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I Asked Our Community What They Think Is Not Illegal But Should Be, 45 Responded
There are things that are considered wrong by a lot of people, however, one cannot do anything about them because they don't violate the law. Keeping that in mind, I asked the Bored Panda community to share some examples of what they think should be illegal but is not. Apparently, there are many things!
Here are the responses from our Pandas. What do you think should be illegal but is not? Let me know in the comments!
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Children's beauty pageants - parading kids in lipstick and padded bikinis - is wrong.
Removing puppies' tails or ears for cosmetic purposes. One of the most stupid things ever done to an animal.
The Pink Tax and making pads, tampons, and other essential items ridiculously expensive. I recently had to pay 10 dollars for a pack of 24.
we need them. its not like having a period is a choice. its not like when its my time of the month I can just be like "ya know what? I'm not gonna bleed today. I'm super broke."
Politicians voting on their own pay raises.
The American Health Care System. And anyone who makes a profit from it.
Listening to music or videos on your phone in public without headphones!!
Ads that put a fake X in the corner to basically force you into their clickbait.
CEOs making billions of dollars while their employees work 2 or more jobs just to keep a roof over their family’s heads.
How drug companies make “need to live” medical products cost more than one’s paycheck. Example: insulin, EpiPens, and anti-rejection meds for organ transplant patients.
In the U.S., advertising for pharmaceutical drugs. Your healthcare providers should be the ones suggesting what drugs may be beneficial to you, not a bunch of TV commercials.
Bullying. Punishments are too light for both child and adult offenders.
Gender Reveal Parties (or at least the ones that require explosives)
It's so dumb and people are always getting hurt from these. Popping a balloon is one thing, but firing a cannon? Not okay.
Why is everyone so invested in someone's kid's genitals?! The best gender reveal party would involve popping a balloon that sprinkled biodegradable purple confetti, followed by "Yakkity Sax" blasting on speakers while a couple people in fairy wings skip around with signs that say "Gender is a social construct," "Kids are more than gender," and "Ask me about my personally signed copy of Judith Butler's Gender Trouble."
Employers not paying a living wage.
Plastic clam shell packaging. Especially when it's used for a knife or pair of scissors.
For-profit health insurance companies. Another one: for-profit news organizations. I'm tired of "news" being more about evoking a visceral emotional response to get more clicks and money as opposed to thoughtfully laying out facts and reality (appealing to the intellect).
Bullfighting
Not being paid equally because you're not male. Like, how has this not been written into law!
Indeed. Everyone knows it's still happening, but governments aren't changing it, except Iceland. I think they've made it law for all genders to be paid equally.
Spam. Junkmail, that is (not the canned meat product).
Littering. Whoever gets caught dumping their trash somewhere where it doesn't belong (beach, ocean, streets, parks) should pay a fine or face legal proceedings.
Where I live technically you do have to pay a fine, but it isnt ever inforced.
I think that child marriage (marriage below 18) should be illegal with NO exceptions. It creates so much trouble for the kids, yet so many states still have many loopholes. Only a few have a strict ban. NO parental consent, NO exceptions, and KEEP it that way. Sometimes it is used to keep a rapist out of jail because the child is pregnant. There was actually a case, by the way, where a girl's father or mother had her married because her boyfriend got her pregnant while drunk. She only consented because she loved him, and she was happy to be a mother. Sadly, the child miscarried during the wedding, but her folks never got punished for this. Instead, they went to a different state to get consent from a judge. Man, life is wrong!
Lobbying.
Chewing gum and then sticking it on things which are not in a bin should be banished.
Came out of a store, the other day, to find a huge wad of bright blue chewing gum stuck onto my front bumper! I mean, wtf kind of person does that? Luckily it was raining and it just slid off when nudged with the toe of a shoe but STILL! UGH!
The gay panic defense (in some states is banned, most not though). Basically, it’s legal for someone to MURDER a gay person if they claim that they had an “uncontrollable reaction” to seeing a gay person. Yeah. I believe the men who murdered Matthew Shephard tried to use this defense.
Should definitely be banned.
Overloaded sugar in drinks and snacks.
Kissing babies that are not your own!
Wait- eww people do that?? I mean I kiss my baby cousin but she’s my cousin!
Smoking right at the entrance / exit of a building. I always have to cross a "smoke screen" when I exit the train station or want to enter a hospital. Some hospitals have taken action to create a "smoke area" away from their doors and I think it should be so for every public facility.
In the UK you have to be a minimum of 6ft away from an entryway or exit.
6 ft is nothing you might as well be inside the building.
