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"Always grab the reader by the throat in the first paragraph,
sink your thumbs into his windpipe in the second, and hold him against the wall
until the tag line."
- Paul O'Neil
All Original Site Content
Copyright © 2003-2004
Phil Elmore, all rights reserved.
An article in this morning's paper mentioned that the New York State
legislature passes something like 1200 bills a year. Think about
that for a moment. It's all I can do to read through the complete text of
an apartment lease, and our legislature is passing 1200 bills a
year? The quantity is staggering. In three years, that's 3600 bills. In
five years, we're up to 6000 bills. By the time ten years have
passed, a staggering 12,000 bills have been passed by the
legislature.
These are just pieces of legislation at the state level. Throw in the
hundreds of items passed by Congress every year, and the average citizen
of New York State is staring down an incredible number of coercive
restraints or demands on his or her behavior and assets. Beyond the degree
of government control granted over our lives, we must recognize the
logistical problem this tempestuous sea of legislation represents. How
on earth can the average citizen be aware of this many restrictions, in
order to obey them?
The answer, of course, is that no one could do this. A great example of
burdensome legislation is the incredibly complex set of laws with which
OSHA is involved. No OSHA inspector could be expected to hold within his
or her mind the hundreds upon hundreds of OSHA rules and regulations
governing a specific workplace. And if those enforcing the guidelines
can't keep up with them, how can individual employers possibly be expected
to stay ahead of them?
A society that has a few basic laws can enforce those laws scrupulously.
The members of that society can abide by the laws relatively easily, and
all concerned can understand what is required of them. The more complex
that society's legal code becomes, however, the more likely it is that
laws will be broken ignorantly -- or deliberately by frustrated, burdened
citizens who are tired of the demands of their government.
A piece of legislation is a document detailing specific coercion exerted
by the State on its citizens. Even free societies accept a certain amount
of this coercion in order to protect individual rights. But we must not
forget that every law passed adds to the web of restraints governing your
life. Every time a bill is signed, another piece of your life is boxed in,
walled off, and chained up.
In a world where all the important laws have already been passed --
don't murder people, don't steal their things, don't kidnap their children
-- our legislatures continue to justify their collective existence by
pointing to the records of the bills they've passed. But the quantity
of legislation passed is not a positive measure of a governing body's
abilities. If anything, it is a profound negative -- and we would do well
to recognize this. We must resist the urge to "do something" for the sake
of saying we've done it. We must realize that liberty is the
natural and preferred state of human beings. We must be mindful of the
fact that any infringements on individual liberty carry with them serious
consequences, regardless of the pragmatic benefits they may create.
The best Congress is a "do-nothing" Congress. I'll gladly vote for
legislators who refuse to do anything once in office.