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Using Wikis to Catch Outdated and Bad Laws?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in 1675, that orders the arrest of all American Indians entering Boston, and just now, 330 years later, is ready to be repealed. There are a LOT of really outdated and/or inappropriate laws out there; would an 'open' Wiki-style approach to law-making (with appropriate supervision, of course) be able to catch more of these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 The more and more outdated copyright laws also come to mind as an area that could stand some more scrutiny."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'm not sure how accurate this is, but my friends and I used to have fun going through these. http://dumblaws.com/
That said - this document would be HUGE and frankly no one will want to read it.
I would love to run to become a congress critter with a sole platform of "I will not vote for any law that I can not read and understand". Unfortunately - I would have to vote against pretty much EVERY law being writen today. Of course the libertarian in me says this will be a good thing
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
Also, keep in mind that laws that are not enforced might as well not exist. If they do get suddenly enforced, I believe a court may very well turn over any decision because of this selective enforcement.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
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.
One thing that would help a lot would be for more people to be aware of Jury Nullification. While the laws would still exist, unjust laws would be ignored.
There are some good links on this subject at:
As the saying goes There are four boxes to be used in defending our freedom: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Use them in that order.
Or do you think that the day after the Constitution was ratified it was suddenly legal for everyone to kill each other because the state legislatures were too busy celebrating to pass new sets of statutes?
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Examples includes "it is illegal to bathe in a tree in Kansas", etc.
State statues are available online and often municipal statutes. Of all the goofy ones that have been presented as "fact", I have yet to see one that is real. Not to say there aren't any, but many of the ones presented as existing are simply jokes that got out of control.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
More or less. Salem, Massachusetts predates Boston by I believe 4 years (1624 versus 1630), and was the first settlement of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. What is today Plymouth, Massachusetts, founded in 1620, was a separate colony until Massachusetts Bay and Plimouth Plantations merged in 1692. However, what happened is that the Massachusetts Bay colony government was transferred to Boston from Salem (I believe as part of the foundation of Boston).
The date of the law in question is important. 1675 is the beginning of "King Phillip's War" (there's a lot of debate about what it should be called, but that was what colonial Americans called it). Metacom ("King Phillip") was the sachem of the Wampanoags, who historically had been allied with the Mass Bay Colony and Plimouth colony (the Wamponoags signed a treaty with Plimouth in 1621). A complex sequence of events strained relations between the Wamponoags and the English colonies, and caused the English to force the Wamponoags to give up their arms in the early 1670s. When a Christian Indian was assassinated by Wampanoags (possibly for espionage), and the killers were executed, the Wampanoags rearmed and began to attack English settlements (in 1675). This led to a terribly destructive war between most of the Native American settlements in New England and the English colonies, though the Mohawks notoriously remained neutral, and there were many Christian Indians who were either neutral or pro-English. There were very heavy losses on both sides (massive losses, really, for the population sizes), the colony of Mass Bay lost its charter, the United Colonies were dissolved, and many Native American's fled the region.
So the law is a vestige of a nasty ethnic war. Even the various neutral Indians were banned from Boston. A lot of Indians were dependent upon English goods because of the drastic changes to their economies and agriculture resulting from deliberate actions by the English - buying land, etc. - and the terrible epidemics of the late 16th and early 17th century after first contact (mostly from contact with the small fishing expeditions who spent time along the New England coast - keep in mind that the first settlers of Plimouth were greeted in English by Squanto).
I can't think of ANY legitimate reason why this law should still be on the books, period.