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Making smoking area is great. There are smokers, give them space where they can smoke and where they can toss away cigarette butts safely. You will have no smoke screen in front of the building, you will have cleaner ground and you will not have a bunch or random people standing there and looking miserable.
In an episode of the IT Crowd the company kept moving the smoking area farther away from the building until the smokers had to walk miles just to smoke. Can we do that for real please?
We have it extended around hospitals now, I think they doubled the distance, but you still have to walk past them to get inside.
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In Quebec it is 9 meters away (around 25ft) of any entrance door or window, to be legal we would have to smoke In the middle of the streets and, because of that, all the ashtrays have been taking out (cause they were near entrance) but didn't put new one in the middle of the streets so the result is butch everywhere and more hate against the smoker, in the end the gouv. Should delimitate smoker zones, but they just keep adding to the "you cannot smoke there" list instead so the problem is never solved and no one is happy (ps: we do not smoke in the middle of the street, that would be dumb, but that is pretty much what the law is asking)
A 6 foot restriction is a joke. Depending on which way the wind is blowing, people, including children, are often walking through a cloud of smoke to get to the smoke free environment. I live in a bungalow apartment and if the guy next door lights up a cigarette outside his door, which is about 12 feet from my window, the smoke gets sucked right into my place so I have to close the window. I do it quietly though, because he is a nice guy and I don't actually want to make him feel bad when he is right outside his own door, in the only covered area he has. I had somebody come over though and ask if someone had been smoking in my place. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Common sense dictates that if it is by a window or door, it is going to travel indoors with air current from the people passing through it. Smokers need to use commen sense. So yeah, I don't agree that it is better than nothing, it IS nothing.
If I have to walk past someone that is smoking near an entrance to a public building I will hold my nose and close my mouth and look the smoker directly in the eye so they will know that I am not willing to breathe their second hand smoke, gross! This is smoke coming out of another persons body.
In most of the US you are supposed to be a minimum of 25' away from a door.
It was made illegal in Taiwan where I live, but the buttheads don't pay attention until you start photographing them. There's up to a NT$10,000 fine (US$310) for smoking , and the person who turns in the butthead gets 50% of the fine paid.
There's a 6 ft law in some states, there is in Indiana. Must be 6 ft from any door while smoking, not that it's enforced
NY passed a law a few years ago banning smacking indoors or within like 10 feet of entrances. Really cleared things up quickly. I haven't noticed the smell of cigarettes in years. Of course, vaping is taking off now. That smell is much less noticeable.
Our neighbour from across the hall is a chain smoker. We regularly have to close our windows (really great when it's 25+ °C outside and you're trying to get some air) because he smokes at his kitchen window - the smell goes from his window past the stairway window, our bathroom window, our kitchen window, up to our bedroom window! If we don't notice it right away, the smell permeates the whole flat, which is sh*tty anyway, but we've got twin toddlers of 18 months and it's been like this since about a year when he moved in. Like, yeah, great that you don't smoke IN your flat, but could you not smoke INTO our home?!!
The hospitals in my area have banned smoking on their entire property
I had to call the manager at a Wal-Mart because a vision center employee was smoking right next to the separate doctor's office door. Like right there next to the door. Smoke bugs my eyes really badly. I could tell she knew exactly who I was talking about too.
Specially when it specifically says NO SMOKING!!! It is unlawful to smoke within 10 ft of an entrance and within 50 ft of a mall enterance... But you never see anyone doing anything about it. I point it out and make a point of being an ahole about it. One time an officer asked ME to just walk away while someone was sitting right next to a sign that said NO SMOKING WITHIN 50 FT OF THIS SIGN!
In japan smoker are confined in specific areas, enclosed and ventilated
In the US your sposed to be 50ft from public entrances but no one enforces it less it's a hospital or government building g even then good luck
Hospitals here in Ireland, smoking is not allowed anywhere on the grounds of the hospital. But in typical Irish fashion it is mostly ignored 😆 I had to take my father to A&E a few years ago and stayed with him the whole night. I'm a smoker and went outside the grounds a few times through the night. A couple of times I passed a security guard, doctors and nurses all smoking just outside the door smoking away. The security guard even said to me at one point "Why are you going the whole way......nobody cares about the rules"
Everywhere that's against smoking indoors has laws that require them to be some distance away from buildings, for the most part. It's just not enforced.
At the train station in Sacramento, California, I was trying to enjoy my breakfast and coffee on the outside seating area. As soon as I sat down, one of the smokers got up and came and sat by me. I moved, and another one did the same thing. I went out on the platform where my train would be coming in, and finally had peace and fresh air.
