Are you serious? Yes, they could have been all these things. You need to apply them to the time they were contructed and use them in context!
There has to be a reason the laws were put into place no matter how stupid they may seem today. If your going to go singing loudly and badly in your bath at two in the morning in a hotel having no regard for the person in the next room needing to get sleep....that's pretty selfish wouldn't you think?
Thats not what the law said. And you know it. Your super stretch is signs that you know you have been proven wrong.