To the Journal editor:

Thank(s) (to The Mining Journal) for printing George Will’s column on Friday. It provides what I believe to be the most accurate assessment of the state of American society today that I have ever seen in print.

The accumulated body of U.S. law is so massive and complex that it has become impossible for anyone to live as a completely law-abiding citizen.

As long as voters continue to elect politicians of any persuasion whose promise to us is to enact more, the situation can only become worse, not better.

Will unfortunately offers no solutions. There are measures that would help, although they admittedly are presently politically impossible to put into place.

For example, imagine a Constitutional amendment stating that “No legislator shall be permitted to cast a vote in favor of the passage of any bill unless and until that legislator has read the bill in its entirety. No regulation promulgated by any administrative agency shall have the force of law until it is reviewed and ratified by the appropriate legislative body, except in the case of emergency.”

Emergency could be defined as involving imminent danger of massive irrepairable damage or loss of life.

The main advantages of such a proposal are 1: Lawmaking would be limited to those whose job it is to enact laws, and 2: There would be an incentive to keep proposals simple enough to be understood, since only concise bills would stand a chance of passage.

There are several other significant advantages which the space allotted for this letter does not allow me to present here.

Dennis McCowen

Marquette