Really sad but true... though I would hope we are a bit stricter than that. I feel if our world had stricter rules it would be a better place. I feel we get away with a lot but if we try to become harsher, people will simply rebel.
If you revisit my edit to my post - you'll see a little more about this.
Stricter rules don't necessarily improve things. They usually only serve to make micro-politics worse. I've been under a few different commands - and each one has its own political climate. In the aviation communities, I noticed a lot of 'tribal warfare' between the different shops that service the aircraft (warfare is a bit extreme... but rivalry with attempts to exploit each others' personnel is more accurate). In security - it has been a lot of dog-eat-dog; make yourself look good by reporting on the errors of others. In logistics, it was like a capitalist commune of sorts... individual 'political' goals with varying overlaps within the shop.
When you make things more strict - you give people more methods to exploit the political sitution. The military is -very- strict on cases of rape and sexual assault (and since everyone is briefed routinely on the rules - those are often exploited as they heavily favor the allged victim) - and the integration of women into many communities they have long been denied entry to has had some rather unintended consequences. Females will leverage rape/assault against males... and some females are wrongly surrounded by rumors that she has utilized such strategies in the past (often groups of males enacting a sort of 'defense' against those strategies).
That's not to agree or disagree with women being there - just that being very strict on the rules and introducing new political machinations has an affect that is not always what one would expect.
It's the same in laws and governments. Seat-belt laws in my state are mostly used to generate additional fines and revenue (in fact, the way the law is written, a stop cannot be made for failure to wear a seat-belt... it can -only- be in connection with a different infraction). Small-town cops will nail out-of-state drivers (your plate identifies you) for going even slightly over the speed limit. You're not going to drive back to contest your fine - it's cheaper to pay whatever it was and be done.
When police do the 'checkpoints' along the highway to look for drunk drivers - they may net 2 or 3 over the course of a 6-hour operation. They'll rack up 30 head-light/tail-light infractions, 15 seat-belt, 25 turn-signal, etc - all of which are fines that generate revenue.
People, generally, don't act and live based on all of the laws they are subject to. Strict rules/laws tend to only give more opportunities for those who have time to read through all the damned things to exploit the rest of the population.
I agree even as a Sakura fan and I see your point. I'm not sure if Kishimoto was aware of it or thought he was making her look good in readers eyes. I didn't think much of her though he heart was in the right place. She is supposed to be logical, one of the smartest and she really went and dropped her IQ level.
Sakura is a difficult character for me. In principle - she's got a lot of potential and can be a great character (even if she's not someone I see developing a romance with Naruto). And I can't tell if Kishimoto just has no idea what he's doing when he writes her character... or if she's supposed to be the Naruto equivalent of Krillin.
