There Oughta Be a Law!

Do you know what legislators do? Besides collect bribes disguised as “donations”? They make laws! We need each and every one of these laws, because they help all of us behave better. Without these laws, we’d all revert to our natural instincts and behave very badly toward everyone but ourselves. Thankfully, when we feel like behaving badly toward ourselves, there are other laws in place to discourage us. Laws, you see, are what civilize us. They distinguish us from the other great apes, who aren’t familiar with concepts like “justice,” “regulation,” and “economic warfare.”

Since we can’t all make the laws – that would be confusing! — each of us is lucky to be represented by professional lawmakers, probably more of them than most of us realize. These learned and exceptionally intelligent individuals, whose main job is to express the will of the folks they speak for, craft hundreds of laws every year, because we all understand that the more laws we have, the more civilized our society becomes. It might take some time, but if we can eventually pass enough laws we’ll finally have the perfect society we all dream of (when not dreaming of other things.)

We have laws to instruct businesses how much to pay their slaves so it doesn’t really look anything like slavery and, therefore, can only be called “slavery” by cynical essayists who claim to see enslavement at the heart of American luxury. “Minimum wage” is the term of art.

We have laws to discourage people from enjoying powder cocaine and other laws to more strongly discourage people from enjoying rock cocaine.

We have laws to describe the correct age to participate in or watch a pornographic movie, since it’s awfully difficult (impossible?) to tell the difference between a just-turned-18 fellatrix and one who is only 17-and-364-days old.

We have laws to keep weapons out of the hands of some and to guarantee that others may have them on hand – and in hand – at all times. We have other laws that describe who may be fairly shot and who, in most circumstances, should not.

We have laws that punish some organizations for polluting the environment and others that encourage them to pollute without consequence or cost. Some would call this a contradiction. In fact, it’s a sign of the perfect societal harmony we’re nearly attaining – and will attain once we positively reinforce all the right stuff and negatively reinforce all the wrong stuff.

Or, if we wanted to be embarrassingly lazy, we could simply live by one law, the Golden one. But that would be so old-fashioned, so time-of-Christ. Progress means more of everything, right? Including rules to live by. So let’s resolve to legislate our way to perfection. It’s good for the economy and a heck of a lot easier than each of us changing ourselves.