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Using Wikis to Catch Outdated and Bad Laws?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in 1675, that orders the arrest of all American Indians entering Boston, and just now, 330 years later, is ready to be repealed. There are a LOT of really outdated and/or inappropriate laws out there; would an 'open' Wiki-style approach to law-making (with appropriate supervision, of course) be able to catch more of these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 The more and more outdated copyright laws also come to mind as an area that could stand some more scrutiny."
There seems to be more common for legislators to keep adding laws than for them to repeal them. And they become a burden on society - you can't remember and keep all the zillions of laws.
So except maybe for constitutional laws and a small set of critical laws (e.g. involving life, death, family), all laws should have a lifespan.
The longer the lifespan required, the more approval needed from more legislators or even a referendum.
Sure it means more work for legislators just to keep laws around, but at least it'll take extra effort to keep a stupid law alive way after the stupid people who made it have long passed on.
Alternatively, laws should have a half-life. That is to say the various jail-terms and fines in each law are halved each time their respective half-life period passes.
If it seems like too much work to keep all the laws around, then perhaps there really are too many laws.