“Ignorance of the law is no excuse” has been standard legal dogma for thousands of years. But I believe it is time to revisit that. Can it really be reasonable to expect every citizen to know *all* of the law? Or even a modest fraction of the law? Not so very long ago, the US Supreme Court ruled that, yes, you are allowed to sell something you legally bought. This ruling surprised many… because many were unaware that it was actually illegal to sell many things you bought legally.
Beyond that, witness the growth in the US Tax Code:
In a hundred years, it went from 400 pages to nearly 74,000 pages… a factor of 185. Could the average citizen really be expected to know the tax code even if it was “only”400 pages?
And beyond that: the new immigration/amnesty bill is reported to be about one thousand five hundred pages in length, and lawmakers will have *one* *day* to review it before hearings begin… and then voting. Should we allow lawmakers to vote for bills that they could not possibly have read, never mind understood and puzzled out the important implications of?
Ayn Rand nailed it in Atlas Shrugged:
“Did you really think we want those laws observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We want them to be broken. You’d better get it straight that it’s not a bunch of boy scouts you’re up against… We’re after power and we mean it… There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Reardon, that’s the game, and once you understand it, you’ll be much easier to deal with.”
So what to do here? Seems to me some changes in the law would be called for. Perhaps a complete overhaul… toss out *everything,* then do a complete re-write. All US Federal laws must fit within the confines of a standard 1,000 page paperback, 12-point font, double-spaced. Anything not in that is… not the law.