Do not murder.
Do not steal.
Do not rape.
Do not injure anyone unless in self defense.
Do not destroy anyone else’s property.
Do not commit fraud (see stealing).
Do not make false testimony against anyone.
Do not threaten anyone with physical harm unless in defense.
Pay your taxes.
The federal government shall abide by the constitution.
The state governments shall abide by their constitutions.
Levy taxes only for the things delineated in the constitution.
This covers the majority of actual offenses.
The balance, and I’m certain I passed over a goodly number of bona fide criminal activities since I just batted this out, can be handled by civil and contract law as opposed to criminal law. These should probably be pared down to their more fundamental than specific declarations.
God managed with ten commandments. We should be able to manage with less than 170,000 PAGES of laws.
If we actually followed the constitution as written, we would be far ahead of the game.
If congress had to read aloud, in the full session, every law beyond the first 10 or so, say every 2 - 6 years in order to keep them validated, we would probably be left with some sanity.
Well then, I suppose that you think that same-sex “marriage” should be a reality in law, since it’s not on your list.
I’m almost willing to bet so.
There is the saying. Show a carpenter a problem and he reaches for a hammer. Since most legislators are lawyers, there immediate reaction to any civic problem is to create a new law. We now need to have lawyers/candidates who pledge to examine and eliminate a certain number of laws every year they are in office.
After tremendous snowfalls in the mid-Atlantic a few years ago, lawmakers in one jurisdiction were proposing draconian snow shoveling laws with major fines. Fortunately, other folks and especially the elderly said this would really hurt a lot of people who could not do the shoveling themselves nor find someone after a major storm to do the work within the time limit before fines kicked in. The idea was dropped in favor of having civic leaders leading the call for the able bodied to come out and help get the sidewalks cleared and check on their older neighbors.