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Old 06-14-2006, 12:39 PM   #2
Mike P
Jiggin' Leper Lawyer
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: 61° 30′ 0″ N, 23° 46′ 0″ E
Posts: 8,158
Here's what you're up against.

Go to a law school's library, or to the Federal courthouse's law library, and look for a collection of maroon books titled USCA--that's "United States Code Annotated". Those books contain every Federal statute passed by Congress. It should take up at best one row of shelves.

Next, look for larger brown bound books with a red band across them marked CFR. Those contain the various Federal regulations enacted by a host of regulatory agencies--after the proposed reg has been published in some arcane directory for "public comment". Compare the vast space they occupy compared to the much smaller space taken up by the volumes of USCA. Next to them will be identical looking books called the "Federal Rules Decisions", or FRDs. They contain the court cases interpreting those regulations. They take up almost as much space as the Federal Reporter and the Federal Supplement, which report Federal court decisions in litigation.

Laws are enacted by legislators who are, at least in theory, accountable to the voters (altho when we mindlessly re-elect over 90% of the incumbents in the House and Senate every 2 or 6 years, that accountability tends to disappear).

Regulations are enacted by unelected officials who are accountable to....????

I don't know how long it's been since Honest Abe's government "of, by and for" died, but it's been a spell

Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools, because they have to say something.
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