Defensive Law Offensive Laws Too Many Damn Laws

The nature of Humanity requires some modification to reach a civilized compromise with its social, physical and emotional needs. Education and training in childhood, both at home and in schools, provide the main elements that most of us use to survive our own worst nature. Then there is the last resort of society, the law that governs those who will not or cannot govern themselves adequately. Most of us do not act out in hostile ways or create scenes that have a bad outcome unless we have imbibed too freely or used some other drug to release our inhibitions. Of course when we are young and full of the juices that scientists call hormones all bets can be off until age tempers our mettle.

Social conventions are attacked at some level by some members of most generations. The Baby Boomers were no exception and as they age their voices are turning into a fine whine protesting everything from wrinkles to death to taxes. Long before that final breath is yielded up though they will have participated in the most massive expansion in the creation of laws ever attempted by mortal man. There are laws that most generations would never have dreamed of creating. They are on the books in just about every environment that humans occupy in this nation and the movement is spreading worldwide. Oh yes we are a nation of laws, way, way, way too many of them.

Most laws are limits on behavior and they are put into place to prevent us from defecating in our own nests. That is hard to put delicately. The purpose and meaning of most of the things we traditionally applied the solution of law to in order to regulate our society was to keep our behavior within generally acceptable bounds. Laws related to public health were one of the most successful extensions of law developed by civilization. They were one of the main elements of civilization ever to make the world less healthy for any animal; other than the two legged simian variety that you run into daily as you travel around your home territory. They extended human life dramatically and possibly gave rise to the phrase, "There ought to be a law." Probably not though, Grog probably uttered those words when the ugly mean bear moved into the cave next door.

From Yaweh  through Moses we have ten Commandments mostly honored in the breach these days but good in their conciseness and elegant in their sensibility. Hammurabi gave us the idea of civil organization through law as a written and encoded set of rules and other lawgivers in history have continuously contributed to the growth of law as a social mechanism. Now we have laws that tell us how to build our homes so that we do not create any kind of nuisance that brings down the neighborhood. This is, like most social improvements, a thing with good and bad consequences.

For instance building a windmill in my backyard might not make my neighbors happy even if it actually lowers the cost of powering my home, so many neighborhoods prohibit that type of structure. Crowding is considered bad so most neighborhoods allow only one house on a lot unless they were subdivided before the 1970's. The truth is those improvements in civil code all come with a cost. The rise in the cost of housing was not all caused by the infamous bubble in the bankers champagne. The house that sheltered my family through my earliest formative years would never be permitted today even in most rural settings. It kept us warm in the cold Minnesota winters but it had too little insulation to ever meet code and had no indoor bathroom until I was eight years old.

One problem arises when people change their minds about what should be allowed in any given area of civil jurisprudence the law is not easily changed. So building homes for the poor members of our society still requires a huge investment in infrastructure in most neighborhoods. Poverty is clearly on the rise but our building codes do not offer many easy resolutions for the condition of homelessness. While I hardly believe turning our cities into places where people are living in tents and shanties made out of cardboard is a good idea I thinks making them live on the streets is a worse solution. This is a classic dilemma where laws made for totally valid reason get in our way in our attempts to produce solutions to social problems.

The truth is law is a tool that cuts on both edges. Laws like the, "Patriot Act," provide far too much latitude for agents of our or any other government to use to make sure we are not up to something they might not like. Is this a one-way trip to perdition brought on by our unceasing urge to control our neighbors? Maybe it is or maybe it isn't but I am happier than ever to be older today. I am thus not facing daily the world we have all created in our attempts to create the perfect society through law. I sit in my little house on my little street and keep my wife and cats and plants happy and the world is a good place.

What the hell do you mean I can't put a greenhouse on this lot without a permit! If I build it according to your damn code it will bankrupt me! All I want to do is provide a little space for my plants to survive the winter, I do not want to make my mother-in-law live in the bloody thing. It would be nice if my cats and my wife and I could enjoy more light and warmth and sit out here on a cold but sunny winter day! If I want to attach a sauna or install a hot tub what is the problem with that? A fireplace in the north wall is a good way to use natural heating to keep the place warm!

This is a Greenhouse for God's sake! I use that standing water in the open plastic containers to hold solar heat for the cold winter nights and to water the plants! The compost pile in the anteroom also helps keep it warm and provides carbon dioxide! I need a permit for the ice pond that I am using to hold the excess rainwater for use in the garden next spring? If the garden is above ground level I need a permit to change the landscape? No chickens allowed in this neighborhood? What the hell do you have against raising my own eggs, this is a small urban farm. What the hell do you mean I need a special permit for that and my lot is too small!? May whatever Gods that will have you keep you safe in these law ridden times.