A tired, worn-out philosophy

Well it seems I'm the only person in North America who likes the Republican Pledge to America. I did find it interesting -- and predictable -- that the Comrade said the Pledge reflects "a tired, worn-out philosophy." You mean the philosophy presented in the Declaration of Independence? Tired and worn-out?

Maybe he should give it a try first.

Watched Fox News Sunday with Boehner and Kevin McCarthy, then Steny Hoyer. The Republicans, Boehner and McCarthy, faced some pretty tough questions and criticism about the Pledge from Chris Wallace. Then Wallace really went to town on Steny Hoyer.

The main complaint against the Pledge seems to be that it doesn't outline any specifics. That's what I like about it (see the preceding blog.) Arriving with proposed legislation already in hand is kinda like what the Comrade and the dems have done the last couple of years. It's called "top-down" government, kind of like codified law. The other type of government is "bottom-up," it comes from the voter base, basically, and "the custom of the country," or what's known as common law.

Codified law refers to the situation when a person sits down and writes out all the laws, just out of his own head or somewhere. Often legal experts, judges, etc., are involved, and almost always, the head of state. Then they just present this big wad of law to people. Kings usually govern this way, and oligarchs.

Then there's common law. A lot of common law is based on judicial precedence. That is, suppose we're neighbors having a dispute about whether or not you stole my rake. Well, for many years, everyone in the neighborhood has borrowed each others tools and utensils, and if the owner didn't ask for the rake back within, say, 90 days, the borrower got to keep it. That's just the way things have always been done. But I loaned you my rake, forgot about it over the winter, but I want it back now. So we go to court.

Whose rake is it? By common law, it would belong to the borrower because he possessed it for 90 days before I asked for it back. By codified law, the judge would refer to the law books on property ownership and rights.

American law is made up of both codified and common law. We started out with the Constitution, which doesn't really outline any laws -- just the shape of the government and its processes. Many states wrote down a bunch of statutes -- codified law -- which more than likely have been greatly modified by judicial decisions. But much existing law sprang from common law, and many states still recognized the validity of common law through most of the 20th century. But I guess that's pretty rare now. It does leave a lot to judicial discretion, and given that federal judges are appointed rather than elected....

Anyway, what I'm talking about it is top-down vs. bottom-up law. Do you want the congresscritters to spend all their time crafting 2,000-page bills that lock us all into certain acceptable modes of behavior, or do you want law to grow from the ground up, where and how it's applied?

I don't think it's possible to write a law that can cover every single situation for the same reasons that I don't think it's possible to design and legislate an economic structure. You can't have that kind of centralized control and authority AND personal freedom at the same time. If you declare that skies must always be blue, you'll never see another drop of rain.

Don't now how better to explain it. I'd rather see as little law as necessary and the smallest government possible. That seems to be what the Pledge is going for, too.

And poor Steny Hoyer. All he could do was blame George W for ..... everything. Who needs some new ideas?

Save the Republic.