The US constitution is 4,440 words long. It is the shortest constitution in the world and the oldest still in use.
Unfortunately, the Constitution was not quite enough, so over the years, we added a few more laws. By 1925, all of the country’s laws fit in a book 7 inches thick–much more impressive than that flimsy old Constitution. Later came the IRS tax code. It is around 4 million words, but no one really knows for sure because it gets longer every year. It is now longer than the Bible (788,000 words), War and Peace (587,000 words), and the complete works of Shakespeare (884,000 words)–combined.
Not bad, but still not quite enough. Obamacare added another 387 thousand words and its regulations another 11 million words. It is important to remember that laws include both statutes and regulations. The regulations are often much longer than the law (statute) itself. I tried and failed to find a word count for all US laws, including federal, state, and local. I failed because it turns out there are so many of them, no one knows how many there really are. A rough guess is that there are probably around 100 million words total in all the country’s laws.
Now we’re getting somewhere. A Roman orator named Cicero famously said “more laws, less justice.” But those were ancient times. Things are completely different today. The record of history clearly shows that as laws grow more numerous and complex, corruption and crime decrease. This is especially true for vice laws which have successfully eradicated prostitution and drugs. And with no unintended consequences whatsoever.
You see, with every law we pass, we inch ever closer to utopia. That’s why we should be passing as many laws as possible and never, ever repealing them. To repeal even one law is to risk plunging the nation into anarchy. So the next time you hear someone complain about laws, just remember that laws are the only things stopping people from killing and eating each other. Even the laws like the one which banned pinball machines in New York City from 1940 to 1976. Those are the most important of all.
So what you’re saying is This is an accurate reflection of reality.
I sincerely hope that SugarFree doesn’t know how to do this.
As long as my spirit animal Rogal Dorn is born I’m happy.
Good Morning Derp. I know the source of your social difficulties. I am not going to tell you what that is because it is the reason I like you so much.
I like that the word counts are three orders of magnitude greater than reality. 😉
Good catch.
In my original version, I wrote out the higher word counts as “587k”, etc.
Mods, those figures should be 587,000, 788,000, and 884,000.
Please edit them.
Thank you!
You’re not very good at this. You should have asked them to edit the original, and delete your comments on it. That way I’d look like a crazy person / bad at basic math. There’s still time to hide the evidence though! Obviously, it was my involvement with the Russians.
Can anyone get some PolitiFact up in here with a ZSG “Pants on fire!” rating?
There’s nothing left to cut. The cupboards are bare. Maybe the government can convert the moon into a giant storage device to hold all the absolutely necessary laws we must pass soon.
There ought to be a law about not having to many laws
Time for my morning facepalm: https://youtu.be/gA6lhUzwSJ0?t=4m56s
Ahhhh….derp…sweet, sweet derp.
Some background on the above: about 2 years ago, I was living in a small Texas town and working as an engineer in a plastic bag factory. Not exactly heart-pounding excitement. To pass the time, I started writing articles like the one above to the local paper. I wrote about a dozen and they published all except one or two. I guess they liked my sense of humor. I had a pipe dream of trying to be an author and thought maybe newspapers were my way in. My work got some praise from my co-workers. One guy got really pissed when I wrote a satire about the minimum wage.
I know I can come off as a smug asshole, especially in writing. It is the result of years of being driven to the brink of madness by hearing the same empty-headed opinions over and over and over, as well as my utter failure to persuade anyone to reconsider them. A few of the posters here have met me in person and hopefully can attest that I am not nearly as dour, bitter, sarcastic, and cynical as the above might indicate.
The Derp Life Chose Me.
Well, there you have it. This guy is a master of reason and logical debate.
Its pretty much the identical argument made by the Middlebury Graduates here
Only they include the proviso that there’s *also no reason to hear anyone who thinks they have reasons why they should be heard.
Hey Derp, glad to see you here. Have you abandoned the Old Site altogether? We’ll have to do another meetup soon! Hope all is well with you.
I’ll keep posting there from time to time. It’s taken a turn for the worse, but I still have hope for it.
SF as in san francisco bay area? a bay area meetup would be a welcome break from progdom.
TucoRamirez. are you local? Write me at my handle at gmail.com and I’ll put you on the invite list for the next one.
I can relate to that, my opinion of other people keeps going down as I age. I keep waiting to meet more humans who look like they used an ounce of reason and maybe thought about their opinions for more than 30 seconds, but it just doesn’t happen. It amazes me how little time people spend getting info and giving actual thought to issues. Then again the less I expect of people maybe the less annoyed I will be.
