# Hypothetically: The Chief of Police commits and admits he commited a felony...\[Edited title\]

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetically-the-chief-of-police-commits-and-admits-he-commited-a-felony-edited-title/584607>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [June 7, 2011, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetically-the-chief-of-police-commits-and-admits-he-commited-a-felony-edited-title/584607 "2011-06-07T07:01:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 5

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**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\
**Post date:** [June 10, 2011, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetically-the-chief-of-police-commits-and-admits-he-commited-a-felony-edited-title/584607/81 "2011-06-10T13:02:26Z")

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> [@constanze](#):
>
> Learning your lesson would rather be to stop thinking of all laws as chiseled in stones that can never ever be changed, and that therefore new laws must be introduced constantly to keep up; and instead think of laws as things that are updated and adapted regularly to keep pace with the change in society and technology. (Good luck for that with your vocal religious crowd that politicians pander too, though).
> 
> A lot of big controversies in the last decades in German parliament were changes to existing laws (or to the rules about how to apply laws). Because here it’s quite common to change laws. So if the old law read (for an example pulled from my ass)
> 
> §999, Horse buggy driving
> 
> 1. Nobody is allowed to drive a horse-buggy without a license.
> 
> 2. The classes of buggies requiring licenses are as follows:  
> a) one horse, license A  
> b) two to four horses, license B  
> c) everything bigger than four horses, license C  
> d) commercial post coach, license D
> 
> and suddenly everybody drives these new-fangled motorcars without horses, the new law passed would say
> 
> replace in §999 the title with Motorcar driving,  
> replace horse-buggy in Sen. 1 with motorcar  
> replace in Sen. 2a, one horse with 5 horsepowers  
> etc.
> 
> valid starting at 1.1.1920, to be published in the official newspaper for laws.
> 
> All old editions are changed out (that’s why laws are in loose-leaf folders). No old laws on the books, no additional new laws, just updated.

I like it in theory, and if we were starting from scratch, it might work. But as it is now, we have a lot of laws. A lot a lot. I’m not sure it’s practical to go back and even \*read \*all of them, much less amend each one.

A, say, 50 year expiration on most laws, like your hypothetical horse carriage one, would cause laws to expire on a predictable basis, but not require review of them all at once. A session to read, say 100 old laws a year that are coming up for expiration and a vote to renew, amend or allow to expire, seems more attainable than a total ongoing review.

And “no new laws” assumes that there’s always going to be an analogue on the books that can be amended to address current concerns. I’m not sure that’s realistic.

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**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\
**Post date:** [June 12, 2011, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hypothetically-the-chief-of-police-commits-and-admits-he-commited-a-felony-edited-title/584607/82 "2011-06-12T17:20:40Z")

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> [@WhyNot](#):
>
> I like it in theory, and if we were starting from scratch, it might work. But as it is now, we have a lot of laws. A lot a lot. I’m not sure it’s practical to go back and even \*read \*all of them, much less amend each one.
> 
> A, say, 50 year expiration on most laws, like your hypothetical horse carriage one, would cause laws to expire on a predictable basis, but not require review of them all at once. A session to read, say 100 old laws a year that are coming up for expiration and a vote to renew, amend or allow to expire, seems more attainable than a total ongoing review.

I don’t think that’s a better solution. If the senators and representatives are too busy/ lazy/ only care about the PR from making new laws, and are not able to/ interested enough in having good laws all around to appoint a committee of actually working members to review them, then having expiration clauses on laws can lead far too easy to laws still necessary expiring because somebody overlooked renewing them.

But it’s a pity that because the US is the bestest country in the whole world, and the Founding Fathers were so great, you’re stuck with a system that can’t be changed from the way it was set up a few centuries ago.

> [@](#):
>
> And “no new laws” assumes that there’s always going to be an analogue on the books that can be amended to address current concerns. I’m not sure that’s realistic.

I didn’t say anything about “no new laws”. Plenty of new laws are made, too. It’s just that we have both. If an old law needs to be struck down, like old §175 punishing homosexuality, that was removed, or updated with modern language, like a law about xerox-copying also including copying by computer, than it’s done. But if a new crime, like stalking, becomes a necessity, then a new law will be passed.

Of course, because citizens can get involved in the lawmaking process, by writing a petition, or collecting signatures for a vote, they often suggest easy steps to avoid the “but it’s so complicated” excuse from the politicians.

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