Lawless And Ordered

America has too many laws:

Our country has always been a nation of laws, but something has changed dramatically in recent decades. Contrary to the narrative that Congress is racked by an inability to pass bills, the number of laws in our country has simply exploded. Less than 100 years ago, all of the federal government’s statutes fit into a single volume. By 2018, the U.S. Code encompassed 54 volumes and approximately 60,000 pages. Over the past decade, Congress has adopted an average of 344 new pieces of legislation each session. That amounts to 2 million to 3 million words of new federal law each year. Even the length of bills has grown—from an average of about two pages in the 1950s to 18 today. .... “On the one hand, we need laws to keep us free and safe. On the other hand, if you have too many laws, you impair those same freedoms…because who can deal with the world with so much law? James Madison said it’s going to be money and connections and as a judge, now for 18 years, I just came to see case after case in which ordinary Americans just trying to live their lives, not hurt anybody, raise their families, were just getting whacked. Case in which ordinary Americans just trying to live their lives, not hurt anybody, raise their families, were just getting whacked by laws unexpectedly.”

Laws might be on the books, but perhaps the books need to be a lot shorter...