…on Bad Law
There are many instances in our American history when we have had problems with bad legislation being passed and the problems it creates for our society. Most of the time, on their face, bad laws would seem unconstitutional, but it seems like no one is willing to jump in there and say so, because for some reason, sometimes, bad laws are popular with the majority of people, but still remain bad laws that may be unconstitutional.
Take for instance, the war against marijuana. I’m not a scholar on the subject but I have read that the reason it was outlawed in the first place was because some business interest saw hemp as a better source of paper, which would compete against his interests in the “let’s cut down lots of trees to make paper” industry.
Once the law was put into place, those proponents for the law had already spent enormous amounts of money promoting the law so the low-information branch of the American public already had their points of view set for them.
Now, once the law was in place and it appeared that the American people were at least marginally for the law, it was nearly locked in and ready for a long run.
Other industries started researching the anti-marijuana laws and found that the law being in place had an actual benefit for their industries too. So, pretty soon their was marijuana screening done to the chattel at most of the corporate-owned megastores.
Looking at the present political situation in this country, it is apparent that the entrenched interests have still got most of the Washington DC crowd pretty frightened. At the State level, the situation is much different. Laws are being proposed in a lot of States by local governments and by citizen petition. This is a good thing and should be encouraged. Once local legislatures start moving the direction of repealing draconian marijuana laws at the State level, the federal government will be encouraged to move this direction as well, but it will take time.
Another case is with the health care industry in America. Who wrote laws allowing the sale of for-profit medical insurance? Actually, back in the day when an American life meant something to those in Washington DC, they did have regulations that forced those companies that wanted to sell medical insurance would be strictly regulated so that the American people would be protected from unscrupulous dealings.
Slowing, but much more rapidly of late, the Republican Party, the party of corporate America, has been stripping away laws that interfere with business. They see these laws as interference for a business’s ability to “do their own thang.” So, they replace these types of laws when they have the power to do so. Bush 43’s first six years, and quite a number of Republican administrations of the past forty years, had ample opportunity to wield enough power in Washington DC to repeal a lot of the laws that were put in place to protect the American people, but also restricted a business’s ability to “do their own thang.”
So, what we have now is a health care insurance industry that has more lobbyists and money than most industries and thus wields a lot of power in DC. Good luck getting “really” decent health care coverage for the foreseeable future.
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This is the danger of our American (so-calledÂ, small ‘d’) “democratic” government creating “bad” law. Once a bad law is in place it is difficult to repeal.
Thus, a bad law will build an industry around it. If this is allowed to continue for decades (since laws are hard to repeal, it will be so), the industries surrounding this law will defend that law, even though they know that it is a bad law. Their greed will overshadow their desire to do the right thing.