RTFA: http://www.slate.com/id/2175730/entry/2175733/

Sometimes a law was passed by another generation with different ideas of right and wrong, but the political will necessary to repeal the law does not exist. Sometimes, as we’ll see with polygamy or obscenity, the issue is too sensitive to discuss in rational terms. And sometimes the law as written is a symbol of some behavior to which we may aspire, which nevertheless remains wholly out of touch with reality. Whatever the reason, when politics fails, institutional tolerance of lawbreaking takes over.

There will, of course, always be some lawbreaking that goes unpunished simply because law enforcement is expensive—not every shoplifter is caught, and it’s not worth expending the resources to catch every kleptomaniac. But the areas we will look at here are different: What’s going on here is that the parties all know the law is being broken, accept it, and—while almost never overtly saying so—both the “criminals” and law enforcement concede that everyone likes it better that way. The law in question thus continues to have a formal existence, and, as we shall see, it may become a kind of zoning ordinance, enforced only against very public or flagrant behavior. But few, except sometimes a vocal minority, actually think we’d be better off if the law were fully enforced.

The importance of understanding why and when we will tolerate lawbreaking cannot be overstated. Lawyers and journalists spend most of their time watching the president, Congress, and the courts as they make law. But tolerance of lawbreaking constitutes one of the nation’s other major—yet most poorly understood—ways of creating social and legal policy. Almost as much as the laws that we enact, the lawbreaking to which we shut our eyes reflects how tolerant U.S. society really is to individual or group difference. It forms a major part of our understanding of how the nation deals with what was once called “vice.” While messy, strange, hypocritical, and in a sense dishonest, widespread tolerance of lawbreaking forms a critical part of the U.S. legal system as it functions.

Interesting meditation on laws and law breaking in the US.