One of the great places to observe the successes of New Year’s resolutions is at the gym. January invariably sees the place packed with new people in their new workout clothes looking at the sea of machines trying to figure out what machine does what and you use them. By March the scene is much different in that a majority of those newbies have fallen off their path to fitness while those remaining have figured out which machines they like and what routines keep them going.
The beauty of New Year’s resolutions is that whatever your hubris at the end of the year – “I’m going to lose 50 pounds by summer” or “I’m going to read one book a month” or “I’m going to watch less TV” you can reconsider it with little consequence and change your behavior accordingly. In another words, New Year’s resolutions can be short-lived or enduring, you get to decide which, based on your goals, objectives and willingness to do the work.
Unfortunately, such is not the case for laws. Unlike New Year’s resolutions, which will leave you with little more than a bruised ego if they don’t work out, laws can leave you with less money and less freedom and you can’t just shrug your shoulders if they don’t work out.
Across America the New Year rings in its annual christening of new laws. From California students getting to decide for themselves which bathrooms they want to use to Rhode Island employers no longer being able to ask prospective employees about a criminal past, there are 40,000 new laws and regulations that will be added to the millions that Americans already have to navigate through. And unlike resolutions that can wither in the face of reality, laws rarely, if ever, are rescinded, and once they are on the books they can be used as tools of intimidation by government regulators to pretty much do whatever they want. And what they want is control, regardless of what it costs you.
Take as an example a recent interaction between the FDA and a company called 23 And Me. 23AndMe marketed a $99 genetic test where customers would send in a swab with their DNA on it and the company would return to them a detailed ancestry report and personalized information on 248 genetic traits and health conditions. Basically the company would analyze your DNA and give you a report of what it says about your health, at a genetic level. Do with it what you like, but that’s what the data says… And that’s the problem. Apparently the FDA doesn’t think you are smart enough to make informed decisions about your own health. As such, they pervert a 1938 law that gives them the right to regulate “medical devices” to basically put the company out of business. Essentially you’re not allowed to find out about a predisposition for cancer or liver disease because the FDA worries that some people might do the wrong thing with their info. So basically, to protect doctors from competition, and to keep citizens from becoming more informed about their own bodies, the FDA has decided to try and put the genie of DNA testing back in the bottle.
Of course it won’t be able to. If 23AndMe doesn’t move to the Bahamas and set up shop, someone else will. Regulation cannot stop technology. Nor can it cannot guarantee fairness. Numerous jurisdictions around the country, and Washington itself, are debating raising the minimum wage in order to provide “a living wage” or “fairness” to fast food and other service workers. Such regulations will of course fail at both counts. Not because they can’t raise the amount employers must pay, but rather they will simply drive employers to use more technology in their businesses. Today standalone computers can take your order while robots can assemble burgers and sandwiches. Regulation can raise wages, but it can’t bring about “fairness” or the government mandated Nirvana that regulators seem to endlessly pursue. How much good does a higher minimum wage do someone if there are fewer jobs to be had as a result?
At the end of the day, the New Year ringing in 40,000 new regulations should not be a cause for celebration. It should be a clarion call for a nationwide resolution to stop looking to regulation as the solution for every problem and to go on a national diet where instead of lbs we shed – or shred – a majority of the laws and regulations that are already on the books already. It might not improve our waistlines or cardio performance, but it will do wonders for individual freedom and the prosperity of the nation.
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Great article. I recommend we enact another law, one very similar to what they have in Great Britain, it’s called tort reform. Over there if you sue someone and lose, you have to absorb all the costs of the trial, court fees and lawyer fees for BOTH sides. That would stop a lot of these silly laws and drastically reduce the number of trial lawyers. Does John Edwards come to mind?
Maybe it’s time for a New Year’s reVolution.
I remember that at age 13 I wondered what would happen after so many years of passing so many laws in my state of California and in the country. Thousands. Hundreds. Can you image then what it will be like in another 40 years or so. It’s already getting to where “there ought to be a law” is a joke. There “shouldn’t be a law”; not for everything. Are we then really free? And, the worst part is that with many laws come added bureaucracies that add hundreds of “laws” (regulations) not directly passed or approved by our appointed representatives; they’re just milled-out to control almost every aspect of our lives. After so many years then, what we have is not a free country (certainly not a free people), but a nation in which citizens have to ask first, “Is this legal?” Or, “is what I’m going to do regulated and do I need to have a required permit? one that will certainly limit what used to be free?”
