[RobbyS]

Since John Austin's time, legal positivism has increasingly taken over American law. That explains, among other things, the absolute mania that legislatures have for making "new law." It gets to the point that the legal code as a whole lacks any natural basis except the will of legislators, so that jurists must constantly intervene to hold it all together.

[annalex]

In my opinion the real culprit is the democracy worship. We have gotten the notion that if enough people vote for something, then it is good enough as law. That notion is patently wrong, -- remember the famous dictum about two wolves and one sheep democratically electing the dinner menu, -- but it is our jurisprudence today. The masturbatory compulsion for more laws is a corollary, because as the innate need of justice remains frustrated, politicians think that if they only put another refinement on the big lie, the lie would ring true. It never does.