Do We Need More Laws?

Do you have any idea what laws govern your life, or even how many there are? I’m not talking about the immutable laws of nature and physics; I mean the manmade laws that are imposed on our everyday life.

This is the land of the free – as long as you follow the laws, rules, and regulations of your local authority, county authority, state, and federal government. Of course, if you leave the country, or deal with foreign countries, you have more laws and regulations. Even if you take a boat off shore, you still have to deal with Maritime law.

You are quite likely breaking several laws or regulations at this very moment – and you don’t even know it.

I spent some time at the computer trying to figure out just how many laws pertain to my particular life. It’s an impossible task. Believe me, there are thousands, possibly millions of laws pertaining to virtually every aspect of your life. And for any holes those codified laws might not cover, there is this nebulous thing called common law.

If you are doing something right now, or even if you are doing nothing, there are laws that govern that.

When I was younger, I worked as a police officer in a small community. One of the first things I learned was the power of selective enforcement. It’s a term that cover’s an officer’s rear when some laws are not enforced. (“I choose not to arrest that jay-walker because I’m busy with a bank robbery right now.”) The truth is, there are just too many laws to enforce every one of them uniformly all the time.

That doesn’t seem to deter lawmakers, though. Every year they crank out ever more laws – even knowing that many will never be enforced.

At what point are there enough laws on the books? When are there so many laws that one more can’t be written?

I think I found the key to this problem. As long as we have lawyers, there will be lawmakers. As long as lawmakers turn out laws there will be lawyers. Guess who the vast majority of lawmakers are – you guessed it, lawyers. It is a self-serving vicious circle. And one for which we pay dearly.

It’s called the Justice System, but where is the justice in being arrested for breaking a law you don’t even know about? And we are told ignorance of the law is no defense. True, many of the basic laws are simply common sense for any moral person – don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t assault others – just common sense. But even within these core values, there are so many definitions attempting to cover every detail that one could easily break the law without ever realizing it.

I’m going to go out on a limb here, and venture a guess that not one person knows every manmade law that governs our lives. Oh, they are codified somewhere, and I am certain someone could find a law, rule, or regulation to cover virtually any circumstance. I just don’t understand how a nation that prizes freedom as much as we do can have so many laws, rules, and regulations.

Yet, we have full-time governmental bodies that continually turn out more laws, rules, and regulations in volume every year. When do we say enough? When do we tell lawmakers to clean up the legal code? Get rid of old laws that no longer fit in today’s environment. When do we say that if a law isn’t taught and clearly published to the citizenry, it is not a valid law?

C’mon people, after 238 years of constant lawmaking, shouldn’t there be enough laws already? Do we really need more?

What, Me Worry?

These are the immortal words of Mad Magazine’s iconic Alfred E. Newman. I can still see his brain-dead smirking face. These days, this also seems to be the apathetic attitude of the American public.

Thirteen years ago, a group of crazed Muslims kicked us in a soft and sensitive spot. We came out of our apathetic stupor for a moment or two when the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and Pentagon came under attack. These Muslim thugs had poked a sleeping tiger, or so we thought.

After a few months of air strikes, we had Al Qaida on the run. Unfortunately, for us, they ran straight for what we considered a “friendly nation”, Pakistan. Pakistan turned out to be a very friendly nation – for Al Qaida. Our leaders had little stomach for storming a country that has atomic weapons. So, we picked and poked at Al Qaida locations taking their leaders out one-at-a-time.

Meanwhile the other Muslim radicals in Afghanistan, the Taliban, kept us at bay for thirteen years, until our president decided to turn-tail and leave the Afghanistan people to their own devices. Well if you don’t have the will to win, you might as well retreat.

On September 11, 2001, Al Qaida showed the world America’s vulnerability. Many theories have been floated as to just why Al Qaida attacked a nation that had no ax to grind with them. My theory is that like a dog licking his rear, they did it simply because they could. Once again, as in December 7, 1941, our leaders knew of the threat but were not politically motivated to take preventative actions to protect us.

Today – in good part because of our lack of resolve to win in Iraq or Afghanistan – there is a cancer metastasizing in the Middle East. No matter what name they go by, Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Al Qaida, Taliban, ISIS, ISIL, Islamic State, or any of the myriad of aliases these Muslim thugs come up with, they all have one thing in common: they are groups of murderous and extremely dangerous tyrants. And they are out to eliminate – read kill – all men, women, and children that are not of their ilk.

No, these animals are not interested in negotiating peace, cease fire, or even discussing reasonable cohabitation. They have but one goal, and that is to murder everyone that does not subscribe to their version of Islam.

These vermin destroy mosques and kill fellow Muslims that are not of their particular sect or radical views. If it were a matter of race or ethnicity, it would be termed genocide or at the very least ethnic cleansing. Yet, the one body that pretends to be caretaker of the world, the United Nations, has done nothing to stop the killing and devastation being wrought on people in the Middle East. Of course, what can they do? The UN is merely an item in the expense column of Western country’s budgets. They never really do anything but carp about funding, the climate, and try to foist their socialist agenda on other nations.

Many other nations, including the US, have citizens willing to fight alongside these radicals. It’s not a novel situation. Americans fought alongside Russians in the Bolshevik revolution, also in the Spanish war. This time, though, these people are being indoctrinated with ideas that could very well result in attacks on our own country.

True, Lenin’s unfulfilled goal may have been to spread communism to the entire world, but there is no indication that he advocated killing every non-communist man, woman, and child. ISIL, or ISIS, or Islamic State – whatever they want to call themselves – is a murdering bunch of radical thugs with no moral compass or sense of decency.

As the Commander-in-Chief of all of our country’s military, one might reasonably believe he would have some inkling how to handle the situation. Yes, one would think. One would be wrong. Obama confessed on live TV that he has “… no strategy for dealing with ISIL.”  It seems Obama believes a strong tongue lashing and name calling will get the job done.

Our leaders are asleep at the wheel, and we are apathetic enough to let them be that way. Action is needed NOW!

What, me worry? You bet! You need to start worrying, before Mohamed’s misguided horde shows up at your door with machine guns and bloody machetes, and the latest fashions at the mall are suicide vests with designer labels.