Quote of the Day
imagine if we treated adding a new law to the economy in the same way we treated adding a new medicine to the body. you’d have to demonstrate no harmful effects show up in controlled trials, people who pass laws with damaging side effects would be held liable, etc
Aella @Aella_Girl
Posted on X July 26, 2026
Imagining that is almost orgasmic.
Like we do drug trials?
Oh, you mean they only use a tiny group, lie to the group about the likely effects, don’t document everything, experiment on the poor foreigners first, give the makers immunity if a regulator adds it to a list, and only publish the studies we want you to know about?
Yeah, only really sounds good if you know nothing about how drug trials actually happen, only how they are supposed to happen…. which actually resembles how laws are actually made and enforce more than I’d like to think about, now that you mention it…
Point. But I’d say the current legislative process is more like a snake oil salesman convention, with a panel discussion on the best ways to get the rubes to buy. Or perhaps, as it’s referred to as “sausage making,” the Upton Sinclair version.
I see your clinical logic and raise you “well, you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.”
Every time I see that quote, and that attitude, I want to follow with, “If the omelet isn’t forthcoming in the quality promised, we’re going to wind your intestines around evergreens.”
OK but not in my backyard!
Great idea. Stupendous, in fact.
Exactly how is it to be done? And by “done” I mean:
Implemented in a constrained manner to a limited area and population to limit negative effects and allow detailed examination of the results.
Define exactly which population, recognizing that the U.S. has 50 defined groups, each of which has multiple sub-groups.
Using what metrics
Over what time period
Using, precisely, what population.
Define the review process, including timeline.
Define the post-review modification (assuming some modification is required) process, including timeline.
Define what occurs if timeline(s) are not met, i.e., “revert to previous condition(s); restore previous social, financial, legal conditions; define recourse, if any, for potential corrective actions if reversion is necessary.
And, assuming the “test group” experiences substantial improvements, define compensation measures for all the non-test groups who did not benefit from the experiment.
And, assuming the “test group” experiences substantial negative impact(s), define compensation measures for all members.
(And, bearing in mind the “current sudden public awareness” of the damages done by The Masters of Covid, specifically including the deliberate harm to children – who lost two years of critical development time by being excluded from school and social events – define exactly how temporal restoration will be performed – show EXACTLY how you will replace whatever time is lost to those going through the experiment, and by extension, the same for those not
benefitting from it.)
Submit the proposal in writing, in detail, and show your work. You have 90 days to publicly submit. Publicly. Submit.
And, while the pointy-heads are engaged in that, the rest of us can peruse the ancient scrolls of previous civilizations, specifically, the Constitution of the United States of America, officially ratified as of 21 June 1788 (thank you New Hampshire). In it we discover two thoroughly ignored sections, quaintly called “The Ninth Amendment” and “The Tenth Amendment.”
The Ninth Amendment reads: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
And, The Tenth Amendment, which reads::The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibitied by it to the States, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”
So….were one to consider devising a limited experimental procedure to test the mental acuities and devotion to the citizenry of federal legislators, it would appear that the American Political Neanderthals of the 18th Century – all those “Dead White Men” so chastised by the ugnorant and unaware – have beaten us to it.
We have fifty states, each sightly different from the others, in climate, physical condition, economy, legalities, and socialization, in both great, and small, ways, within which are untold numbers of similarly alike and different groups, called :counties,” “cities,” “towns,” “unincorporated communities,” and “random groups of people living sort of near each other.”
Rather than jump on the “let’s try this really cool new thing” bandwagon with “legislative trial groups,” how about just reducing the fucking federal government to what was originally specified in the Constitution, limitiing its involvement in the affairs of the nation to what the Constitution defines, and letting those 50 states become the “laboratories of innovation and experimentation” those Dead White Male Political Neanderthals of the 18th century originally specified?
A good start would be repealing the 16th and 17th amendments outright, appending the 14th to eliminate the so-called “birthright citizenship” bullshit (which was never intended to apply to anyone other than freed slaves, not the most recent third trimester arrival from a South American Shitastan), and appending the 19th to specify necessary citizenship and performance requirements to become a Voting Member of the Society (Heinlein had good ideas there, but a bit too restrictive; that said, something more than pulse and respiration must be required before one is admitted to the group allowed to control the entire country).
There are other necessary changes, but if we start with those there’s a chance of scaling back the calcified dead hand (and brain) of federal government to what was originally conceived and allowing those “Fifty Insiginificant Political Jurisdictions” to once again become the driving forces of American Ingenuity and Prosperity.
It’s “The United States of America,” not “America With a Huge Federal Government and Fifty Playtoys for Congress.”
It’s “The United States of America,” not “America With a Huge Federal Government and Fifty Playtoys for Congress.”
As an aside, when the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has in their party platform to “Abolish the border(s),” does anyone seriously think interstate borders are exempt?
They’ll want one consistent federal rule from Hawai’i to Maine — including everything in between — not this patchwork of sovereign states, each with their own priorities.
If we want to keep the Constitution – and see it retained as the operating standard for the country – it will, at some point, require large quantities of accurate gunfire, applied with no quarter or favor given.
Not this cycle, but it’s coming.
I always liked one of the ideas Robert Heinlein put forth in his book “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”.
Bicameral legislation – one house passes laws with a 2/3rd majority. Other house repeals them with a 1/3 vote.
If only laws were twice as easy to repeal as they are to enact.
(Yes, I’m aware that given the near-50/50 party split the two chambers usually have, a 2/3 majority is nearly impossible — except for judicial approvals in the Senate, for which a 90% majority isn’t uncommon — while a 1/3 vote is practically a shoo-in, but the mathematical “twice as easy” theory is still sound.)
This rhymes with Trump 1.0’s policy that any new rule had to be accompanied by two repealed rules, which had it’s own practical limits (usually agencies getting rid of two small, unenforced rules it doesn’t care about to get one it does care about and fully intends to enforce) but was still sound general policy, IMO.