The idea of law as having loopholes is relevant for politicians, who are tasked with ensuring that the written law reflects their intent. It's not relevant for courts, regulators, people or companies, who are all tasked with following the law as actually written. For those people there is no "spirit" or "true law".
The reason this is important is it's a sword that cuts both ways. It's always tempting to argue that whatever you'd personally like to happen is what politicians really intended, and any gap between reality and their preferred outcome is therefore a "loophole". But once you get into saying people should follow intent, not written law, others can easily argue that politicians never intended the law to be interpreted like that against them, and so therefore they are morally justified in ignoring it. It can be used against you as easily as you can use it against them.
A common example of this problem is income vs capital gains taxes. One ideological tribe is very fond of arguing that people who have income mostly from investments rather than wages are exploiting a "loophole" in tax law, but of course the reason there are different rates to begin with is exactly because politicians wanted to encourage investment. There's plenty of cases where this intent is discussed in written literature and there's no other reason to distinguish between income sources then set differing rates. There is no "loophole" and nor is the "spirit" of the law being violated. But you hear such claims all the time.
The other reason it's problematic is because you can't really know what the intent of lawmakers was. The law was their best collective effort at writing down what they wanted, as a result of numerous compromises and disagreements between different people. If they didn't write it down properly or the resulting compromise was a mess, that's on them, but a working legal system doesn't allow people to just blow off their written instructions and assume they know what was really meant.
And if the courts use some 'spirit' guide them, companies and their lawyers better try and predict what that 'spirit' recommends.
> If they didn't write it down properly or the resulting compromise was a mess, that's on them, but a working legal system doesn't allow people to just blow off their written instructions and assume they know what was really meant.
Well, then by that definition the real life legal system of the US ain't working?
Originalism is the opposite of that, no? Originalists are all about following what was actually written down, using an understanding of English as it was used at the time. It rejects modern re-interpretations of the law and avoids speculating about the 'spirit' of the constitution, even if that would be more convenient. The competing view is that of a 'living' body of law in which the meaning continually changes without the wording itself changing.
It is and you'll notice a lot of people really, really hate it. Trump just broke all fundraising records by miles, because a lot of people who previously didn't support him feel that New York has ignored the written letter of the law in favor of a tribalistic "spirit". There are similar society-rending controversies happening in Europe due to the activist lawmaking of the ECHR.
These two perspectives aren't both equally valid: the courts are not allowed under any system of civics to simply do whatever the judge feels like. They are only given leeway to interpret the law when they have no other choice because the statutes are unclear. It's a last resort, and often the result will be people "getting away with it" because there's no law against what they did.
Yes, I'm aware of that distinction. However I read the comment I was replying to so that they suggested the antitrust case is unfounded because Nvidia didn't break any laws. It's precisely why the antitrust case is valid/needed, because if Nvidia were breaking any laws, you wouldn't need antitrust, you'd just take them to court.
The reason this is important is it's a sword that cuts both ways. It's always tempting to argue that whatever you'd personally like to happen is what politicians really intended, and any gap between reality and their preferred outcome is therefore a "loophole". But once you get into saying people should follow intent, not written law, others can easily argue that politicians never intended the law to be interpreted like that against them, and so therefore they are morally justified in ignoring it. It can be used against you as easily as you can use it against them.
A common example of this problem is income vs capital gains taxes. One ideological tribe is very fond of arguing that people who have income mostly from investments rather than wages are exploiting a "loophole" in tax law, but of course the reason there are different rates to begin with is exactly because politicians wanted to encourage investment. There's plenty of cases where this intent is discussed in written literature and there's no other reason to distinguish between income sources then set differing rates. There is no "loophole" and nor is the "spirit" of the law being violated. But you hear such claims all the time.
The other reason it's problematic is because you can't really know what the intent of lawmakers was. The law was their best collective effort at writing down what they wanted, as a result of numerous compromises and disagreements between different people. If they didn't write it down properly or the resulting compromise was a mess, that's on them, but a working legal system doesn't allow people to just blow off their written instructions and assume they know what was really meant.