Hospitals where I live have signs saying no smoking within 15 feet of the property, which means hiking across the parking lot!
Fireworks. They upset my dog.
I think a lot of people would be mad about that because they are a fun tradition for some people. I used to love fireworks, but now I am scared of them because they are dangerous and I don't like loud noise anymore.
Doing things to a child because the parent consented. From kissing to ear piercings to stealing. Especially if the child is old enough to tell you if you can or can't.
Gerrymandering by sitting politicians
Excessive and unnecessary plastic packaging on products.
meta-data harvest/banking and data-profiling.
Especially menstrual cycle apps, now that the pro birthers have won this battle...just not the war
Spreading anti-vax information to any public platform
Any mention of vaccines on Facebook in Australia now gets a link to the real information by the government/health system, regardless if it's about a covid one
Showing school children in programs as being sexually attractive.
Reminds me of a perfume from the 1970s called Love's Baby Soft. Their full-page ad on the backs of magazines offered (yes, that's the right word) a girl of no more than 12 wearing makeup - complete with sticky red lips - looking into the camera, cuddling a teddy bear.
Having a system of government that transfers wealth upwards.
Regulation is the means by which the wealthy and powerful use government to protect their market share. The notion of a "well-regulated free market" is oxymoronic. As information technology expands, economies are increasingly able to be controlled not by regulation, but by informed choices. So Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Disney, GM, Exxon, etc., urgently convince people that they need more regulation. Absent governmental controls (like 100-year copyrights, frivolous patents, etc.), wealth and power will obey the law of entropy.
The electoral college
I mean, simply stating here, it’s controversial bc while it does give other small cities and states better recognition, it also was enacted bc America was founded by rich white men who did not want the poor white men “interfering”with the government. So if it was created to keep “uneducated” opinions from tainting the presidential vote, is it really still necessary in a society full of much more educated people than there were in the 18th century? Guess it really kind of depends on knowledge extents and educated opinions.
Over testing in schools. I feel more like a lab rat than a 5th grade kid!
But how else will we knowledge when you are ready for the next stage of the experiment. Err next class.
The 2 party system
catcalling women
In addition, women should respect men the same way. I'm in high school and just the way people talk to each other... it's so sexual and uncomfortable without the receiver's consent. It doesn't matter the gender, it's the action in general. And before you downvote me, I am a girl
Monday's. Nobody likes them so lets ban that day
February, too. It's short, nobody likes it, and just to be a pain in the butt, every four years they add a day.
Germany’s age of sexual consent laws: The age of sexual consent in Germany is 14, and it means that a 65 year old man can fully legitimately and legally have sex with a 14 year old girl. How on earth can that be????
Cigarettes
Note: this post originally had 111 images. It’s been shortened to the top 44 images based on user votes.
Influencers....as it seems to make so many of them feel they are entitled to 'free' and the people that follow them don't seem to have their own thoughts any more.
I do not recognize "influencing" as a job. I think they are leeches.
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The take away from this is that so many things are legal in the USA that are illegal and actively enforced in the U.K. and Europe.
But, but... It's the greatest country in the world...
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Here's one for you: Websites reusing stories from over a year ago, adding one or two new things, and presenting it as an entirely new article.
BoredPanda has been doing this increasingly now. I responded to a comment from over three years ago that one the BoredPanda "writers" posted today. This site actually (if you can believe it) used to write their own lighthearted articles in the past and focused more artwork. Now it has completely turned into a listicle website a'la Buzzfeed. Why do the employees have "writer" in their description if all they do is repost old articles or post listicles from Reddit/Buzzfeed? It is a shame as this really used to be a fun site. BoredPanda, you have people who are educated to write---USE THEM.
Load More Replies... BoredPanda why are you continually recycling and reposting articles from over a year ago? What in the world is happening to this site anymore from the censorship to the constant reposting? You have actual employees who are trained as writers, why in the world aren’t you using them?! I’m sick of lazy reposts and these constant “am I the a*****e” articles? What happened to all the art and fun articles on this site? Do the writers even write anymore?
Maybe BP Got Bought Out And Went "Corporate" ? (Shudder)
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Don't ever, for any reason, do anything to anyone, for any reason, ever, no matter what. No matter where. Or who, or who you are with, or where you are going or... or where you've been... ever. For any reason, whatsoever.
