The Instapundit Offers Yet Another Amazing Idea: A House of Repeal To Weed Out Obsolete Laws

I am sure most have heard that there exist arcane Laws, many having to do with issues now irrelevant. Maybe technology passed by the law, rendering it meaningless in these oh so modern times, maybe societal norms have shifted leaving the law inappropriate to current morals or ethical directions. But, they, these old laws so exist, in perpetuity it seems, and a body whose sole function is ridding us of them seems a good idea.

But nobody in Congress sees repealing laws as job No. 1. Well maybe one does, but he's not doing such a great job getting it done. Last year, House Speaker John Boehner said, "We should not be judged on how many new laws we create. We should be judged on how many laws we repeal."
And for that, at least, I have a proposed solution. It's not really my idea, though I fleshed it out a bit in a law review article and a speech at Harvard Law School a while back. If the problem with Congress is that nobody sees repealing laws as job No. 1, why not create a legislative body that can only repeal laws?

The growth of laws and regulation in America has reached the point that pretty much everyone is a felon, whether they know it or not. But nobody in Congress gets much in the way of votes by repealing laws. All the institutional pressures point the other way.

I think is a brilliant notion, (one which Mr. Reynolds makes clear he did not invent, even though I give him credit above). Right now, if we had a government which sought to make an example of a citizen out of spite, they could have said citizen arrested, tried, and likely convicted based on an out of date law which said citizen was completely unaware existed.....not the we need worry about any such government action in this country.

I do see a down side to this body, and it comes from the knowledge that our existing members of Congress are none too sure of what the right thing is all the time, (hardly ever?), and the same political forces which are so active now would doubtlessly provide equal pressures to this new body. An example. Does anyone doubt that one of the first actions one side of the House would take up would be to abolish an any law which specifies that a marriage is between a man and a woman. Any mention of the coordinating sexes pairing up would have to go; leaving it open for the law making House and the Judiciary to render opposition to same sex marriage useless. The same would happen for when life begins and when we have rights, so long fetal protections now extant.

Am I being too cynical? Sure, one side of the House would be there to vote against repeal, but since when can we count on the loyal opposition acting?

I like the concept of reducing restraint on freedom by repealing old law. And, even with the damage some would attempt from the power of such a body I imagine the net benefit would be there. Maybe it would be best if this House did not meet as regularly as the current House and Senate do, say once a decade they show up and clean out the attic? As they do their work there will, theoretically, be less for them to do anyway.

This idea has merit. There is something to work with there.

Are You The Press?: Revisited

I asked this question on another blog many years ago; good to see that others are taking up the question.

Latest examples are links appearing at Instapundit.

What Ferris Bueller can teach up about who counts as "the media"

Ferris Bueller's day in the Texas Supreme Court

My earlier post on the matter has disintegrated within the archive to a headline (used here) and one partial sentence; so any revelatory points I made back then are lost to wherever lost bits go. However, I doubt this is a great loss as in reading much of my previous work it now often seems passe. I will add that I am troubled that it requires so much legal wrangling, done by people who have been deemed worthy to do legal wrangling, to decide in court if we are entitled to the decide for ourselves that we are behaving as a part of the media and are thus permitted the freedoms guaranteed to the Press.

John McCain, Why Must Thou Continue To Disappoint

So, Diane Feinstein flaunts our nation's best interests and delivers up a report which will actually infuriate our enemies and serve as impetus for further attacks against us, and then Senator McCain takes to the microphone to support her choice. Feinstein seems to mimic the YouTube video which we were supposed to believe caused the Benghazi attack. McCain continues to forget that his Vietnamese captures did elicit information from him which he did not want to reveal, proving that torture works on future politicians who can be fooled into believing it is possible to flush a Koran down a toilet.

I produced a visual response to McCain's folly over those claims about Gitmo, first seen here.He wrote in his book,torture worked.

Use "outback" In A Sentence

The context was Outback Steakhouse was on the list of places Richie and his pal were considering as their next watering hole.

Richie posed the question, I responded, "when Iz wanna pee out of doors Iz goes outback so'z the neighboors don't seez me.

Yeah, your reaction is consistent with their reaction.

Warning: This Could Make You Think

Leftism is politicized envy.

You see, the Left are losers. They are stupid people who want to be thought smart; people with no taste who want to be thought cultured and artistic; selfish cowards who want the palm leaf of martyrdom and the gold medal of heroism; but who, in no case, can actually perform.

John C. Wright

Trees Are The Lungs Of The Earth

Forget Reality Television, For Real Entertainment Deal With The Public In A Retail Setting

I work the weekend mornings shifts at a public golf course. What a mixed bag of personalities. What and amazing array of perverse logic delivered by the patrons. No scripts needed, just film in our pro shop and sit back and have some laughs. Nice people, mean people, deluded malcontents, cheapskates, good souls; all revealed as they wish to be seen; perfect.

Latest Dumb Bob Beckel Statement

It is impossible to  keep current with BB's vocal absurdities, so, my apologies if he has added to the list by the time I publish this.

Beckel said that the cops who arrested Garner, taking him to the ground with a maneuver which led to him having a heart attack which caused his death, should have found another way to subdue the resisting giant. Fair enough, but it is the alternative he then suggested which causes one's eyes to roll back into one's head; taser him.

So, the bombastic Beckel imagines no harm can come from administering a high voltage shock to a person. No chance that a man's heart will stop if he receives an electric shock? No one ever died from electrocution?

Strike one, Bobby boy. 

Related

Critics might rightly point to Eric Garner and argue that he posed no threat to policemen; certainly, his misdemeanor merchandising of cigarettes was hardly worth a violent confrontation. Perhaps New York City policemen should have been able to find a way of arresting the obese and asthmatic 300-pound suspect without the use of a chokehold. And Garner’s pleas to allow him to breathe should have resulted in an end to pressures on his neck and throat. All that is true. But the fallout also suggests that if policemen cannot subdue a large African-American unarmed suspect — with 30 prior arrests including larceny, resisting arrest and assault —  who resists arrest, without using force that in theory could threaten his safety, then they logically will just ignore the crime.

If you are a libertarian, a street full of enterprising Garners, even if prior felons, working, profiting and breaking senseless laws is a tolerable thing; if you are a traditionalist of the broken-windows school of law enforcement, then openly defying the laws, even petty laws, undermines all law. I point this out again not to judge the police or Garner, but simply to note the likely effect of all these cases is for police to red-flag these landscapes and to pull back from certain criminal scenarios, both major and petty —  a fact that will be known to society at large.

Pro Life For Diversity