Tuesday, August 25, 2020

Quote of the Day: 25 August 2020

“It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?” -James Madison, The Federalist No. 62
 “It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?” -James Madison, The Federalist No. 62

[This is part of why I follow A Crime a Day on Twitter. Since ignorance is no excuse for breaking a law, and the laws are so voluminous that there is no way to be in any state other than ignorance, you are almost certainly guilty of breaking some law or other. It is a terrible state, and we must do something about it, or the law will become nearly meaningless.]

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