Not really laws, more at consenses of pheromomes, outlines of very firm, constantly evolving suggestions backed by the armory of the state, concerning what ought to be done:
The newest, liberal innovation is the creation of what amounts to “living statutes.” Although Kesler does not use that term, here is how he describes ObamaCare:
“The law’s meaning is deliberately indeterminate, left vague so as to give maximum discretion to the unholy trinity of bureaucrats, congressional staffers, and private-sector “stakeholders” who will flesh out the act with thousands of pages of regulations (12,000 and counting so far), and then amend those as needed later on…
“This new kind of statute – one hates to call it law – is not meant to be ‘settled, standing rule,’ as John Locke defined law. On the contrary, it is meant permanently to be in flux, always developing and subject to renegotiation. It is law constantly suffused with wisdom, albeit constantly changing wisdom. It is what passes for law under a living constitution.”
Federal (and other) law now as fluid, infinitely malleable consumer credit card agreement.
c.f., PPACA, D-FWSRCPA, YOUBETCHATHISSPACEISJUSTASNEGOTIABLEBABY
H. M. Stuart
Alexandria
I bet the wisdom will be a new kind of wisdom, too. A constantly changing wisdom taht often favors those in favor and disguised as tomfoolery.
It is important to note that, despite the particular illustrative statutes, there is nothing whatsoever that confines this sort of deliquescence solely to liberalism or that inoculates conservatism, vegetarianism, or any other sort of ideology from its destructure.
This is law becoming the cloud-fart of live Windows update.
H. M. Stuart
Alexandria
While agreeing that this should be of serious concern, I can’t help but wonder if Mr. Kadlec did any research into the current state of law-regulation. He would have found, for example, that this “style” of regulatory phrasing has been in existence for decades, sort of a “there’s nothing new under the sun” observation by old fogies (myself being one of them).
Watch for the caveat at the end: Laws are not drafted to include regulatory details. Such details may exist within the final statutes, but they are the exception and not the rule. The department, agency or committee responsible for drafting regulations first delivers proposed regs, which undergo a public commentary process (only attended by those interests who expect to be affected by them, of course). If the effective date of the statutes is not far enough into the future, temporary regulations are drafted until permanent ones are drafted.
Caveat: A retired IRS commissioner told me (circa late 80s) that the Internal Revenue Code of 1950 still at that point contained temporary regulations only for many statutes. Fear not just the permanent regulations, fear also that the temporary ones will become “permanent” without further review.