Each congressional session (national and state), each county board meeting, each school board, every session of every governing body wants to create a few laws - each member wants those laws to have their name.

Bill S902 by Senator Such and Such or H1000 by Rep So and So.

Pay attention, because here is where the deep thinking starts.

This has to be a self defeating proposition.  If every session creates a couple of laws - and we all know that rarely are laws repealed (look at the US Code for instance), how long will it be before our elected officials completely legislate away our every freedom?

When the only freedoms remain are the 9 (yes nine, because they've all but compromised the 2nd) gaurantteed in the Bill of Rights - how long do you really think it will take before they start on those?

The recent anti-terrorism push is just the start, your drivers license is already a national ID - when was the last time you used a check in your home town, let alone out of state and they didn't ask for your papers ... I mean drivers license.

Just wait, we will all be presenting our license to cross state lines, our movements will be tracked in a national database to ensure Big Brother knew whick 1M of it's citizens were in XYZ town, which 100K were in the 123 suburb, which 10 were in the building when ABC crime was committed.

The continuous development of new legislation has become a self fulfilling prophecy - you can only write so many bills before you have nothing but people's freedoms left to legislate against.

If you've read a court case writeup recently you notice how often there are three and four laws overlapping on a certain issue?

I'm trying not to be paranoid - but this issue has really been bugging me.  We have all these well connected folks who want to get into politics - to do what?  If they end up part of the legislative branch, they want to make new laws - how many new laws do I really need?



Any opinions?

Ryan

And you just discovered this?

Just a suggestion:  Walk into any university law library and look at the ranks of legal tomes.  And remember, it all pretty much started with the Ten Commandments.

It is the function of government to make laws - period.  It is the function of elected officials to get re-elected - period.  Elected officials show they deserve to get re-elected by promoting and passing laws, not by repealing bad ones.

And you get what we have today.

Here's the candidate I'm looking for:

If elected they will go to Washington and do nothing.  
They will not spend taxpayer dollars flying home everyweekend.  
They will not was money by sending frivelous mailers at the taxpayers expense.
They won't bugger little boys.
They will be present to vote on every issue that comes up.

It will end when us peons are born in little cages, "educated" in little cages, work in little cages, and die in little cages.  If we're good, some government employee will stop by to wash out our cage.z

It will not end, under our present social/political system/scam.

Well, we still retain more than nine (at least on paper).  While I agree that the Second Amendment is largely dead, the First Amendment itself enumerates five distinct Rights.  Other Amendments withing the Bill of Rights operate in simialr fashion (the Fifth Amendment also includes five Rights).




I think it is the nature of all governments to seek total control of the governed.  Our Democratic Representative Constitutional Republic is not immune to this tendancy...it only takes longer to enact it.

It is my contention that the system itslef is not the problem, but the corruption of the people who run it.  Furthermore, it seems to me that the People in our day and age are almost clamoring to have their Rights stripped away in the name of "safety" or "the children".

How do we fix the problem?  That's hard to say.  Everyone wants to know what their candidate is going to do for them.  Normally, that involves passing laws (or raising taxes).

In many ways, our nation gets what it deserves.  The People are too lazy, apethetic, or just plain stupid to do anything about it.  If the population could be motivated to actually care, then perhaps we could turn things around. Until then, we will just have to tolerate it...I guess.

[url]http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7006/com-man.html[/url]

Also, from "The Naked Capitalist"
"Norman Thomas was the Socialist candidate for President in 1928 and for every single election during the next 20 years...By 1953 Norman Thomas was jubilant.  He wrote a pamphlet called Democratic Socialism in which he stated that'...here in America more measures once praised or denounced as socialist have been adopted than once I should have thought possible short of a socialist victory at the polls.'
Under President Eisenhower, Thomas still found reasons to be jubilant.  In the Congressional Record for April 17, 1958(p. A-3080) Thomas is quoted as saying: "The US is making greater strides toward socialism under Eisenhower than even under Roosevelt, particularly in the fields of Federal spending and welfare legislation."
By 1962, Thomas summed up the whole situation as follows: "The difference between Democrats and Republicans is: Democrats have accepted some ideas of Socialism cheerfully, while Republicans have accepted them reluctantly."
(Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 19, 1962.

Reminds me of a quote from the movie "The Outlaw Josey Wales". It was said by Capt. Terrel, the [red]Regular Federal Authority[/red]. He was also a [red]Missouri Red Leg[/red], which is one of the earliest versions of the [red]JBT's[/red]!!!

Quote:
"Doing right ain't got no end"

ColtShorty

GOA KABA COA JPFO SAF NRA

"I won't be wronged,  I won't be insulted
and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do
these things to other people and I require
the same from them."