Tyranny through Complexity

American Thinker ^ | 3 Jul, 2022 | J.B. Shurk

[MtnClimber]

President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is roughly 270 words long. The Declaration of Independence is around 1,320 words. Those two documents alone prove the power of brevity. (Whenever I find that I am unable to write what I'm trying to say within the Lincoln-Jefferson word limit, I chuck it in the trashcan because I've most likely buried my intended message under parasitic weeds.) The whole U.S. Constitution, the shortest in the world, has only 4,400 words. Yet every two-year Congress since WWII has enacted 4-6 million words of new law. A wise man once told me that if a law can't be written in a single sentence, it has no business restricting Americans' liberty. Over 200 million words of imposed law since the last Great War have no doubt stolen a good deal of Americans' natural rights and liberties.

Do we believe the modern American legislature's verbiage is a necessary requirement for fulfilling the promises outlined in our founding documents? Or is it more likely that Congress learned long ago that it could bury monumental power grabs underneath an untamed jungle of distracting weeds and has been writing new weeds into law ever since?

Tyranny comes in many forms, yet one of its subtlest is manufactured complexity. Esoteric language + complicated bureaucracy = citizen compliance. If no-one understands the law or how the monetary system works or whether some agency exercising government power is legitimate, then a great deal of corruption and crime can be committed without the public's objection. Complexity is the favorite poison of those with power.

Consider how the government's tyranny through complexity makes answering even the simplest questions quite difficult:

(1) Have you broken any laws today? (2) How many departments or agencies exert power over you? (3) Is saving money wise? (4) What does the Constitution..

[MtnClimber]

The IRS is probably the biggest example.

[Rurudyne]

I’ve long said that laws which cannot be understood by ordinary folks are fountains of tyranny.

[joma89]

Government controlled by the democrat party is the enemy of freedom.

[rlmorel]

The Federal Register is where all the federal laws are encoded and stored. These two graphs show Trump's first year in office, 2017:

There was another graph that showed the number of "Economically Significant" rules published by year that show Trump in a less flattering light, but they don't mention what the criteria is for "Economically Significant", so, George Washington University, being an extremely Leftist campus, likely crafted it that way. These two graphs are absolutes, if I understand them correctly.

This speaks volumes. There is a reason why the Left thought that less than 2% annual GDP would be the "new normal", and that 3% would never be broken again, which Trump immediately did. Trump understood the effect that excessive regulation had on business, and walked the walk to combat that, at least until the Leftists neutered him with their ceaseless and partisan lawfare.

[Rurudyne]

Well, they ARE the very people that HUAC was convened to keep out of power.

[rlmorel]

Not just that, but laws that are so common, insidious, and far reaching into areas they have no business encroaching on, so that in effect, every person is in violation of some law at some time.

In a country where enforcement of laws is uniform and predictable, that is one thing.

But in this banana republic in which we live, where laws are enforced selectively, it becomes more of the Beria type of law enforcement where he said “Show me the man and I will find you the crime” kind of thing.

Laws now are no more than tools to be used to prosecute political enemies, or tools not to be employed against political allies.

[cuz1961]

Tyranny through Complexity

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Like this example.

Elections that HAD 3 steps

1 vote
2 count votes
3 announce winner

Then voting machines came and with its circular software with Wi-Fi vulnerabilities turn step 2 into an infinite amount of steps till a predetermined outcome is announced

Viola , tyranny through complexity

[E. Pluribus Unum]

“The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.”

― Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome

[ClearCase_guy]

Every piece of legislation should fit on a single page and be understandable at a HS level. More than that is social engineering.

[Soul of the South]

“Government controlled by the democrat party is the enemy of freedom.”

What exactly are Republicans doing to ensure our freedom? A number of January 6 protestors have been in prison for over a year without bail or other due process protections in the Constitution. Few GOP politicians have shown any concern. How many GOP politicians fought aggressively against the vaccine mandates? How many are joining in support of bipartisan gun restriction legislation? When individual liberty is under attack, Republicans seem to acquiesce.

[Starboard]

Complexity is the favorite poison of those with power.

************

Complexity facilitates obfuscation.

Most of the time they benefit from putting up elaborate smokescreens to hide their true intentions.

Especially when they want to spend money and increase their power.

[rlmorel]

Good example.

At the top of that category is “Ranked Choice Voting (RCV)

It is a totally Leftist construct, instituted to specifically benefit Leftists under the guise of “greater choice “.

I would bet $1000 right now that if you randomly asked 100 passerby to explain it, you could not find more than one person who could do so.

Yet we have Freepers who think this is just dandy.

[Don Corleone]

Every piece of legislation should fit on a single page and be understandable at a HS level. More than that is social engineering.

Churchill had his war plans one one page. God had his world plans on two tablets.

[RebelTXRose]

L8r

[bobbo666]

This is part of the “Look what I’ve done for you while in office” stupidity. Many politicos have fools voting for them who think only new laws will improve things — rather than effective enforcement of existing laws. So, churning out loads of verbiage is equated to quality.
Only by the stupid, BTWay.

[G Larry]

I like the quote: “This letter would have been shorter if I’d had more time.”

[Amendment10]

Tyranny through post-17th Amendment ratification, constitutionally indefensible federal laws.

• "Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

• "From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added]." —United States v. Butler, 1936.

• “Cherish, therefore, the spirit of our people, and keep alive their attention. If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature.” - Thomas Jefferson (Letter to Edward Carrington January 16, 1787)

Consider that the 2nd Amendment doesn't protect us from shooting ourselves in the foot by electing corrupt federal senators who help to pass constitutionally indefensible gun control laws.

Also, Trump's red tsunami of patriot supporters are reminded that they must vote twice this election year. Your first vote is to primary career RINO incumbents. Your second vote is to replace outgoing Democrats and RINOs with Trump-endorsed patriot candidates.

Insights welcome.

[enumerated]

The Ten Commandments are about 70 words, less than half that many in Hebrew. And the Ten Commandments were pretty repetitive - could have just said:

don’t steal
don’t lie
don’t kill.

[Texas Fossil]

Everything Should Be Made as Simple as Possible, But Not Simpler
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/05/13/einstein-simple/

Paraphrased: In fields of specialized knowledge, we aim to render an account that is plain and simple, yet does no violence to the difficulty of the subject, so that the uninformed reader can understand us while the expert cannot fault us. We try to keep in mind a saying attributed to Einstein—that everything must be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler.

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In my library I have Einstein’s book, “Relativity” The Special and the General Theory (original 1916) (fifteenth edition 1952, 157 pages) ISBN 0-517-029618

“A clear explanation that anyone can understand”

In it he practiced this concept.