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> Those "minor reforms" were 10,000 pages long So what? We live in a litigious society, laws are verbose because they have to be. Make it too vague and you j

> Those "minor reforms" were 10,000 pages long So what? We live in a litigious society, laws are verbose because they have to be. Make it too vague and you just force the issues to be resolved in the courts making it even more confusing because the rules become written in case law.

marshray 16y ago
The "what" is that our so-called "lawmakers" hadn't written it, much less read it, understood it, and debated it in any rational way before they voted on it. Call me an idealist, but I think that's bad. Like a tax code, usually these kinds of things end up working out mostly to the benefit of the larger parties who pay the most lawyers and professional staff to find and execute on the loopholes.
- krschultz 16y ago
  I don't know, it took about a year for them to pass it. I understand it fairly well because I've read a lot of perspectives on it from both sides. The "IT'S SO DAMN LONG NOBODY CAN UNDERSTAND IT AND THEY SHOVED IT DOWN OUR THROATS SO FAST" is just a tactic to try and sway people who haven't been following in detail to be against it. Anything trying to change this convoluted system is going to be complicated. I do engineering for government contracts. The spec for the system I work on covers thousands of pages. I've read about 6" thick worth of it and that is less than 10%. But they detail down to the most minute thing what you are allowed to do and not allowed to do. The big picture stuff fits on the first 10 pages, and then they drill down into exactly what kind of thread you can have on a fastener and exactly how you are allowed to stress a weld for the next 1,000 pages. But it stems from previous experiences and errors, and it leads to a better product (though a more expensive one). So I don't think "# of pages" should ever be a metric for judging a law.
  - marshray 16y ago
    The "IT'S SO DAMN LONG NOBODY CAN UNDERSTAND IT AND THEY SHOVED IT DOWN OUR THROATS SO FAST" is just a tactic to try and sway people who haven't been following in detail to be against it. Yeah, well what you said is just a tactic to try and sway people to think what you believe. See where that line of reasoning goes? I do engineering for government contracts. The spec for the system I work on covers thousands of pages. I've read about 6" thick worth of it I've read and implemented big specs too and I know how much work they take to produce. And I know darn well it wasn't some committee of smart and well-intentioned elected representatives that wrote it. then they drill down into exactly what kind of thread you can have on a fastener and exactly how you are allowed to stress a weld for the next 1,000 pages. But it stems from previous experiences and errors, and it leads to a better product (though a more expensive one). Are you seriously claiming the health care bill is so big because it's a precise engineering document which "stems from previous experiences and errors, and it leads to a better product"? If so, how much does 10,000 pages of high-quality engineering documentation cost to produce? Who do you think paid for it? I think you're just imagining that it's what you want it to be.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]

marshray 16y ago

The "what" is that our so-called "lawmakers" hadn't written it, much less read it, understood it, and debated it in any rational way before they voted on it. Call me an idealist, but I think that's bad. Like a tax code, usually these kinds of things end up working out mostly to the benefit of the larger parties who pay the most lawyers and professional staff to find and execute on the loopholes.

krschultz 16y ago
I don't know, it took about a year for them to pass it. I understand it fairly well because I've read a lot of perspectives on it from both sides. The "IT'S SO DAMN LONG NOBODY CAN UNDERSTAND IT AND THEY SHOVED IT DOWN OUR THROATS SO FAST" is just a tactic to try and sway people who haven't been following in detail to be against it. Anything trying to change this convoluted system is going to be complicated. I do engineering for government contracts. The spec for the system I work on covers thousands of pages. I've read about 6" thick worth of it and that is less than 10%. But they detail down to the most minute thing what you are allowed to do and not allowed to do. The big picture stuff fits on the first 10 pages, and then they drill down into exactly what kind of thread you can have on a fastener and exactly how you are allowed to stress a weld for the next 1,000 pages. But it stems from previous experiences and errors, and it leads to a better product (though a more expensive one). So I don't think "# of pages" should ever be a metric for judging a law.
- marshray 16y ago
  The "IT'S SO DAMN LONG NOBODY CAN UNDERSTAND IT AND THEY SHOVED IT DOWN OUR THROATS SO FAST" is just a tactic to try and sway people who haven't been following in detail to be against it. Yeah, well what you said is just a tactic to try and sway people to think what you believe. See where that line of reasoning goes? I do engineering for government contracts. The spec for the system I work on covers thousands of pages. I've read about 6" thick worth of it I've read and implemented big specs too and I know how much work they take to produce. And I know darn well it wasn't some committee of smart and well-intentioned elected representatives that wrote it. then they drill down into exactly what kind of thread you can have on a fastener and exactly how you are allowed to stress a weld for the next 1,000 pages. But it stems from previous experiences and errors, and it leads to a better product (though a more expensive one). Are you seriously claiming the health care bill is so big because it's a precise engineering document which "stems from previous experiences and errors, and it leads to a better product"? If so, how much does 10,000 pages of high-quality engineering documentation cost to produce? Who do you think paid for it? I think you're just imagining that it's what you want it to be.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]