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We need a law against more laws
Victor Pisano
Victor Pisano is writer who lives in Richmond Hill. - photo by File photo

Do we need any more lawmakers?

Short answer, no.

Exactly what is a "lawmaker?" Let’s start at the beginning. Before this country was ever founded, people were governed only by universal "laws of the land." Common sense laws that were based on the Ten Commandments. Basically, those laws were; be a good person, play nice with others, don’t walk off with things that don’t belong to you and don’t kill anybody. Nothing else was needed back then — or now.

But after the Constitution was negotiated and carefully set on the table, every single election from that point on involving the legislative branch of government, was occupied by elected officials who were called, "lawmakers."

It’s easy to see that in 1776 new laws were needed to modulate a new country and there were suddenly hundreds of newly elected legislators calling themselves lawmakers who added new governances to the laws of the land. But that was way back in 1776.

After our country rebooted, these pesky lawmakers never stopped coming. Hundreds of years of them. Lawmakers, thousands of lawmakers, doing what? Making thousands of new laws of course. How could you not arrive in office as a brand new lawmaker without doing what your name sake dictates — make laws and continue your own "personal" legacy? But what happens if there are already enough laws? Well, there already were enough laws on the books 150 years ago. When will this end? I shudder to think what neophyte lawmakers two or three-hundred years from now will be dreaming up as new laws in this country.

Laws about what?

Since 1776, there have been 115 sessions of Congress loaded with thousands of elected "lawmakers." Over the last 242 years, lawmakers have put more laws on the books than seagulls trolling a swollen shrimp boat. And there’s no end in sight.

in 1982, the Justice Department tried to determine the total number of criminal laws on the books. In a project that lasted two years, the DOJ compiled a list of approximately 3,000 criminal offenses. That was 25 years ago and those are just federal laws. There are tens of thousands of state and local laws piled on top of these federal mandates. My head hurts thinking about it.

Enough, I say!

Why do we need lawmakers anymore? We Don’t. We have enough laws.

By example, it’s gotten so bad that in the little town of Concord, Massachusetts, the birthplace of the American Revolution and individual freedom, they made a new ordinance a while back. The Town selectmen voted to pass a leash law — for CATS!

True. Folks were going about dragging cats on leashes behind them everywhere. There were deep scratch marks all over the streets and sidewalks of that town from prone and defiant felines.

Do you get my point? How can any judge in a court of law these days say with a straight face, "Ignorance of the law is no excuse." Really, Judge?

Today’s lawmakers, in need of validation, have nothing better to do than ferret from little nooks and crannies what few individual freedoms are left and still might exist. They think they are serving their constituency by issuing a law to regulate what few freedoms we have left. But, it fact, they serve us and them no purpose. Why? Becausewhatever they come with is already on the books in one form or another anyway.

A name change is required then. From this point on, I make a motion to rename the term "lawmakers" and call them "law-repealers" and send them on their happy way with that task in mind. Only then will there be any hope or possibility of returning to the sanity of the original Ten Commandments.

Can I get an Amen and "Second" to that motion?

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