Downvotes--BP Regards ALL Downvotes As "Offensive" Leading To Suspensions/Banishment--Some Downvotes Are Just "Disagree"
Most downvotes are disagreements yet BoredPanda still suspends its good users. They NEVER respond to e-mails anymore asking for trolls that spread hate speech on site to be suspended yet they censor common words like d**k and sex. This has to be one of the most hypocritical websites I have been on and it is a shame to see what was once a really fun lighthearted site has turned into.
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Influencers making profit out of ruining some poor grocery worker's day
Climate change! Climate change! Climate change! Climate change! Climate change! Climate change! Climate change! Climate change! Climate change!
No one said the big ones huh? Ok, anti-abortion laws, police in schools (they just scare kids no matter what the intent), protesting people trying to get health care (no one needs a sea of a$$holes on their way into a vaccine clinic), continuously paying a small fine vs fixing an environmental problem that's getting worse, supporting a country (like Russia) who started a war for more power (looking at you Nestle), and refusing two people (18+) the right to marry.
Making things illegal just because they irritate you. We've become such an intolerant, control-freak society with no sense of individual liberty at all. So many people on this thread would make wonderful Nazis or Stalinists. You don't like a gender-reveal party? Don't go to one; I never have. You want to ban them? Screw you and the high horse you rode in on, you hypocritical totalitarian nitwit.
Alcohol. I know many won't agree, but I've dealt with too many alcoholics and had to live with one, so I find it way more damaging than weed, for example.
I thought this would be something funny and wholesome, such as "being forced to wake up early in the morning" or "going to work 5 days a week" or "cilantro". Instead, a bunch of so-called woke people try to enforce cancel culture, US Americans wish for things perfectly normal anywhere else and a few spread disinformation. Disappointing.
Interesting to read. Although I feel like a lot of this is just people’s pet peeves and not things that should be strictly illegal.
A lot of these are personal pet peeves. Glad someone mentioned it.
#20. Pay discrimination is already super illegal but employers will do any kind of shady nonsense to get around it. Know your rights and take those jerks to court. Loudly and publicly.
Fact Republic that in France child beauty pageants are banned. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24145119
I believe, as a photographer, a certain level of Photoshop on models without a disclaimer should be illegal. It often straddles false advertising
Treating 1st year apprentices like your lacky, tea maid!!! I personally think of this as bullying, they are there to learn a trade, job etc, not be your slave!!!!!
Some things that should be banned. 0) lists. 1) being repetitive. 2) lists. 3) people who tell you cantaloupe is really musk melon. 4) squishy grapes. 5) zero based indexing. 6) decorative cabbage. 7) the words moist and musk. 8) jokes about lists
Families to poor to send Kids to school. When parents Split up and the mother being a foreigner, forcing the kid to move with them to their country.
Political lawn signs. They're an eyesore that has no impact on the outcome of any election.
Can I just say I hate when men or women sexualize women's clothes. I mean it's clothes,like one time I was wearing my thigh high boots with long shorts and my Dad said You look like your going to the club. I mean can I not dress in anything that I'm comfortable in?
Walking out of the store with out buying nothing they will just stare at me or when my mama is in line then she go somewhere real quick to get something and the employees just be looking at me I have anxiety so
This article is a perfect example of what's wrong with society. Every single law being pushed here is malum prohibitum laws ("illegal because they're currently prohibited") and not malum en se laws ("illegal because it's wrong"). We already have all the malum en se laws we need - laws against murder, theft, rape, etc - so everything here is just subjective ideas that literally will and can never end. There's no quenching the beast and those in power will always use these laws (and the justifications you read in comments) to tyrannize their opponents.
IVF is mostly used for people who are sterile and cannot conceive on their own. But like the octo mom, then yes. It shouldn't be legal after too many kids.
Load More Replies... Influencers....as it seems to make so many of them feel they are entitled to 'free' and the people that follow them don't seem to have their own thoughts any more.
I do not recognize "influencing" as a job. I think they are leeches.
Load More Replies... The take away from this is that so many things are legal in the USA that are illegal and actively enforced in the U.K. and Europe.
But, but... It's the greatest country in the world...
Load More Replies... Here's one for you: Websites reusing stories from over a year ago, adding one or two new things, and presenting it as an entirely new article.
BoredPanda has been doing this increasingly now. I responded to a comment from over three years ago that one the BoredPanda "writers" posted today. This site actually (if you can believe it) used to write their own lighthearted articles in the past and focused more artwork. Now it has completely turned into a listicle website a'la Buzzfeed. Why do the employees have "writer" in their description if all they do is repost old articles or post listicles from Reddit/Buzzfeed? It is a shame as this really used to be a fun site. BoredPanda, you have people who are educated to write---USE THEM.
