The United States is run under the concept of the rule of law. The process involves various government bodies issuing laws, which are then hashed out in courts in relation to whether they are both valid and clarified sufficiently to actually mean something that can be used in every day life. The system is set up to continually create laws, which is a questionable proposition to some extent.
The recent health care reform debate was a hotly contested one. Either you thought the reform effort was a great idea or you thought it was a terrible one. I'm not particularly interested in your views and am sure you couldn't care too much about mine, but the politicians were raising some very blunt assessments that were incredibly interesting. These assessments dealt with the issue of the establishment of a law as a foothold in the legal arena.
The health care reform debate boiled down to a political brawl that neither side was happy with. The far left was angry that Congress members were giving up the public option and so on. The far right assaulted any Republican that contemplated any variation of reform. Why? The answer is simple. Once a law is established, the system is setup to add on to it. It is a rare event [prohibition] where a law passed is actually repealed. While it does happen, it is exceedingly rare compared to the vast number of laws that are passed. The strategy of the Democrats in this case was and is to just get something passed that they could then build on later.
Politicians are elected to pass laws. This is what they do. For all the passion surrounding politics, both parties do exactly the same thing when in power. President Obama is on the spot with health care reform, but President Bush was no different with the Prescription bill which is an economic disaster. The question is whether we are going to start or already have started suffocating from too many laws. Where common sense should prevail, we have laws that are interpreted by regulations and then courts.
The law has become an area where the lawyers are even baffled a bit. It is very rare to see a lawyer that practices general law any longer. The areas of law are just too complex. If the lawyers have to do this, what about the rest of us?
