THERE OUGHT'A BE A LAW

    

Tucson Weather Today

_________________

After reading a quotation by Winston Churchill: "If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law", I began to wonder about laws, especially about how many laws there are in the United States. So, as has become my habit, I did a Google search.

I found, at answers dot com  . . .
There are levels of government city laws, county laws, State laws, and finally federal laws. Different cities, counties, and States may have similar- but different- laws, and they all fall under federal law.

Actually, the proper question would be how many federal crimes are there? The US Justice Department is your best source to keep tract of this total. The fact there are so many criminal laws, the odds of no one breaking one in a lifetime are so astronomical, it would make DNA odds look like simple math.

Since the start of 2000, Congress has created at least 452 new crimes. So the total number of Federal crimes as of the end of 2007 exceeds 4,450. Ninety-one of the 452 were contained in new laws that created 279 new crimes, and the remaining were contained in amendments to existing laws.The total of 452 new crimes breaks down by year as follows: 65 for 2000; 28 for 2001; 82 for 2002; 51 for 2003; 48 for 2004; 13 for 2005; 145 for 2006; 20 for 2007. The Appendix to this report lists all the federal statutes containing new crimes.

In the opinion of one seemingly intelligent writer: "America has too many laws. January 1st 2010 saw 40,627 'new' laws on the books in the USA. And the laws we do have are tedious, overly complex and sometimes not only impossible to understand, but impossible to comply with. That brings me to the question: If jurors can 'mot' understand a law well enough to determine if someone broke it, just how do lawmakers expect citizens to understand it enough to obey it?"

And in the opinion of another writer . . .

“In the end more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free.”
--Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

One of the earliest maxims that comes to mind regarding laws is "Laws Are Made To Be Broken." Is that true? Some people believe so. Breaking some laws is sometimes called civil disobedience. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr writes to express the importance of civil disobedience, individualism, and justice vs. injustice. Dr. King Jr. states in the Letter from the Birmingham Jail that "a law is just on its face and unjust in its application."

Have you ever read any of Dr. King's writings? Probably not. I did, but it was a long time ago and I had forgotten much of it. Yesterday I re-read a very special one: The link is below:

Letter from a Birmingham Jail

_____

HISTORICAL CLIP

 On January 29, 1845 Edgar Allan Poe's poem "The Raven" was published in the New York Evening Mirror.

"The Raven" is a  poem by American writer

Edgar Allan Poe.

First published in January 1845, the poem is often noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a talking raven's mysterious visit to a distraught lover, tracing the man's slow fall into madness. The lover, often identified as being a student, is lamenting the loss of his love, Lenore. Sitting on a bust of Pallas, the raven seems to further instigate his distress with its constant repetition of the word "Nevermore".

Read The Poem Here

_____

WORD FOR TODAY

obeisance  [oh-BEE-suhns]
Noun
-  Deferential respect, as in: "they paid obeisance to the prince".
-  A gesture expressing deferential respect, such as a bow or curtsy.
-  Demonstration of an obedient attitude, especially by bowing deeply.
Synonyms
reverence - homage - respect

_____


BORN ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY



Sara Gilbert

Born Jan 29, 1975
Age:  37 years old

Sara Gilbert (born Sara Rebecca Abeles) is an American actress, best known for her role as Darlene Conner on the ABC sitcom Roseanne from 1988 to 1997, as co-host and creator of the daytime talk show The Talk and for her recurring role as Leslie Winkle on CBS's The Big Bang Theory.

W.C. Fields

Born Jan. 29, 1880
Died Dec 25, 1946

William Claude Dukenfield, better known as W. C. Fields, was an American comedian, actor, juggler and writer. Fields was known for his comic persona as a misanthropic and hard-drinking egotist who remained a sympathetic character despite his snarling contempt for dogs, children and women.

Tom Selleck

Born Jan 29, 1945
Age:  67 years old

Thomas William "Tom" Selleck is an American actor and film producer. He is best known for his starring role as the private investigator Thomas Magnum in the television series Magnum, P.I. (1980 to 1988), based in Hawaii. He also plays Police Chief Jesse Stone in a series of made-for-TV movies based on Robert B. Parker novels. Since 2010, he has appeared as NYPD Police Commissioner Frank Reagan in the drama Blue Bloods on CBS-TV.

Nicholas Turturro

Born Jan 29, 1962
Age:  50 years old

Nicholas Turturro, Jr. is an American film, television and prolific on-stage character actor, perhaps best known for his role as James Martinez, on NYPD Blue from 1993 to 2000.

__________

Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
--George Orwell