June 30, 2009
The Brevity Act
Or "Omnibus Legislation to Ensure Succinctness and Eschew Obfuscation and Circumlocution" when our 535 editors-in-chief are done with it.
Bob Gale makes an important point. He prints out the Constitution in 12 point Times New Roman (Dan Rather's favorite) and it clocks in at 20 pages.
Yet the bill that was passed on June 26, 2009 by 219 of our elected representatives — people to whom we’ve entrusted our Constitution, men and women who have sworn an oath to uphold it - was more than 1200 pages long. That’s over 100 times longer than the U.S. Constitution! And not one member of Congress, NOT ONE, read the whole thing!A word comes to my mind to describe this: "INSANE."
In "Tempting of America" Robert Bork makes the point that the Constitution is understandable. He objects to the Justices' getting too lawyerly because it breaks this bond of undestanding between the people and the law that defines their government. Bastiat's "The Law" says that just law is "understandable and avoidable."
What's in the 1200 pages of Cap'n Trade? Pure mischief. Rent-seeking opportunities for campaign donors, special carve-outs for supporters. And, perhaps most importantly a net obfuscation-through-tonnage that keeps anybody from knowing enough about it to debate it or discuss it seriously.
Gale suggests a brevity amendment:
No law, bill, resolution or any act of Congress shall exceed 2000 words, including all footnotes, amendments and signatures. Congress shall not vote on any item longer than that. Each item requiring a vote shall be read aloud in its entirety in session to a majority of members. Those not in attendance may not vote on the item.
We could do (and have done) a lot worse.
Hat-tip: Instapundit
Posted by John Kranz at June 30, 2009 10:08 AM
Before Bastiat, there was Hammurabi. Hammurabi's code included some three hundred separate laws, not one of which is more than two sentences long. He was believed to have said that to be enforceable, laws must be simple (so that all could understand) and on public display (so no one could claim ignorance).
My, how we've evolved over the centuries.
I'll endorse the brevity amendment, and propose a rider: that for every one of those up-to-2,000 words enacted, two must be deleted; and for every new law passed, two old ones must be made to go away.
Posted by: Keith at June 30, 2009 11:50 AMBoth of the examples of good law cited above were created before not just the modern age, but the post-modern age. When the very idea of knowable reality is obliterated then what use is knowable law?
And expanding on some prior comments, when a person is taught that "nothing is certain" and "perception is reality" then when the otherwise predictable effects of reality take him by surprise the only thing he can call it is "magic." In other words, blame the schools. Specifically, the philosophers who train the professors who teach the educators who write and administer the curricula. (In other societies they call these philosophers "mullahs.")
Posted by: johngalt at July 1, 2009 10:54 AMKeith, The Refugee's father used to aspouse a similar system to pass one law/remove another. However, he passed before such legistation did. Unfortunately, you and I are likely to suffer the same fate.
Posted by: Boulder Refugee at July 1, 2009 11:35 AM | What do you think? [3]