Laws: Too Long, Too Convoluted, Too Much hassle to be Read

[Jimmy_Chitwood]

@Kearsen

You are right, maybe I need to be more hippy and smoke some doobage, eh?

Saying you are wrong is a fundamental flaw in your policy sir. Unless you can prove beyond a shadow of doubt that people have been convicted based solely upon facts and not heresay.

I believe the latter to be true, however much you wish it were otherwise.

All righty then. Good luck with that.

[Lakai]

Kearsen, is your position to change the way the laws are written, but not the actual effect of the law itself?

If so I could get behind that position. Some laws can clearly be drafted better and still mean the same thing that they currently mean. The problem with getting better drafted laws is legislative inertia, and the fear that they will get interpreted differently if the language gets changed.

To remedy the interpretation problem you can always add a clause that says that you are only making clarity changes and not legal changes. That was done with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure recently. I think the federal rules are pretty well drafted and are about as clear as I imagine the law can possibly get.

Drafters don’t try to draft convoluted laws. It’s just that the law is incredibly complicated, which makes drafting a clear law very challenging. As long as the legal profession can figure out what the law means then the law will stay on the books. Otherwise the only other option is to lobby Congress to hire better drafters.

I’m not saying this is true for all laws, but some laws can be written better. But as long as the legal profession can figure them out, there is no real incentive to change them.

[Kearsen]

@Lakai

Kearsen, is your position to change the way the laws are written, but not the actual effect of the law itself?

If so I could get behind that position. Some laws can clearly be drafted better and still mean the same thing that they currently mean. The problem with getting better drafted laws is legislative inertia, and the fear that they will get interpreted differently if the language gets changed.

To remedy the interpretation problem you can always add a clause that says that you are only making clarity changes and not legal changes. That was done with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure recently. I think the federal rules are pretty well drafted and are about as clear as I imagine the law can possibly get.

Drafters don’t try to draft convoluted laws. It’s just that the law is incredibly complicated, which makes drafting a clear law very challenging. As long as the legal profession can figure out what the law means then the law will stay on the books. Otherwise the only other option is to lobby Congress to hire better drafters.

I’m not saying this is true for all laws, but some laws can be written better. But as long as the legal profession can figure them out, there is no real incentive to change them.

That is exactly my position. The laws don’t need to be solely for the highly educated to comprehend.

For which I have been pounded for ‘not being able to understand the bills currently written’.
To me this really is a no brainer. Simplify the laws, re-write them if necessary to provide a clear understanding of what exactly it means. Let the ‘general public’ (ie… the voters) in on exactly what bill is being passed and why.
This would go a long way to the so called “transparency” that has been promised and has yet been undelivered by ANY sitting President or Congress.

Why is that you think?

[Ravenman]

For the billionth time, have you flipped through the US Code? Since we’re talking about murder so much, have you read the murder statute?

If you read section 1111 (murder), I’d like to know what’s so confusing about it. Yes, it’s kind of wordy, but it isn’t complex.

[Captain_Carrot]

@Kearsen

To me this really is a no brainer. Simplify the laws, re-write them if necessary to provide a clear understanding of what exactly it means.

Ahahahahaha. this isn’t nearly as simple as you think.

[Kearsen]

@Ravenman

For the billionth time, have you flipped through the US Code? Since we’re talking about murder so much, have you read the murder statute?

If you read section 1111 (murder), I’d like to know what’s so confusing about it. Yes, it’s kind of wordy, but it isn’t complex.

Ravenman,
‘murder’ is one of the simplistic ones.

From your link:

§ 1111. Murder

§ 1112. Manslaughter

§ 1113. Attempt to commit murder or manslaughter

§ 1114. Protection of officers and employees of the United States

§ 1115. Misconduct or neglect of ship officers

§ 1116. Murder or manslaughter of foreign officials, official guests, or internationally protected persons

§ 1117. Conspiracy to murder

§ 1118. Murder by a Federal prisoner

§ 1119. Foreign murder of United States nationals

§ 1120. Murder by escaped prisoners

§ 1121. Killing persons aiding Federal investigations or State correctional officers"

Those are just a few ‘tied’ to the murder statute.
Why does killing an officer bring a harsher penalty than killing a neighbor? I can follow the reasoning but is one person’s life really more important to society as another?

Look up another. Try abortion and all it’s different findings.

Partial birth, forced abortion, sterilization etc…

It is rather long. Take that into account for every single law ever written.

[Ravenman]

I read that response to mean that you actually looked at the statutes, found them much less hard to read than you have been arguing in this thread, and therefore shifted your argument to complaining why the law covers different kinds of homicide.

[Kearsen]

@Ravenman

I read that response to mean that you actually looked at the statutes, found them much less hard to read than you have been arguing in this thread, and therefore shifted your argument to complaining why the law covers different kinds of homicide.

No, if you look back at my “murder is one of the simple ones argument” you can see that I have said that all along.