trigger." Newton Knight (as portrayed by Matthew McConaughey), to a scoffing Confederate tax collector facing the weapons held by Knight's young children and wife.