Sunday, November 25, 2012

Ignorance of the law is no excuse

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse."

We've all heard it said hundreds of times.  Because of this basic legal principle, you can't claim that you didn't know it was illegal to kill, rob, or imprison your neighbor. 

That "Ignorance Of The Law" maxim probably came into being long before legislators were bought and sold like the branding rights on a NASCAR uniform. 

The Teleprompter Jesus administration has proposed more than 1,600 regulations in the last 30 days. 

Go here for the details on each one.  Each has a campaign contributor or a power-mad bureaucracy behind it.  Considerations of the health or well-being of the nation are secondary at best. 

If you violate any of these, you'll probably be fined or go to jail. 

Get busy.  Start reading. 


Pic came from here. 


3 comments:

CenTexTim said...

Here's another story that'll make your head explode.

In 1930 the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act set protective tariffs of 38% to 68% on imported shoes to protect U.S. shoe manufacturers.

Fast forward to today, when 99% of the shoes sold here are imported. There is no U.S. shoe industry anymore, but the tariffs remain, artificially doubling (give or take) the price we pay for shoes.

That's one reason I think all laws and regulations should have an expiration date.

Stephen M. Smith said...

During a visit to Tallinn, Estonia, I read somewhere that in medieval times the entire city would meet at Town Hall one day a year to listen to the laws being read aloud (there were rather fewer laws on the books at the time, this being well before the EU constitution). The laws had to be read to the people because most of the population was illiterate, and by doing so the government could then claim that "ignorance of the law is no excuse - we just read them all to you." The saying has survived, but the context that made it plausible at the time has been completely destroyed.

NickM said...

You should try being British. Tony Blair made c.3,000 things illegal. Including amongst other things selling a grey squirrel and entering the wreck of the Titanic.