The other day my girlfriend received a gift card and what was written on the back gave me a good laugh. It said "By using this card you agree to the following" and then went into a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo. I laughed because, quite frankly, it's just not true. You know I may not be the worlds foremost expert on the laws of physics, but I can tell you this. When you use a gift card all it means is that you used it, it doesn't mean that you agree to anything, that's just how the laws of physics work, that's just how reality works.
Just because you say something is true doesn't mean that it is. For instance I could say by using a gift card I gain the ability to fly, lo and behold it's not true. I could throw a brick through a window and the government would say that I've broken a law, but that's not true either. The only think I'd have broken was the glass, but in reality no laws have been broken, there is no law that prevents me from throwing a brick through a window.
Now the person to whom the window belonged might get upset and of course that's true, it's not a law that he must grow angry, but if that is how his brain is wired there's nothing I can do to change that. So the reason one does not go around throwing bricks through windows has nothing to do with made up laws, but a question as to whether he desires to face the consequences that actually exist. In this case if you do not want to go around making people angry with you then you probably shouldn't go around tossing bricks through windows.
Yesterday I caught a show on the History channel about the ancient Greek myth of the Minotaur and it reminded me of my comparison between man-made laws and an un-navigable maze. The idea of course is that the Code of Laws has become so complex that not one person has the brain capacity to fully understand the laws or how they connect with one another.
The maze of laws has become so complex that all who enter quickly become disoriented. Not knowing what laws there are or when they're going to change one never knows when he's going to turn a corner and run into that man eating beast called the Minotaur. Since no one knows exactly what all the laws are there is no man who can navigate this maze and know for sure if he's about to break a law or not and even then it requires a lengthy trial to determine if he did in fact break one.
Moreover in many cases another trial is required to determine if this law that he may or may not have broken is in violation of some other law. No one knows for sure if he broke a law and no one knows for sure if the law he may have broken is violating one of the other laws. Even after a trial has made its determination it's entirely possible that one of many subsequent appeals determines the opposite of what the original trial determined. Even those who interpret the laws often disagree as to what they mean, you could hold a thousand trials and some would say the victim was guilty and others would say he wasn't.
To expect that anyone could navigate this maze without running into the Minotaur is insanity, even the creators of, interpretors of and enforcers of the law cannot consistently agree as to where the maze begins or ends, where exactly the corners are or if the Minotaur has eaten someone or not.
Moreover this labyrinth of insanity is destined to collapse upon itself. Being as how the creators of this labyrinth, congress, cannot successfully navigate it themselves they're never quite sure if they're placing a new wall for which the foundation doesn't support or if they're removing a load bearing wall in which all or some portion of other walls rely. It's a crazy game of Jenga, the tower always collapses eventually.
Although at least in Jenga you can look at the whole structure and understand how it stands, far more than I can say for the Code of Laws. The fact is that no good has ever come from delusional behavior. The Minotaur and labyrinth never actually existed, neither did the Code of Laws. To believe in such things is both delusional and self destructive.
P.S. I wouldn't say it's entirely unfair though, if you get eaten that is. After all, you did vote for the Minotaur no?