Load More Replies... BoredPanda why are you continually recycling and reposting articles from over a year ago? What in the world is happening to this site anymore from the censorship to the constant reposting? You have actual employees who are trained as writers, why in the world aren’t you using them?! I’m sick of lazy reposts and these constant “am I the a*****e” articles? What happened to all the art and fun articles on this site? Do the writers even write anymore?
Maybe BP Got Bought Out And Went "Corporate" ? (Shudder)
Load More Replies... Don't ever, for any reason, do anything to anyone, for any reason, ever, no matter what. No matter where. Or who, or who you are with, or where you are going or... or where you've been... ever. For any reason, whatsoever.
Downvotes--BP Regards ALL Downvotes As "Offensive" Leading To Suspensions/Banishment--Some Downvotes Are Just "Disagree"
Most downvotes are disagreements yet BoredPanda still suspends its good users. They NEVER respond to e-mails anymore asking for trolls that spread hate speech on site to be suspended yet they censor common words like d**k and sex. This has to be one of the most hypocritical websites I have been on and it is a shame to see what was once a really fun lighthearted site has turned into.
Load More Replies... Influencers making profit out of ruining some poor grocery worker's day
Climate change! Climate change! Climate change! Climate change! Climate change! Climate change! Climate change! Climate change! Climate change!
No one said the big ones huh? Ok, anti-abortion laws, police in schools (they just scare kids no matter what the intent), protesting people trying to get health care (no one needs a sea of a$$holes on their way into a vaccine clinic), continuously paying a small fine vs fixing an environmental problem that's getting worse, supporting a country (like Russia) who started a war for more power (looking at you Nestle), and refusing two people (18+) the right to marry.
Making things illegal just because they irritate you. We've become such an intolerant, control-freak society with no sense of individual liberty at all. So many people on this thread would make wonderful Nazis or Stalinists. You don't like a gender-reveal party? Don't go to one; I never have. You want to ban them? Screw you and the high horse you rode in on, you hypocritical totalitarian nitwit.
Alcohol. I know many won't agree, but I've dealt with too many alcoholics and had to live with one, so I find it way more damaging than weed, for example.
I thought this would be something funny and wholesome, such as "being forced to wake up early in the morning" or "going to work 5 days a week" or "cilantro". Instead, a bunch of so-called woke people try to enforce cancel culture, US Americans wish for things perfectly normal anywhere else and a few spread disinformation. Disappointing.
Interesting to read. Although I feel like a lot of this is just people’s pet peeves and not things that should be strictly illegal.
A lot of these are personal pet peeves. Glad someone mentioned it.
#20. Pay discrimination is already super illegal but employers will do any kind of shady nonsense to get around it. Know your rights and take those jerks to court. Loudly and publicly.
Fact Republic that in France child beauty pageants are banned. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24145119
I believe, as a photographer, a certain level of Photoshop on models without a disclaimer should be illegal. It often straddles false advertising
Treating 1st year apprentices like your lacky, tea maid!!! I personally think of this as bullying, they are there to learn a trade, job etc, not be your slave!!!!!
Some things that should be banned. 0) lists. 1) being repetitive. 2) lists. 3) people who tell you cantaloupe is really musk melon. 4) squishy grapes. 5) zero based indexing. 6) decorative cabbage. 7) the words moist and musk. 8) jokes about lists
Families to poor to send Kids to school. When parents Split up and the mother being a foreigner, forcing the kid to move with them to their country.
Political lawn signs. They're an eyesore that has no impact on the outcome of any election.
Can I just say I hate when men or women sexualize women's clothes. I mean it's clothes,like one time I was wearing my thigh high boots with long shorts and my Dad said You look like your going to the club. I mean can I not dress in anything that I'm comfortable in?
Walking out of the store with out buying nothing they will just stare at me or when my mama is in line then she go somewhere real quick to get something and the employees just be looking at me I have anxiety so
This article is a perfect example of what's wrong with society. Every single law being pushed here is malum prohibitum laws ("illegal because they're currently prohibited") and not malum en se laws ("illegal because it's wrong"). We already have all the malum en se laws we need - laws against murder, theft, rape, etc - so everything here is just subjective ideas that literally will and can never end. There's no quenching the beast and those in power will always use these laws (and the justifications you read in comments) to tyrannize their opponents.
IVF is mostly used for people who are sterile and cannot conceive on their own. But like the octo mom, then yes. It shouldn't be legal after too many kids.
Load More Replies...