Laws...how they are written, and for whom.

[Francisco Montana]

"Fidelity to the public requires that the laws be as plain and explicit as possible, that the less knowing may understand, and not be ensnared by them, while the artful evade their force." --Samuel Cooke (1770)

That quote blows me away every single time I read it.


This could be said so profoundly today about our Tax laws, our Criminal laws....

Samuel Cooke has some serious, SERIOUS foresite and wisdom.


Have at it, Mud-Pit.

[Rush Limbaugh]

"Fidelity to the public requires that the laws be as plain and explicit as possible, that the less knowing may understand, and not be ensnared by them, while the artful evade their force." --Samuel Cooke (1770)

My how we have strayed. Heck if this were so we wouldnt need all these high priced lawyers.

[Darth Wong]

Laws may start as simple concepts, but people find loopholes. And then somebody has to close the loopholes by adding more language to the law. And then somebody else finds another loophole, and ... you can see where this is going.

[the Black Prince]

its interesting to compare Sam Cooke with Sir Edward Coke (also pronounced Cooke) who also wrote in that period and was a great champion of the common law system.
Lord Coke's Institutes of Law are still cited in cases today, notably the definition of murder (3 Co Inst 47 1775)

Murder is when a man of sound memory and of the age of discretion, unlawfully killeth within any county of the realm any reasonable creature in rerum natura under the king's peace, with malice aforethought, either expressed by the party or implied by law...

usually shortened to the "Unlawful killing of a human being under the King's Peace with malice aforethought"

that the law be as plain and explicit as possible must also invariably take into account that the law must be definitive. it must outline what terms mean, it must make provision for circumstances, cover every possible scenario that the legislators wish...

in complicated areas like land law and tax law, this is not possible without creating complex statutes often only understandable to recoghnised experts, (Lawyers, Conveyancers, Economists)

if the law were clear and concise it would also be vague... to vague...

to go back to the above.
murder, in law, starts with that definition. which happens to be 250 years old or so.
so its defined.
what is an unlawful killing (well actually, what a lawful killing is is defined)
what is the kings peace? (peace time non riot act circumstances)
what is malince aforethought (intention to kill or commit grievous bodily harm)

so ok... we could pass the Murder Act 2005 that would define murder as
s1. The Illegal intentional killing of a human being in peace time

still to vague...
what is intention? what is peace time?
the law constantly has to expand on the terms used to make sure that justice is served and the legislators will is upheld.

furthermore, the law must also go into specifics, it must outline punishments, exceptions, types of court to be tried in,
and murder is actually quite a simple area....

land law, tax laws, contract law are very complicated because the what if circumstances and definitions can go on for a long way...
english land law is tied up in about 6 key very hefty statutes dating from 1925 onwards, most of which have multiple variants
i.e the Law of Property Act 1925, 1964, 1969 and 1989


believe me, criminal law by comparrison is very straight forward even when about half of it doesn't even exist in statute.

[Francisco Montana]

Great post Grandpa,

Indeed, I found it very informative and fun to read.

But you still cannot ignore the fact that some of these areas could be scaled down dramatically.

Take the tax code.

There's no reason it should be 30k pages long. None.

If something gets that far out of control, we have failed in our endevour to provide common law for the common man.

I say if something get's that out of control, it should be scrapped. Not added to.


The tax code in the United States should never have to be more than a hundred or at most a couple hundred pages.

Hell, if I had my way, it would be 1 page long....and would go something like this:


If you make under 30k/ year.....walk away.

If you make over 30k/ year.....Please pay us 17% of your income.


Thank you, and Please do come again.


(We can dream can't we?)

The truth is, the main reason we dont see dramtic or even modest change in this code is the vast power and resources of the CPAs and lawyers unions.

Just think of all those CPA's who would be out of business if the tax code was 1 page long.

There's a whole industry dedicated to decifering the Tax Code....that's ludicrous!!!!


I say it's time for CPA's to learn a new trade and become more productive members of society.

[the Black Prince]

thankfully the tax code in the UK a) isn't a law, its a regulatory statutory instrument, and b) isn't nearly so long...

[Prince Kassad]

"Fidelity to the public requires that the laws be as plain and explicit as possible, that the less knowing may understand, and not be ensnared by them, while the artful evade their force." --Samuel Cooke (1770)

In Guliver's Travels , by Jonathan Swift, the land of the giants have a law that all regulations must follow: all laws must be written in 25 words or less.