Posted on 06/25/2015 6:50:50 AM PDT by MichCapCon
Patrick McLaughlin of the Virginia-based Mercatus Center released a report recently on the Code of Federal Regulations, which compiles all the rules and regulations promulgated by all the federal government's departments and agencies
McLaughlin says it is impossible to understand the rules by reading them. He concludes that since the average adult reads at a rate of 250 to 300 words per minute, it would take nearly three years (5,727 hours) to read the entire 103 million word code (2012 edition, updated annually).
“The American regulatory system has no working, systematic process for reviewing regulations for obsolescence or poor performance,” McLaughlin said in an email. “Over time, this has facilitated the accumulation of a vast stock of regulations. Regulatory accumulation can negatively affect GDP growth, labor productivity, innovation, and safety — perhaps explaining why every president since Jimmy Carter has recognized it as a problem. But so far, none of them has been able to solve it.”
ForTheRecord says: For context, McLaughlin points out that it would take 26 hours to read the 473,000 word The Lord of the Rings trilogy. How many code violations would Frodo have been guilty of if The Shire had as extensive a body of regulations as the U.S. federal government? Among the violations celebrated by the LOTR trilogy was an unregistered weapon (Sting) and a valuable ring that may have been the proceed of a crime at some point. Nor is there any mention of pipe-smoking Frodo paying tax on his tobacco.
It’s probably like being Sisyphus.
By the time you read them all there would be another year and half of regulations to read.
Just keep shoving that boulder.
What Is Law?
What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.
Each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force — his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force — for the same reason — cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.
Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases, contrary to our premise. Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights. Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces?
If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all.
A Just and Enduring Government
If a nation were founded on this basis, it seems to me that order would prevail among the people, in thought as well as in deed. It seems to me that such a nation would have the most simple, easy to accept, economical, limited, nonoppressive, just, and enduring government imaginable — whatever its political form might be.
Under such an administration, everyone would understand that he possessed all the privileges as well as all the responsibilities of his existence. No one would have any argument with government, provided that his person was respected, his labor was free, and the fruits of his labor were protected against all unjust attack. When successful, we would not have to thank the state for our success. And, conversely, when unsuccessful, we would no more think of blaming the state for our misfortune than would the farmers blame the state because of hail or frost. The state would be felt only by the invaluable blessings of safety provided by this concept of government.
It can be further stated that, thanks to the non-intervention of the state in private affairs, our wants and their satisfactions would develop themselves in a logical manner. We would not see poor families seeking literary instruction before they have bread. We would not see cities populated at the expense of rural districts, nor rural districts at the expense of cities. We would not see the great displacements of capital, labor, and population that are caused by legislative decisions.
The sources of our existence are made uncertain and precarious by these state-created displacements. And, furthermore, these acts burden the government with increased responsibilities.
http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html#SECTION_G019
You know who can sort through all of this and tell us what is obsolete and what is ridiculous and should be reviewed and changed? Out of work accountants who will be looking for jobs once we go to flat tax. While they are at it, they can look at the budget and consolidate or kill programs that are useless.
Half that if the next Prez simply overturns all that was done during Obama’s tenure.
There are so many conflicting rules and regulations that if they want to put you away, they can.
If you follow one you are in violation of the other.
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