ObamaScare (not a typo) and the “Global-warming scare”, now called “Climate change” (go figure why), are proof positive that what government (especially a socialist/communist government) wants is 1) maximum control of individuals and 2) maximum taxation of individuals in America. Deny them both. It’s time to fight. And no wonder the government wants our guns.
As we have seen there is no climate change (such as global warming), temperatures on earth have been fluctuating on their own for millions of years. And to think that we the people (from space look like ants or are not even visible) have caused it is ill arrogance. We should be concerned but not paranoid about it. The rationale used by Obama, Al Gore, and others, is loose, false and corrupt. That’s why Barack Obama’s popularity is way down where the dirt lives.
By the by, it would be my great pleasure to see Americans forming legal, lawful groups of citizen organizations with authority to go out and be able to dismantle some bureaucracies and unilaterally declare certain illegal and/or unreasonable laws void and unenforceable. Take today’s news that a federal judge has declared Chicago’s gun sale prohibition illegal and unconstitutional. What Chicago wants is control; but there are more sane ways to deal with crime. Some of my grade school teachers used to do the same thing. Some students would misbehave and the entire class had to be punished. This type of teacher behavior is outdated. And so too for government. We are not all school kids. The U.S. Constitution itself calls for tearing down the existing government when it gets terribly out of hand. This may be what it will come to. After so many years of passing laws to control and tax; citizens will one day wake up and smell the coffee. This is for certain.
A majority of state legislatures in the United States are republican-controlled—27 are republican, vs. only 17 that are democrat. (In six, neither party has a fully controlling chamber majority.) Further, 24 state governments have both republican-controlled legislatures and republican governors, vs. only 13 that have are so controlled by democratic governments.
We probably shouldn’t jump to any conclusions about which party is cranking out a majority of those new regulations. It would be interesting to know how the total count breaks out by party.
List of U.S. State Legislatures
Greg
the conclusion is to look at the one in power at the WHITE HOUSE ,
implimenting their laws , BY SENDING THEIR HIRED PUBLIC EMPLOYEES, PAID BY THE PEOPLE, THEY HIRED AND HIRED ENLESSLY, ON THE PEOPLE’S DIMES, UNIONIZE AND BENEFITS AND VACATIONS PAID BY THE PEOPLE WHO TRY
TO ROUND UP THEIR END OF MONTH,
WHILE THE CITIZENS ARE BEING TOLD THEY BROKE LAWS AND MUST BE PUNISH, AND PAY THE FINE,
ALL OVER THE STATES, into houses to check if the water faucet is in need to be change or the same GIMMICK,
if need is they calculate your penalty you have to pay now, what do you call that? AND THEY WANT TO KEEP AMERICA IN POOR SHAPE SO TO BE ABLE TO IMPLIMENT THEIR LAWS,
WHICH ONLY THEM CAN COLLECT MONEY,
THERE IS NO LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL WITH THOSE IN POWER NOW,
in that book of horrors, WAS 2000,
was already too much, and add their own new laws from the 40THOUSANDS,IN THEIR BOOK,
is already an atempt to freedom, NO MATTER HOW YOU LOOK AT IT,
the REPUBLICANS HAVE MORE INTELLIGENCE IN THE LAWS THEY DECIDE ON, AND ARE MORE IN TUNE WITH THE NEEDS OF THE PEOPLE, NOT THEIR OWN,LIKE THE OTHER DO,
they make more sense than the other side, who make laws
FOR THEIR OWN PROFIT NOT THE PEOPLE’S BEST INTEREST,
to sure as hell catch the people breaching one or more, that is not acceptable, and if you get HILARY IN, SHE WON’T TAKE ANY LAWS OUT, she will leave it as is, what the democrats call the laws of the land,
that’s why, it’s so important to bring back the CONSERVATIVES in power,next time comming,
it might be the last chance of survival for the freedom in this AMERICA,
BECAUSE MORE LAWS WILL COME TO CHOKE THE PEOPLE,
GET IT? don’t come back and say, you where not warn after you have fallen,