Voluminous and incoherent

Are we a nation of *too many* laws?

Bill being brought to the floor of the House this week - taken from https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/

Can you recite U.S. Code Title 42, Chapter 6A, Subchapter I? Are you familiar with Chapter 7 of the same code? What about U.S. Code Title 2, Chapter 20? No? Perhaps you’re more familiar with Title 8, Chapter 10? Any part of Title 21? Title 26? Not even Title 52?

Surely you are more familiar with local legislation. If you’re in Texas, are you familiar with Title 4, Subtitle B, Chapter 418, subchapter A? Can anyone in New York cite any statute from Title 10, Volume A, Part 6 of New York code? Are California residents aware of the contents of Title 2, Division 1, Chapter 7 of California code?

Aside from general traffic laws, with how many of your local laws are you familiar? That I could sit here and list statute upon statute and law upon law knowing very well that most reading this article would be unaware of likely 98%+ is concerning. The vast majority of Americans are ignorant of the contents of the U.S. Constitution, never mind their state Constitution, state legislation, or even local statutes. This is a serious problem. James Madison in his wisdom wrote:

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulged, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is to day can guess what it will be to morrow.

James Madison, The Federalist No. 62

Go searching through some of the U.S. Code (Cornell Law School has a complete listing that can be browsed), and you will find that it is incredibly voluminous, consuming thousands upon thousands of pages. Just think about the 1200-page “minibus” bill that was recently passed by Congress - 1200 pages for ONE bill - and it should make your head spin to think of all that is contained within the tomes of federal statutes. Further, if you do take the time to browse some of what is published, you’ll find that many sections have been repealed (though are still listed), and others updated, amended, or otherwise altered. The same is true of state legislation.

How are you to follow the law if you can’t possibly know it? How much of federal law actually falls within the bounds of the power delegated to the federal government by the Constitution? And yes, the power held by the federal government is delegated by the States. Keep in mind, the superior delegates to the inferior, another concept lost on most people today.

If all of that is not bad enough, just take a quick glance at all the bills currently being proposed in Congress:

The first twelve current bills listed at https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/

The bills shown in the image comprise less than half of those on the House calendar for the week of April 15, 2024. Look at the titles given to some of these bills:

• Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act

• Carbon Sequestration Collaboration Act

• Refrigerator Freedom Act

• Affordable Air Conditioning Act

• Clothes Dryer Reliability Act

• Liberty in Laundry Act

What does any of this have to do with the powers delegated to the federal government? If it wasn’t known to be real, these titles would read like satire. It’s as if Congress hired writers from The Babylon Bee to author bills. The amazing thing is, many of these bills are being proposed in order to counter actions from executive agencies, actions which the Constitution cannot in any way be used to support (i.e. the Secretary of Energy - a position and agency that does not fall within the Constitutional strictures of federal authority - mandating efficiency specifications for appliances). Likewise, by what authority do those in federal government believe it is government’s job to “sequester carbon”?

All of this bears witness to how far the federal government has strayed from its purpose. That they are dabbling so deeply in our daily lives is abominable. But these acts and the “voluminous and incoherent” laws belie multiple other issues.

First is that Congress was never meant to pass so many laws. They were never meant to gather so often and for so long, and they were never meant to attempt to address so many things. It is not within the purview of the delegated powers.

Second is that those in government believe their job is to rule, not to represent. When our founding fathers architected this representative republic, the idea was that the states would each see to their own concerns and citizens, and the federal government would handle protecting the borders (being able to call up the militias of many states to help defend any that might face invasion), would protect each state from any other state taking advantage in commerce, and would handle foreign relations and trade:

The powers delegated by the proposed constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negociation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will for the most part be connected. The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people; and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the state.

James Madison, The Federalist No. 45

Never was government supposed to be involved in so much as it has to date inserted itself.

Third is that they want to make us all criminals. Ayn Rand makes an incredible observation of this phenomenon in her masterpiece Atlas Shrugged. In a conversation between Dr. Floyd Ferris and Henry Reardon, Ferris says to Rearden in relation to laws:

Well, what do you think they're for?”…Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?” said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against—then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted—and you create a nation of law-breakers—and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with.

This is what we are up against. This is what our government has become. Thugs making rules in order to create criminals - criminals of us all - so that they can exercise control, and so that they can continue to loot.

Madison was brilliant in his foresight regarding “voluminous and incoherent” legislation, and Rand was equally astute in her observations. In another conversation within the pages of Atlas Shrugged, she foresees the corruption with which we now live daily. At that, I will leave you to ruminate over of the aptness of this quote from Rand’s character, Francisco d’Anconia, to our current state of affairs:

Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard—the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money—the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law—men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims—then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.