Stop Overloading the Police with Ever More Laws to Enforce. Part 13 in The Right Response?

The USA incarcerates more people - imprisons more per head of population - than any other country in the world. So many in jail demonstrate the enormous numbers of laws which make criminals out of its citizens. These laws hamper police from carrying out their core responsibility of protecting citizens and their property.

No matter what big government enthusiasts pretend, the evidence is clear: Governments have passed so many laws that in trying to do so much they've increased the difficulty of doing anything well. Then who suffers? You.

Core Responsibilities
This highlights a crucial strategy to decrease the incidence of mass shootings. Stop asking the police to enforce more and yet more laws. It would make far more sense to eliminate the enormous number of ineffective and unnecessary laws and regulations on the books.

Stop criminalizing minor transgressions. Reinstate the original common-law requirement that a defendant must have a mens rea (i.e, he must or should know that he is doing wrong.) This would allow the police to put more effort into their core responsibilities of eliminating crime and protecting citizens.

Why Teach Citizens to Disrespect the Law?
Every big business knows the dangers of spreading its efforts too widely. Governments need to learn the same lesson.

Remove all laws that inflict dogmatic ideas, no matter how widespread, on the whole population. Such attempts to enforce individual opinions are often widely ignored.

One person's beliefs about morals or right behavior, no matter how deeply held, are not necessarily right for another, one size does not fit all. The unwanted consequence is instead to teach people to disrespect as well as disobey the law.

Too Many Laws
In 1913, the US federal tax laws covered just 400 pages. In 2011 it's up to 72,536 pages, an increase of 20,000% - twenty thousand percent!

The number of other laws shows a similar increase in many countries, as do the number of regulations passed by unelected bureaucrats. How can anyone, no matter how well-meaning, observe such a plethora of laws. It's been estimated as impossible for anyone even to read the flood of new laws and regulations each year...

There are so many laws and regulations now on the books that Alex Kozinski, a US appeals-court judge, has written a provocative essay with the title "You're (probably) a federal criminal.” You can be jailed for breaking regulations you've never heard of.*

Hong Kong's example
Hong Kong, now run by China, has a tax code of just some 200 pages. Their restraint has helped create a far healthier economy along with far more economic growth than the USA. Their lessons for economic vibrancy have had many benefits for China. Latest figures highlight the human benefits: residents of Hong Kong now enjoy the world's longest life expectancy, a great indicator of overall success.

Is there any doubt that the freedom to live and improve your life as you choose is related to the freedom from dogmatic laws passed by well-meaning but repressive governments?

Victimless Crime - Safe Speeding
Nobody is in favor of dangerous driving - it causes accidents! Motor vehicle accidents are fourth on the top ten annual killers list in the USA, killing three times more people than guns. This analysis of ineffective and widely ignored speed limits is not encouragement for dangerous driving.

The 30 mph speed limit in built-up areas was introduced in 1930 in the UK. Close to a century later, it continues unchanged despite enormous improvements in car design, safety and, especially, car braking systems.

Every road has a safe speed at which good drivers with safe cars travel in good conditions. The natural safe speed of most roads has been estimated at some 50% higher than the speed limit.

Does Speed cause Accidents?
Does driving at a safe speed in good conditions cause accidents? No. Does all speed cause accidents? No. But do dangerously high speeds for the current conditions cause accidents? Yes.

The UK government itself has cautioned that setting limits that are "unrealistically low" leads to disrespect for the speed limit. Yet the UK Parliament itself reports that "95 per cent of all drivers admit to exceeding speed limits."**

Whenever drivers see such unrealistically slow speed limits, the natural incentive is to ignore them. An unfortunate but inevitable consequence of bad laws is that they teach otherwise law-abiding citizens to disregard the law. Some even see disregard for the law as encouraging corruption both among politicians and within police forces.

All distractions such as the unrealistically low 30 mph speed limit - unchanged since 1930 - mean that police are less able to attend to their core responsibility: ensuring the safety of citizens and their property.

© Copyright worldwide Cris Baker, www.LifeStrategies.net All rights reserved. Republishing welcomed under Creative Commons noncommercial no derivatives license preserving all links intact, so please +1 and share this widely!

Food for Thought
"Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives."

- Ronald Reagan, 1911-2004, 40th President of the United States

* US Appeals Court judge Alex Kozinski's eye-opening essay with the title "You're (probably) a federal criminal” is reported at:

http://www.economist.com/node/16636027

** 95 per cent of all drivers admit to exceeding speed limits is at:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200102/cmselect/cmtlgr/557/55...