Good in the sense of expediency, or good in the sense of morality?

Expediency without morality leads to you going nowhere fast.  Nations exist to serve their people.

Nah. The whole point of a law is to control people's actions so I respectfully disagree with that statement.

Laws are to control people's actions... for the good of the people.

I'm guessing those people haven't been affected first hand by the repressions of Pinochet so the only part of his legacy they see is how he helped the economy.

+1

You have to be greedy and ambitious first in order to become a dictator. But then you would be easily corrupted by hunger for power and more power.

Eh, I have to disagree again.

Take a look at anti-foreign laws that have been prevalent in U.S. history or even affirmative action and how it pretty much supports racism in some cases.

Also, look at laws regarding Marijuana, which isn't as harmful as it's made out to be in the media or even the Patriot act.

It's my firm belief that laws exist to control people's actions and solely that. The benefit is on whatever group they are supporting.

To be honest, it's not necessarily "for the good" so much as it is "we want more" or "we know better" as the mentality for these laws.

Public opinion and teenage deviance may exist, of course, in regards to laws about the age limit for drinking alcohol but let's face it, just strap on some moral or patriotic message behind laws to devalue people's freedom and you'll have maybe tens of thousands of supporters already or even make-up some statistics that doesn't judge anything accurately. 

Not all laws exist to control people's actions, merely for the benefit of a supporting group.

For example, what would the result be if murder, or rape would be allowed?

Yes, many laws to exist to control actions, speech, thought, and decisions of people - to the benefit of social groups - but core laws should never do that. Its the difference between a good law - something that universally benefits everyone (such as 'don't murder someone') and something that is prejudiced (marijuana laws)

no not realy. not my knd of person

Honestly, they're both technically questionable.

With murder, you also have to factor in capital punishment, in which case, the government is taking control of, and ending, people's lives based on it's own judgement.

With rape, the laws associated with protecting women from that are fairly recent in history. Such as the measures for having only female officers and such be present for women who were raped so they don't have to go through the same feelings when they have to strip off clothes and particularly when involving spousal rape. Before, rape against spouses weren't seen as rape at all.

So, in retrospect, murder was, and still is, allowed under government approval and rape only recently in history had any strong measures against it.