Too Many Laws, Part 2

I said it before, and I'll say it again: We have too many laws! The LA Times on Thursday had an item about some bills being drafted by California state legislators:

• Restrict the use of foods containing trans-fat in restaurants and public schools
• Ban smoking at state parks and beaches, and in cars carrying children
• Open a savings account, seeded with $500, for every new-born Californian to use at age 18 for college, a new home, or a retirement account
• Fine dog and cat owners who do not spay or neuter their pets by 4 months of age
• Require chain restaurants to list calorie, saturated fat, and sodium content of items on menus
• Phase out the sale of incandescent lamps, replacing them with fluorescents

In other states, proposed laws would ban the use of the "n__" word, or prohibit the use of "boo" at school sporting events.

But most folks are smart enough to figure out when a fluorescent lamp is the most cost effective solution for a light, and to buy one for that purpose. And in the past we have been able to use custom and social pressures to discourage inappropriate speech.

These absurdities are perfect examples of two major problems with our governments today:

1. We have no need for a full-time legislature. Because we pay these people to write laws year-round, we will get more and more laws--laws that are virtually impossible to enforce--laws that create more problems than they solve, laws that increase the manpower needed for administration and enforcement. Instead, these legislators should meet only a few months out of the year to clear the books of obsolete and unenforced laws, to plan the next year's budget, and perhaps to write one or two new or amended laws to deal with large emerging problems.
2. Too many of us think that government should solve everyone's problems for them. Instead of making the smart choices for ourselves, we are electing people to office who feel compelled to run everyone's lives (except, perhaps, their own). They want to tell us what to eat, what to buy, what to say (and what not to say), but they will retreat to their own mansions to spend and do as they please. And, because we are dumb enough to elect them, they assume we are too dumb to solve our own problems.

Let us heed the warnings we heard from the late President Reagan about the dangers of big government. Don't let our daily lives be micro-managed by full-time, power hungry legislators. Let us educate, not legislate.