At least in NYS, it appears all laws get created to deal with something that already happened. In my business, we call this "Firefighting", and the primary goal of a business is to get out in front of problems, prior to it occurring.
Now, understandably, there are somethings that you just can't expect in advance. But, the Corisanti case illustrates something that was just plain common sense: He walked because he said,"I didn't think I hit a person". That's all! So, we are working on a new law that basically says,"If you are drunk, it doesn't matter if you knew or not" (http://www.wivb.com/dpp/news/local/leader-aims-to-change-law-after-case).
And, now that consumers are getting fleeced with deceptive packaging, we get a new law: http://www.newsli.com/2012/06/06/senate-passes-unit-pricing-bill/
You would figure our legislators would be a bit more pro-active in legislation, instead of just waiting for something to go to crap, and then dealing with it. It's nonsensical, and a waste of time.
Take the Corisanti law. Chances are, it'll never be needed again. Or, the unit pricing law: Since it's already a problem, the law will just cause companies to just find a new way to deceive, and make money until the law catches up.
Our legislators need to just get in front of the problems, instead of waiting to find something, and then fixing it. No wonder we don't get anything serious done in government. We're wasting time putting out fires.
Because intellectualism is frowned upon these days. Having one (or more) conceptual frameworks by which to analyze problems and predict what may happen in the future is just a nonstarter, at least in the US, because the person making the argument has to either explain EVERYTHING or have the credentials to earn trust. The US has such an anti-intellectual bias that credentials carry no weight in public debate.
ReplyDeleteTrue enough. The war on the "Ivory Towers", akin to the conservative war on anything not male and WASP'y.
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