In the end all that is left is the eternal search for peak derp.
“I know I can come off as a smug asshole, especially in writing. It is the result of years of being driven to the brink of madness by hearing the same empty-headed opinions over and over and over, as well as my utter failure to persuade anyone to reconsider them. ”
No. Thats not it.
Hmm. Now I’m really curious to know what it is.
Maybe you can just give me a hint?
Hint – it rhymes with itler.
I always look forward to the stupendous derp you manage to dig up. I don’t know how you find it all.
And you’ve never come off as curmudgeonly though I can see, like me, are an aspirant to it. I think most of us are curmudgeons in the making. 😉
I think there should be a law against counting the number of words that are in laws.
This is why I want to sucker punch law students that wear t-shirts like this one.
(Actually saw one in the wild at an airport)
This is one of the people who when you see them being beaten senseless by the cops over some unknown slight, you want to stand and cheer.
Ignorance of the law is only an excuse if your job is professionally enforcing it.
According to the Supreme Court of the United States anyway.
They haven’t learned about Heien v. North Carolina yet.
Nelsonville, OH is BFE podunkville poor people but they’re spending money on a body scanner for their podunk jail? Ridiculous.
http://nbc4i.com/2017/03/03/ohio-jail-body-scanner-reveals-contraband-hidden-in-body-cavity/
I hope they got the one that can detect nukes.
What struck me most about the Constitution the first time I actually read it was its brevity and its legal tone. I expected soaring, poetic language, more akin go the Declaration (which I also had only read for the first time), or even a religious text (since so many people seem to revere it as such). It was only after I read it that I truly appreciated what it was and represented.
To repeal even one law is to risk plunging the nation into anarchy.
“Look, I’m willing to surrender my legal ability to do a lot of things I’d never do anyway, if it puts the clamps on a bunch of people I don’t know or like. You cannot let people like that just do as they please.”
You inspired me to look, and low and behold, here is a stupid law.
Finding stupid laws is about as hard as outrunning a 3-legged tortoise.
Ya, it didn’t take much effort.
What if someone goes and does just that, huh, westernsloper?? WHAT HAPPENS THEN.
WELL WHY NOT JUST LEGALIZE MURDER THEN?
/inevitable counterargument
The above law was brought to you by the outdoor use only furniture manufacturing lobby.
No. A lot of places have that law in the south. C’mon y’all, no one knows what that is about?
*Hint – what demographic likes to sit on their porch in comfortable furniture and watch the world go by?
Fire hazard. I volunteer at the Gospel Rescue Mission of Southern AZ, and we had an arson last year committed by a mentally-ill member — gasoline and easily accessible flammable material lined up in a pretty row does not a pretty pair make. All that outdoor upholstered furniture we had freely available to those who asked went up in flames — long story short, fire was absolutely enormous and took the adjacent office building and a couple of nearby houses out of commission.
We’re no longer able to keep furniture outside in that way, as was explained to us by the fire marshal. Personal experience has indicated that this particular law isn’t the dumbest thing around, though the after-the-fact way that it’s enforced is pretty damn stupid as opposed to including it with the fire inspection IMO.
Skinheads from Maine?
I have a “progressive” relative who I sometimes talk with about political issues. He disdains the entire notion of small government, and I always try to point out the multitude of dumbass laws on the books that could be scrapped. His response always seems to be the invocation of some nightmare scenario (that is usually pretty unlikely) that is only prevented by the enforcement of these wise laws. A few examples:
“Well, it’s true that food regulation is sometimes overzealous, but where do you draw the line? I mean, without any food laws, you’d have food trucks parked in the sun for five hours with no refrigeration!”
“There might be room for some minor cutbacks on zoning laws, but without them, you’d have people engaging in full-scale agriculture on what is supposed to be a residential property.”
“Nuisance laws might be a slight infringement on private property rights, but think about it: if we repealed them, you’d have people like my next-door neighbors who just don’t care and let their whole property look like shit!”
It’s always a scenario where we get rid of one little law, and suddenly it throws open the floodgates holding back the chaos. Yet, when I say that regulation begets more regulation, and I back this up with historical examples and current events, suddenly his tune is “oh, the ‘slippery slope’ is a fallacy! That would never happen… If a law didn’t work, the voters could just get rid of it.”
