Posted on 06/27/2014 11:58:58 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Why is it that democracies so often generate public policies that are wasteful and unjust? Why do such policies persist over long periods of time, even when they are known to be harmful?
Assuming that you’ve pondered those questions, you’d probably also like to understand why, on rare occasions, bad policies do get repealed.
If you have entertained those questions, or now see that they are worth entertaining, here is a book you’ll want to read. In Madmen, Intellectuals, and Academic Scribblers, economics professors Wayne Leighton (of Universidad Francisco Marroquin) and Edward Lopez (of Western Carolina University) take readers on an intellectual journey in search of the answers. The authors explain the connection between ideas, the “products” of the academic scribblers of their title, and the political actions that turn them into laws – and occasionally into ex-laws.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Everytime they pass one they should repeal 1000 til they get down to the original 10.
“New laws are always a good idea until the first time you have to enforce them.” - Unknown
Because we enable them and allow them to.
Perhaps its God’s way of telling us that as long as we live in our Godless vanity, he will withhold his blessings.
Corruption is inherent in politics. The problem of the Founders was not merely to make a government - any fool could do that, for awhile. The real problem was coming up with a system that delayed and blocked the growth and power of corruption for as long as possible. The Founder’s solution - namely, “it’s the freedom, stupid” - was brilliant. In comparison, mere “democracy” is revealed to be the snarling of a pack of dogs to rip the people into edible chunks of meat, as is perfectly and repeatedly demonstrated by what politics has finally devolved into today.
GREAT FREAKING QUESTION
“... more income and power for other lawyers.”
BINGO!!!!!
Every law should have a shelf life of, say, 10 years. After that, it either expires are needs to be voted on to keep it from expiring.
Because they can.
They refuse to repeal the bad laws, because...
* They—all of them—like the laws. They lie to you, especially in campaigns, about their enjoyment of being tyrants.
* One political party can use the bad laws already passed to scare voters into voting for that party. The promise—the lie—is that they won’t punish you even further by passing more laws like those.
* Most of them are lawyers, family members of bureaucrats, children of public school teachers, associates of anti-competition corporations and the like. They and their kind get take more money from you by lying to you.
What they have in common is big cash flow, each from some of the abovementioned activities. It’s what makes them look so important. Oh...and they have propaganda—floods of it sponsored by their most influential consituents to keep you distracted.
You can see what kind of people they are in their private lives by seeing the kinds of laws passed by both political parties for over 30 years. Some of them even shout loudly in their campaigns against the laws that they love the most (e.g., laws passed for the weirdos and manhaters they live with).
You seem to have forgotten the old political adage from Tammany Hall days: “You can’t have new graft with old laws.”
When the feds started fighting back by withholding funds, I would withhold their funds.
Every illegal in the state would be brought to the blue state next door and dropped off
with a bottle of water and a lunch bag. All of their belongings would be confiscated
and auctioned off to pay for their intrusion. Seems fair to me.
Next I would kick OSHA out of the state on it's OSHA with state police escorts.
Then more de-regulation, and more and more. In four years I could probably find over
200,000 frivolous regulations that didn't pass legally by Constitutional intent.
Oh sure, the RATS & RINO's would raise holy heck calling me a baby killer and
Earth killer and all kinds of really creative four letter words. But in the end
Business in the state would be kicking serious butt and nobody working in the state
would complain, much.
I don't qualify though, I didn't go to Harvard and I'm not one of those Lawyers.
Why do they also break the laws with impunity?
Lawyers as legislators pose a very, very serious problem for an ostensibly free people: They LOVE making laws and the more complex and incomprehensible the better. Think about it: In the private sector – to which many of them return (hopefully in HUGE NUMBERS in the next election) – they, and their buds who remain behind in the private sector, earn their often obscene incomes (in addition to the obscenely generous, COLA congressional pensions and tax subsidized HEALTH CARE!) wading through that Byzantine labyrinth of rules and regulations they love to construct. It’s a process that prompted Otto von Bismarck to remark that “Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” Can I get an “AMEN?”
Yes, it’s true that many of the Founders were lawyers or studied law. But that was a different time peopled by men of deeper character and integrity. Sadly, we have become a far different people. With a tip of the hat to Henny Youngman, for proof, take Barack Obama – please! It’s also true that a number of the Founders were physicians, merchants, tradesmen and farmers. It goes without saying that we desperately need a more representative cross-section of our population.
While there ARE exceptions (Bill Frist toward the end of his term, Phil Gingrey — who strays from time to time) my rule that physicians and engineers make better legislators than most lawyers generally holds true. I attribute that to the fact that doctors and engineers are trained in the SCIENTIFIC METHOD and rely more on FACTS and EMPIRICAL DATA for their decisions. Ron Paul, Rand Paul, Larry McDonald, Paul Broun, John Linder, Tom Price are (or were) all doctors. I’m sure you can think of other examples/exceptions. The poster boy for the exceptions is “Screamin’ Howard Dean, MD.
Unfortunately, far too many of these guys are ATTORNEYS.
Our late friend and author, composer, conductor, Nashville music producer, lover of Bach, pianist and all-around Renaissance man, Tupper Saussy, who somehow dodged the family tradition of becoming one, traced the term “attorney” back to the Sanscrit word “torwa.” And what does “torwa” mean? TO TWIST! And twist they do. Unfortunately, it’s not in the wind.
While SOME of these attorney-legislators are conservatives, their law school moot court training forced them to argue BOTH SIDES OF THE SAME CASE. I rather suspect that experience allows them to rationalize voting against the Constitution when expediency and/or their political survival/favor with their party leadership dictates. It is textbook moral relativism and we all pay for their perfidy.
Let me tie that attorney-legislator problem into the current health care debate: I might have missed it but I don’t believe there was one mention of TORT REFORM from the lawyers who cobbled together that 2,000+ page monstrosity now dividing the nation.
I’ll give you three guesses as to why — and the last two don’t count!
And here’s something to think about for the next election cycle: If the attorney-legislator representing your district does not pass muster at www.gradegov.com, if you can, find a NON-LAWYER for whom to vote after grilling him on the first principles near and dear to those who cherish freedom and the Constitution.
Too hard, say you?
No. SLAVERY is hard.
Control freaks... pathological... psychopaths... aided by other psychopaths, religious, political, financial, even conservative..
Because they are exempt from the laws they foist upon us.
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