In theory "impossibility" is a defense to most crimes.

In practice you usually get screwed in one of the following ways: a) the law makes it impossible to do X without breaking the law, even though X is a normal thing and neither law was supposed to be a total ban on X, but you could comply by not doing X at all, b) the inconsistent laws are imposed by different jurisdictions and then they each insist you follow theirs, often a special case of the first one where X is "be in two different jurisdictions" but sometimes the even stupider one where a jurisdiction demands that you follow its laws even when you're not in it, c) it's impossible for you to follow both laws at once so you followed only one of them and then they decide after the fact that you should have followed only the other one.

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bevr1337 an hour ago | parent [-]

Do you have some examples of an "X" activity or behavior? I understand the logic you're discussing, but can you help ground it?

	▲	AnthonyMouse 29 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Suppose you have a law that says that in order to build new multi-unit housing, a given percentage of the new units have to be affordable housing and have to be built within reasonable distance of a transit stop in the same town. Meanwhile you have a town with poor mass transit and very little land zoned for multi-unit housing, and none of it overlaps. In other words, you're both required to and prohibited from building new affordable housing units near a transit stop. Which means you also can't build the other units.