Is a system in which a large number of citizens must be intimately aware of the intricacies of a huge and complex set of legal code a well-factored system? Isn't that a bit like the passengers of an airplane instructing the pilot on how to fly?
This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from James Madison, from Federalist Paper #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if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow.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?"
In my opinion, Madison was as correct now as he was then.
That sounds nice and tidy, but it seems hard to fit the requirements of e.g. the EPA or the erstwhile MMS or the CFTC into something coherent enough to be understood by a lay person.
Simplicity and fairness and effectiveness are all in tension with each other.
This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from James Madison, from Federalist Paper #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if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow.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?"
In my opinion, Madison was as correct now as he was then.