There are certain principles that as we go through life and our education we run across that give us tools to deal with decision making. Through my life I have studied philosophy as an amateur practitioner of ideas and politics and found the idea of Ockham’s razor fascinating. A simple tool that allows us as individuals to see the world in the simplest fashion, scrubbing all the complicated flotsam out of the way, something our politicians should do for every bill that crosses their desks.
Deconstruct the bill so that all that’s left is the simple reason for its existence and make a decision based on that. Also strip away all the language until a simple understanding of purpose can be made to see if the bill is even constitutional. Most would find my saying this absurd as it should be done in every case already but we know as citizen voters our representatives do not do this and in many cases act as if it does not matter.
Every current law should be looked at through the prism of Ockham’s razor by the Supreme Court and decisions should be made on constitutionality not by a living changing document but a static document that has rules and boundaries. If those boundaries are crossed then the law should be stricken from the record. I realize that the court waits for some legal entanglement to occur involving itself in these issues but wouldn’t it be more efficient if they looked at all the laws that have been signed into law after the President signs them, making a judgment that would save everyone time and effort. Now so many laws exist no one is really sure how many or what they all are, someone needs to clean these up, shouldn’t that be the Supreme Court.
Also I wonder why the founding fathers decided to have a partisan position (President) choose the Supreme Court Judges. Shouldn’t this choice have nothing to do with party politics and everything to do with constitutional knowledge?
If Ockham’s razor was utilized for Obamacare the simplest solution would be to get rid of it and use the knowledge learned to create a better solution, yet here this nation is still trying to decide. If Ockham’s razor was utilized for the problems of foreign and domestic policy the President and cabinet would be gone. Maybe it is time for all of us as citizens to use Ockham’s razor to see the truth behind what our politicians are saying in our name.