Thoughts from (law professor) Glenn Reynolds on America’s laws and lawyers, and why we probably have too many of both. It’s part of the ratchet effect I discussed a couple of days ago.
5 thoughts on “Demosclerosis”
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Thoughts from (law professor) Glenn Reynolds on America’s laws and lawyers, and why we probably have too many of both. It’s part of the ratchet effect I discussed a couple of days ago.
Comments are closed.
This is why we need a House of Repeals in the Legislative branch. Congress normally runs for office on the handouts they’ll give you, or the intrusions they’ll force on other people. Hardly anyone runs on the basis of getting the monkey of government off your back. So let’s make that someone’s only job, and make them campaign on a platform of liberty.
How do you make a beautiful work of art from a slab of marble? You cut away all the ugly parts. Brock is right.
The problem exists for any type of rule makers. I’ve noticed it in programming for decades, but struggled with trying to find the right words to describe it. Programmers, every one of them (not excluding myself) write ugly code generally. Good code is simple and easy to comprehend in most cases, but require thought so that’s not what usually gets produced. It takes time to think things through and see the impact of things. Time which people do not general use for thinking.
I thought at first it was lack of professionalism. Then got into discussions with computer professionals and found they hadn’t a clue either. What it is, it seems to me, is a lack of appreciation by most in the limitation of rules and profound lack of appreciation for the quality of simplicity.
In almost all cases, fewer rules give better results. It not uncommon for me to reduce the number of lines of someone else’s code in half when adding new features. The result is easier to revise when changes come along. Subtle bugs disappear. The same thing should apply to writing laws.
We could require that any bill contain a preamble explicitly stating the intended purpose of the bill, the expected consequences, and the premises, including scientific assumptions, underlying the bill. If after five ears, evidence accumulates that the bill failed to deliver its expected benefits, had unintended harmful consequences, or that the premises underlying the bill had been invalidated by findings of fact, the bill could be challenged on such grounds, and if the court agreed with such challenges, the bill could be invalidated without further rationale.
That’s a good idea Jim, but I would go even further by requiring that all laws sunset after a certain amount of time (and your five year limit seems pretty good). That way, if a law is worth preserving, it can be renewed for another five year term.
That would work for justices as well. Instead of appointing them for life, give them a ten year term; they can be appointed to another ten year term if the President so chooses at the appropriate time.
There are too many laws and lawyers and ANY group is concerned with keeping them and their brethren working. And in America now, or the last 50 years anyway, it’s mostly about someone’s ‘safety’. So lawyers write laws about permits and inspections and safety items.
We have seat belt laws because someone decided we all need to be TOLD to wear one. Same for helmets. Same, once upon a time, for speed limits.
Starting a business is worse. I have to get “Event Insurance” when I do my food concession at street fairs, art fests, etc. Most require $1 million coverage.
Because I might hurt someone selling them popcorn or soft drinks.
Did anyone see Stossel’s show a few weeks ago? He started two businesses. One in NYC, one in Hong Kong. In Hong Kong he bought a Business Permit, and went to work selling Fox News trinkets in a corner kiosk. Total cost less than $50 HK.
They never really started in NYC, because it can take as long as a year to get all the permits, licenses etc. Most businesses in NYC currently up and running could NOT get started now because of city legal crap.
Who has that kind of money? Trump and Bloomberg and guys like them.
I expect that is why we periodically read about people dying in unlicensed clubs, restaurants, or factories. It’s just easier to do it without permits which certainly makes everyone safer.
We’re about to be short of oil, gasoline, kerosene, diesel, heating oil and fertilizers. And why? Because it’s a ‘danger’ to the environment, and thus…us, to drill for oil, transport oil, and refine it into products. I’ll tell you what else is dangerous. Starving to death and freezing to death.
Hopefully the lawyers who are currently in charge of our legal system and laws, won’t wind up in kangaroo courts, run by citizens with no legal training, paying for problems they didn’t cause, with rope bought from China, because it’s cheaper to import than it is to make here, because of wage and permit regulations.
Few people care where the rope was made when they’re dropping. That’s last is just a supposition, of course.