Via Radley Balko, MSNBC reports :
About 40,000 state laws taking effect at the start of the new year will change rules about getting abortions in New Hampshire, learning about gays and lesbians in California, getting jobs in Alabama and even driving golf carts in Georgia.
Many laws reflect the nation’s concerns over immigration, the cost of government and the best way to protect and benefit young people, including regulations on sports concussions.
Some laws are trivial. Some are significant. Some will affect you. Some won’t. Some will force you to pay a big fine. Some will put you in jail. Some will save a life. Some are intended to save a life but won’t.
Proponents of each of these laws will no doubt be happy to explain why it’s needed and why it serves the greater good. And they may be right, in some if not all instances.
But what this speaks to, in the big picture sense, is that we’ve become a nation of people who believe that everything, every ill, every wrong, every potential problem, every potential good, requires a law. Anyway you twist it, 40,000 is a lot of laws. And those are just the ones that will become effective now. We’ve got some laws from last year too. And the year before.
If this is how you see a better society, a safer society, a more fair society, being achieved, then this is great news. Just remember that the maxim, ignorance of the law is no excuse, remains in full force and effect, and it’s not up to you to define and decide which laws you think are worthy and which aren’t worth spit.
Legislatures pass laws because people complain about problems that need fixing. This is the only hammer they have. With each new law comes a new opportunity to violate it. With each violation comes the potential for getting in trouble. That’s 40,000 new ways to get into trouble.
Have we fixed all your problems yet? Is everything perfect? No? Not to worry. By the start of next year, we’ll have more laws. No doubt everything will be perfect then. And if not, we’ll just keep making more laws until we get it right.
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Each new law also offers opportunity!
Sure, there’s the plaintiff’s bar that can start advertising on TV for new clients affected by the new laws, but they’re just a nuisance.
There are also the great opportunities for new NGOs to support or advise or protect those affected by the laws. These organizations will have the opportunity to seek new funding programs and new funds. They will thus validate their continued existence with only a tiny (time 40,000) effect on city, county, and state budgets.
But that’s okay, it’s not ‘real’ money, as it comes from unlimited government coffers. Right?
Funny, it never occurs to me that the upside is coming out of the government’s piggy bank. I keep thinking of all that private money that people will pay lawyers to defend them from the laws they demanded to make their world perfect. And then they can blame the lawyers for charging for defending them against the laws they wanted rather than blame lawyers for the taxes imposed to cover the costs and damages of the laws they demanded to make their world perfect.
Just perfect.
Ignorance of the law isn’t an excuse unless you’re enforcing the law. Then you can be mud-dumb ignorant about it and everything’s fine…
There oughta be a law:
Before any new law can be enacted, two existing laws must be repealed.
Are the numbers negotiable?
It’s time to put that old saw away. No one, lawyers, judges, legislators, is capable of knowing what all these laws say. As for law enforcement, at least no one expects them to have a clue, which is why they’re allowed to make it up as they go.
There are plenty of laws so they will just amend an existing law.