Reddit reviews The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America

The Death of Common Sense is an excellent book on the topic. And it's not just in schools either, practically every public employer is rampant with CYA and blind rule-following.

>Oh God. The one thing we don't want them to do is put in clauses and addendum for every eventuality.

This is one of the big complaints in The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America. It's a good read that does a solid job of pointing out the major problems that our system faces as it ages.

These laws are written broadly and held up by the courts for a very specific purpose. It gives the state all the power. Try walking around society today and not be in violation of several laws; I dare you. This excessive careless lawmaking has turned us into a anxious, complacent, litigious society that has killed common sense. It will only get worse (enjoy the decline!) because laws are easier to make then they are to remove.

edit.

This from the article was also well stated.

>Arizona’s child molestation laws have been weaponized into a tool for prosecutorial harassment, allowing the state to target any parent or caregiver—out of spite or malice, or simply to boost their conviction rates.

"Weapons" of public control and personal career advancement is a very good example of what many laws have become in our society.

A lot of von Mises's works covered some of the problems of regulatory capture, but the only modern books that remotely discuss some of these things are The Right to Earn a Living and The Death of Common Sense.

Please NOTE: I have not read the 2011 version of the Death of Common Sense, but I have followed Philip K. Howard for a long time and he's right, the US legal system is a mire and we need significantly less laws to reset the system to a point where it can start working again.

I am a libertarian working in government, primarily because I don't think it's right for me to criticize the system from the outside if I'm not willing to get in and repair it. The quagmire of laws is working to civil servants' detriment, not making it easier for us. In fact, many laws are custom-tailored to give certain corporations the advantage and it's quite evident if you really know the area of government you're in.

Wow the comments in this thread are stunningly dense, reactionary and filled with useless anecdote. I guess everyone thinks they are an expert on the American school system because they spent a period of time in it. Many rules like this are district not school policy. I've seen multiple examples where teachers and principals who stood up to zero tolerance policies were asked to carry it out or be let go by the district/charter board. What created this and other disasters is simply the litigious nature of our society. Fear of litigation causes schools, and businesses to overcompensate in their day to day operating policies often times with terrible outcomes. If you'd like to learn more about this phenomena I'd highly recommend Philip K. Howard's The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America

>Great question.

Great Answer.

Edit: For anybone interested in learning about the governmental over-regulation going on in the US and the ramificatioons on the citizenry, THIS is a very clear and easy to read account. It isn't brand new information, but is almost completely current. Excellent book.

I just started reading this book (only about 50 pages in), and it's quite good. It's about the lack of common sense in our legal system and regulations, everything has to be written, recorded, and has to have a rule attached to it. Nothing in our system is "simple" anymore.

http://www.amazon.com/Death-Common-Sense-Suffocating-America/dp/0812982746