Too Many Laws In America
Philip Howard gives a nice speech about how America has become a nation of too many laws. Those laws lead to paralisis because people are afraid of getting slapped with a lawsuit. Teachers are afraid to discipline kids because of it. Businesses are afraid to launch new products because of it. People are afraid to speak their minds because of it. What has happened to people’s common sense?
I have been preaching about this for many years. I am very passionate about this issue.
The one thing that Philip neglects to mention is the word morals. He does talk about values and how citizens have tried to create legislation to replace them. It seemed rather apparent to me that he avoided the use of the word because of its connection to religion. I suppose he didn’t want this to become a philosophical religious argument. That was probably smart on his part. Yet, it illustrates his point even more. Just as people are afraid of lawsuits, they are also afraid of getting labeled as a religious nutcase. This is probably what would have happened had he used the word morals instead of values.
I thought he should have focussed the speech far more on morals and values. They are at the very root of the issue. You cannot legislate morals into people. It is not possible. You cannot make one man like another man by passing a law that says it is illegal for them to hate each other. They will always break that law. You must promote values. You must show people why it is important for them to practice common sense. You must show them the advantages of living a moral life.
This is the very fundamental underlying flaw in our country. People are abandoning their values and trying to replace them with laws. It does not, cannot and will not ever work period. People have to make the choice to be moral. They need moral parents to guide them. It helps even more if they have some kind of spiritual connection to guide them also. But, even that is not enough. They need moral support from the people around them.
Immorality is like a metastatic cancer in society. It spreads throughout the entire body if you don’t take care of it early enough. I fear this is the path our country is headed down. Morals have gone up in smoke. Half of inner city school kids can’t even graduate highschool. That is a damn shame considering how much easier school is now compared to the old days. Do these kids have any goals in life at all? Has anyone given them a reason not to resort to crime other than the threat of going to jail? It is quite obvious that the threat of going to jail is not enough. In fact, I am told that some of these kids consider it a step into manhood. They wear that label proudly. What in sam hell has led up to this? The answer is obvious. This is all caused by people putting too much trust in laws and therefore abandoning morality.
Unitl we find a way to correct this fundamental lack of morality in this country, the law books are going to get thicker. Innovation is going to be stifled. Sometimes I wonder if the Amish people are the smartest people in this country. I bet they don’t need to learn too many laws in those communities. Maybe we ought to use them as a model for how to govern.
Do you know what? I absolutely agree with you!
Out of all my teaches in high school only one had common sense: He was not afraid of copyright laws. He made a copy of the textbook for everyone in the class. Instead of getting everyone an expensive $75 dollar copy of a disc, he just bought 3 cent discs and copied it onto them.
Too many laws protect stupid people…
Ashley,
I think you misunderstood the whole point. It should be common sense not to steal other people’s work.
If people willingly chose to do the right thing instead of being selfish with total disregard for others, then we wouldn’t need laws to prevent them from doing it.
Yes, but how do you get 300 000 000 people to “do the right thing”. And what is “the right thing”?
Does “morality” refer to those set by the Pope? or those interpreted by Baptists? or Islamic religious law? The world is not black and white, right and wrong; there are many grey areas – and the interactions complex. In fact, the “moral” decision not to teach kids about condom use and the Catholics’ moral “No condom” policy have led to many broken homes and teenage mothers who should not be raising kids. They might be good teenagers but they are not good parents; and they’re certainly not transmitting morals to their kids.
I agree that there are too many law, but perhaps more energy should be spent revising and simplifying existing laws… and repealing the “safety” laws which treat adults as if they were children. They’re the reason I have to drink beer out of a plastic bottle at ball games and MUST wear a seatbelt. How about giving Americans some responsibility for once? …or giving them a chance to think for themselves?
Morality is intuitive to people regardless of which particular religion you subscribe to. There is no way this current generation will be taught how to live morally. Their paradigm of the world has been corrupted by the left who have been preaching that everyone is evil and therefore must be ruled with an iron fist by elitists who know “what is right.”
Living in this current environment of over regulation is our punishment for our own lack and the lack of our previous generations for not realizing that we needed to do a better job of teaching morals to each other, our kids and the kids in their kids’ circle.
The reasons that kids are getting pregnant as young teenagers is not because of the Catholic church’s policy on condoms. That is about as intelligent as saying that the reason that there are murders is because of the nation’s gun policy. Both are absolutely false.
Kids have sex at a younger and younger age because they lack the moral fiber to abstain from it. They are surrounded by signs all around them that actually make them want to engage in it sooner. I am not talking about pornography either. I am talking about how it has become a popularity contest for young teenage girls to get knocked up. It makes them feel like they are more mature than their peers. It makes them feel like they have grown up faster than everyone else. You and I both know that kids hate being seen as teenagers. They want to be seen as adults. Look at how popular one of these kids becomes when they get pregnant. Kids who grow up in an environment where mom and dad both openly despise actions like this are much more likely to not engage in it. But, the parents have to make that viewpoint clear by practicing what they preach.
Look at how popular these kids become when they get a tatoo before anyone else their age does. This is the insanity that needs to be stopped. These kids are making poor decisions that have life-long implications. These kids need better guidance. Parents are just as bad. How many younger parents ran out and got tatoos because the kids were all doing it? The parents want to be young and cool as much as the kids want to be mature and older. Parents who do this sort of thing and brag about it are just as misguided morally as the kids they are raising. By engaging in stupid acts like this they are silently condoning all different types of rebellious and bad behavior in their children and their children’s friends. It is stupid, stupid and stupid.
People need to be reminded that it is in their best interests and the best interests of everyone around them if they live morally. They have forgotten why it is important. All of these laws are the repercussions of people’s forgetfulness. We should not need laws to tell us not to throw a beer bottle at someone. We should not need laws to tell people that they cannot steal from their neighbors or their customers. We should not need laws that say two homosexuals can or cannot get married. We should not need laws that say rich people have to give away more than half their money so that it can be redistributed to poor people. We should not need laws to convince people to buy health insurance. We should not need laws to keep bankers from lending money to people who cannot possibly afford to pay it back.
Things are out of control. It is the lack of morality that is at the heart of the problem.