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Using Wikis to Catch Outdated and Bad Laws?
Mick Ohrberg asks: "While listening to NPR this morning, I heard about the ridiculous law, passed in 1675, that orders the arrest of all American Indians entering Boston, and just now, 330 years later, is ready to be repealed. There are a LOT of really outdated and/or inappropriate laws out there; would an 'open' Wiki-style approach to law-making (with appropriate supervision, of course) be able to catch more of these 'bad' laws? Should the law-makers be able to keep track of all these laws, or are the number of laws simply too large for that relatively small group of people to keep track of? The more and more outdated copyright laws also come to mind as an area that could stand some more scrutiny."
I can only imagine the nightmare this would cause.
While it would be a good way to keep things in check, it would bog down Congress more than they already are, and allow for riders to get in more easily and with less scrutiny. Just imagine:
Democrat: "Oh, looks like the 'murder is illegal' law is expiring. Better make a new one."
Republican: "What an opportunity! We can add a bill to remove freedom of speech while we're at it! And add addendums such that no court (except the Supreme Court, which is backlogged anyway) can overturn the law! And if the Dems vote against it, we'll claim they're murderers! Win/Win!"
This is not to mention the problems police officers would have with laws which could, at any point in time, be in a state of flux. Imagine the unlawful arrest suits when your local government lets jaywalking laws slip, for example.
I believe in the US it is possible to obtain a published set of all laws currently in effect and on the books. I think it's around 20 volumes, with the index itself being one 700-page monolithic tome.
The legislative model of democracy is absolutely ridiculous. Law has nothing to do with right and wrong any more; legislators spend all their time trying to pass as many laws as possible while spending no time actually reading or understanding these laws. Legislators think it's their job to "do something", and the media portrays a deadlocked Congress as an obstacle to progress. In fact, the opposite is true.
As a democracy progresses, it becomes absolutely impossible for any individual to know, understand, or abide by the actual law. Indeed, many of the hundreds of thousands of laws and statutes conflict with each other, so you're a law-breaker no matter what you do.
This is great for tyrants, since there's always a law you can accuse someone of breaking. That's especially true in the US, now that there's a whole class of federal "conspiracy" crimes that don't require any proof of wrongdoing for a conviction.
Legislatures have made law irrelevant, paradoxical, oppressive, and absurd; and Western democracy is going to fail because of it.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
Congress NEEDS to be bogged down. If by law they have to read and vote on each law at least once very 20 years, then the bad laws will be thrown out so they don't have to read them. The system of laws in this country is now so complex, nobody knows them all, so forcing them to simplify would be of value.
I'd say you'd have to start by creating the wiki first, then try and publicize it to the public, and when enough people read it and think it's a ridicule law you could then lobby our lawmakers to repeal them. This I think would be the best approach, especially if you create online petitions from that community.
Of course, you don't want to have some big corporation that depends on a given law to come in and erase your wiki either, so keeping a history of modifications is in order too.
This might be an efficient way to get rid of stupid IP laws that the crowd on here loathes so ferociously.
---- I am certain of only one thing : I know nothing else.