>Eventually there will be so many laws that we will cease to be a nation under the rule of law, because the only thing that will matter is prosecutorial discretion.
We are long past that point, which is the reason for the post title (and the book from which it's drawn). Even the lawyers don't understand areas of the law that are outside their own narrow specialty.
The root of the problem is the federalization of criminal law. People used to say "Don't make a federal case out of it!" because that used to mean something - federal cases were for the Al Capones of the world and people who interfered with the mail.
Over the years Congress (with the acquiescence of the courts) has essentially shed any constitutional limits on its power. Federal law now applies everywhere (in the world) and to everything. The solution isn't mandatory sunset provisions - lots of laws have sunset provisions already and they're just routinely extended. The solution is a federal government that's limited to the powers delineated in its charter.
That means, for example, you could have a federal law against importation and transport of drugs across state line, but possession and sale could only be regulated at the state level. Same with guns, speed limits, "assault weapons", currency transactions, and damn near everything else against federal law. As Joe Citizen you would know that things you did wholly inside your state couldn't be illegal under federal law outside of a few narrow areas.
The way it works now is everyone is a felon, and if the feds want you they can throw a hundred minor charges at you that all carry 3-5 years, so you're looking at 500 years in jail... unless you take a plea. Innocent or guilty you take the plea. God only knows how many innocent people are rotting in jail because they didn't want to risk life in prison over something relatively minor.
These two statements are related. Congress has the Constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce. That one little phrase in the Constitution is mostly responsible for the federal government's power grab over the last 100 years or so.
Unless you have your own fully self-sufficient farm and solar plant, and don't have a telephone, TV or Internet service, you're probably consuming goods and services that are made in other states and interacting with companies based in other states.
Since the federal government has the power to regulate those transactions, it can intrude into the corner of your lives.
Also, the amendment giving the federal government the power to collect income tax was another serious mistake. It was sold to voters as a "temporary" measure to pay the country's debts from either the Civil War or World War I. Spoiler: It wasn't temporary. If the government had never had the revenue to engage in the massive spending of the last century, the current fiscal mess wouldn't be happening.
Not even a self-sufficient farm is immune from the federal government, as was decided in Wickard v. Filburn[1]:
"Filburn argued that since the excess wheat he produced was intended solely for home consumption it could not be regulated through the interstate Commerce Clause. The Supreme Court rejected this argument, reasoning that if Filburn had not used home-grown wheat he would have had to buy wheat on the open market. This effect on interstate commerce, the Court reasoned, may not be substantial from the actions of Filburn alone but through the cumulative actions of thousands of other farmers just like Filburn its effect would certainly become substantial. Therefore Congress could regulate wholly intrastate, non-commercial activity if such activity, viewed in the aggregate, would have a substantial effect on interstate commerce, even if the individual effects are trivial."
Yep, Wickard was where it really went off the rails. And then it got even sillier when the court decided in Raich that if you grow a pot plant in your closet purely for personal consumption Congress has the power to regulate it as interstate commerce. They didn't even have the flimsy fig leaf they had in Wickard.
We are long past that point, which is the reason for the post title (and the book from which it's drawn). Even the lawyers don't understand areas of the law that are outside their own narrow specialty.
The root of the problem is the federalization of criminal law. People used to say "Don't make a federal case out of it!" because that used to mean something - federal cases were for the Al Capones of the world and people who interfered with the mail.
Over the years Congress (with the acquiescence of the courts) has essentially shed any constitutional limits on its power. Federal law now applies everywhere (in the world) and to everything. The solution isn't mandatory sunset provisions - lots of laws have sunset provisions already and they're just routinely extended. The solution is a federal government that's limited to the powers delineated in its charter.
That means, for example, you could have a federal law against importation and transport of drugs across state line, but possession and sale could only be regulated at the state level. Same with guns, speed limits, "assault weapons", currency transactions, and damn near everything else against federal law. As Joe Citizen you would know that things you did wholly inside your state couldn't be illegal under federal law outside of a few narrow areas.
The way it works now is everyone is a felon, and if the feds want you they can throw a hundred minor charges at you that all carry 3-5 years, so you're looking at 500 years in jail... unless you take a plea. Innocent or guilty you take the plea. God only knows how many innocent people are rotting in jail because they didn't want to risk life in prison over something relatively minor.