There Ought To Be A Law

We are constantly reminded by our elected officials that we are “A nation of laws”.  Almost always, this comment precedes an attack on an elected official on the “other side of the aisle” for violating a sacred rule that should never be broken.  Minutes later, the attacking politician openly refuses to obey a different law that he or she doesn’t like.  Typically, the justification for not following this particular law is “This is not what we do as Americans”.  We are not a nation of those laws but we are a nation of these laws.  This is very confusing.  Which laws are we a nation of?

I agree that we are a nation that has an incredible number of laws.  Unfortunately, many of them are totally unhelpful to society.  In addition, there are a number of circumstances where we should have a law and do not.

Here is a brief litany of real laws that I am sure we all find helpful.  In Alaska, Flamingos are not permitted in barbershops.  Also in Alaska, it is against the law to wake up a sleeping bear in order to take a photograph.  In Alabama, it is illegal to play dominos on Sunday.  Another important religious rule in Alabama makes it illegal to wear a fake mustache in church for the purposes of invoking laughter.  In Tennessee, you cannot lasso a fish.  It is illegal for a donkey to sleep in a bathtub in Arizona.  In Iowa, a statute that offers great protection, prohibits one armed piano players from charging fees for their services.  

It appears that criminals are serving time in prison for violating these laws.  Neither Donald Trump’s prison reform legislation nor Joe Biden’s executive actions freed anyone from jail for breaking these important rules.

Frankly, I think all of these edicts make more sense than the Affordable Care Act and the entire body of federal law devoted to taxation.

I always find it interesting to watch someone zooming on a TV news program from a law library.  The back drop is a few thousand leather bound books containing a few of the legal regulations we must adhere to in the United States.  The screen is not nearly large enough to show all of the volumes in the entire library.

No doubt we have plenty of laws.  The problem is that we could toss most of them and yet we have not addressed, in these millions of pages of codification, some of the real issues we deal with every day.

What laws would actually be helpful?

The control panels on all elevators must be identical.  A nice nine word law.  Have you ever tried to find the “open door” button in time to hold the elevator for an elderly lady with a walker?  Less than .005% of the US population can do this before the door closes.  We think about putting a hand or foot in the door because we can’t locate the < > quickly.  We are worried that the auto open feature may not work in this particular lift.  I really want to help the senior citizen but I don’t want to start my day with an accidental limb amputation.  Whoops, too late anyway.  We have to find the right button in .6 seconds and we can never do it.

I have a friend who flew fighter jets for the navy.  I was very impressed to know this and asked him what skills were required to qualify for the job.  He said there are two tests.  You have to have 20/20 vision and you have to be able to find the “open door” button on an elevator before the door closes.  If you pass both, you’re in flight school but the failure rate is over 93%.       

If the control panels were standardized, we would all know where the switch is in every elevator in the country.    

It is illegal to exceed the posted limit for items in a grocery store check-out line.  The fine will be $250 and it will be assessed at check out.   I always appreciate the special people who jump in to the shorter lines in the express lanes with a half cart of groceries.  Surely the item limit is not intended for them.  Not only are there a lot of customers in the regular lines, they all have a lot of groceries.  Why, you can waste ten or fifteen minutes waiting to check out in accordance with the rules!  Ten minutes to me is a lot more important than ten minutes to you.  

I loved shopping with my father.  He was a straight shooting Italian who would speak his mind to anyone (Okay, I know that is redundant).  As the special person was unloading their cart my Dad would ask how long they had been playing golf.  The elitist would say “How did you know I was a golfer?”  My Dad would respond “Because you can’t count past five.”

A police officer should be posted at every store to enforce this law.

It is illegal to sell car warranties telephonically. The first offense will result in dissolution of your company.  The second offense will be punishable by not less than 5 years imprisonment.  Amazingly, one type of solicitation has changed the phone habits of nearly every American.  If we don’t recognize the caller ID or phone number, we don’t answer the phone.  We wait to see if the call goes to voice mail.  Most solicitations don’t make it that far and so we check voicemail to see if we actually should be talking to the unidentified caller.  What a pain!  In fact we should expand the law to include all forms of phone solicitations. 

Such aggressive tactics should not be so pervasive in our lives.  I have a friend who recently found a bottle floating in the surf at the beach.  There was a note in the bottle.  The note said: “We have been trying to contact you about your auto warranty…”

So we have a myriad of laws that are not helpful.  For example the regulation against waking up bears in Alaska is self correcting.  A recent check showed no incarcerations for this offense because no one lived long enough to go to trial.  In addition, we have a number of issues that require new legislation.  Notwithstanding, we are way over the top in putting millions of ill thought out rules into the legal code. How do we fix this?

First, we should pass a law that puts a limit on the number of laws we can have.  Even God Almighty saw a need for only ten simple rules.  According to the Dead Sea Scrolls, when Moses came down from the mountain he said “Good news.  I got him down to ten.  Bad news.  The one about Adultery is still in there.”  If ten is Okay for the Lord, we should easily get by with a cap of 1,000.  We cut back the code to a thousand rules.  Even with the bloviation of the legal community, the law library will shrink to less than three leather bound law books.  From there, we will require that you toss out an existing law if you want to add a new one.  When we add the elevator legislation, we delete the requirement to roll up the sidewalks in Toledo Ohio at sundown.     

At any rate, we need to reverse the trend of piling up ponderous new regulations to the detriment of our ability to enjoy life.  We should be a nation of very few laws that are relevant.  We need to ensure that one armed piano players are fairly compensated.  The citizens of Alabama should be able to enjoy an inspired game of dominos every day.  I join the SPCA in condemning the egregious regulation of Flamingo behavior in Anchorage.  We need to purge ridiculous rules and add a few that will actually make our lives better.