No person shall place, use, keep, store, or maintain any upholstered furniture not manufactured for outdoor use, including, without limitation, upholstered chairs, upholstered couches, and mattresses, in any outside areas located in the following places:
When I was going to CC, one of my friends rented a house on Nevada Ave (busy street adjoining the campus); he had a big couch on his front porch which faced into the afternoon sun, and we used to sit out there and drink beer and watch the going-home-from-work traffic. Good times.
That law was written for people like us.
Well, good one Brooks. You ruined it for everyone.
You ruined it for everyone.
Damn straight. Our disdain for law, order and human decency knew no bounds. We used to heckle the girls on bicycles as they rode past. Sometimes, we would lure them into our foul clutches with promises of frosty cold illicit beverages.
‘But ze law is wafer-theen’
“No. I couldn’t possibly have another law. Piss off.”
I’d argue that it should be way way longer. It’s the law that applies to the government (or should). It shouldn’t be so vague with loopholes you can drive a commerce clause through. It supposedly imbues the federal government with the ability to make and enforce 2000-page laws on the people. It should itself be a 2000-page inscrutable maze of restrictions an regulations that the government must sift through and try to follow.
They dont pay attention to it now. That would make no difference.
This. Any Constitution, no matter how clear, will protect us from the mendacity of a committed ruling class. It’s a piece of paper. It has no real power of its own. Far more specific laws that are far longer still end up getting butchered and stretched way past their breaking point.
Constitutions written in the way you describe are generally routinely ignored and fail to be practically implemented in the first place. See every constitution Africa has “enjoyed”, ever.
A written Constitution is most effective when it mirrors the actual political constitution (little “c”) of the country it’s written for.
The Constitution is an equally forthright piece of work and quite succinct … giving the complete operating instructions for a nation of 250 million people. The manual for a Toyota Camry, which only seats five, is four times as long.
—P. J. O’Rourke
First time listening to some of Alex Jones’ stuff…
Holy shit this guy is hilarious.
Make sure to buy some of his supplements to renew your essence. It will be even funnier then.
He’s the best thing since Jack Chick.
Oakland, CA just legalized pinball in 2014. What would we do without government?
Coexist?
Fool! The only thing keeping you and I from ripping each others’ throats out – right this very minute – is the law against murder. Do you not understand the magicsty of the law?
Interesting comparison. Outside of the Constitution, I’ve read as little gummint text as humanly possible (not being made of the sterner stuff that lets one survive repeated exposure to the stuff).
Q for the room: what is the best explanation for the length of the legal code?
Is the law organized forthrightly/rationally, and then “clarified”, making its demands mostly understandable to the public a la Napoleonic or Justinian Code?
Or is it more like ancien regime France and later Byzantine legal codes, with inconsistency and special exemptions piling on top of one another and no rhyme or reason to the assembled documents as a whole?
IOW, is the meat of the legal code fairly easy to understand? Or is the meat of it the arcana embodied in the text?
Might be the subject of another post, but I’d imagine that the answer to that question would tell us how far along the cycle of decline the USG is.
This is a rhetorical question, right? No one could possibly know all of the laws and regulations. It’s a given that there’s massive amounts of redundancy built in.
The reality is that when there are so many rules, most won’t be enforced besides in selective cases. It effectively creates rule of man rather than law.
One just has to look at how they are enforced in reality to see this in action.
Apologies for the late replay, but since no one gave you an answer on the quality of the law as opposed to its quantity (which, of course, is an important consideration as well), I’ll chime in to confirm that the meat, as you call it, is arcana. So many laws are a maze of self referential garbage one suspects the purpose is to maintain a lawyers guild by keeping the law out of the understanding of the common man. Further, in my (non-lawyer) job, I’ve seen regulations that are self-contradictory within the same sentence, so I can confidently say that we are at ancien-regime/late-Byzantine stage. The best thing that could be done is to kill it all (kill it with fire!) and start over from scratch.
i didn’t know Cicero had said something similar to what Tacitus wrote:
“The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.”
Expanded in modern times:
…Christopher Hitchens
But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.
– Lysander Spooner
The final phrase is pretty harsh but Lysander is spot on with the rest.
Yea the Constitution is only as powerful as the people’s will to demand the government stay within its legally defined bounds.
This^^^
1977 Soviet Consituthon, Article 50:
“In accordance with the interests of the people and in order to strengthen and develop the socialist system, citizens of the USSR are guaranteed freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly, meetings, street processions and demonstrations.”
In a Libertarian Society there would be no laws preventing funny youtube videos!
Pinball is archaic and only for wizards.
There has got to be a twist.