Friday, February 26, 2010

Four Changes to Law

Phillip K Howard spoke recently at the TED Conference and it was captured in this TED Talk.
The land of the free has become a legal minefield, says Philip K. Howard -- especially for teachers and doctors, whose work has been paralyzed by fear of suits. What's the answer? A lawyer himself, Howard has four propositions for simplifying US law.
What are the four propositions?

1 - Judge law mainly by its effect on society, not individual situations.
2 - Trust in law is an essential condition of freedom. Distrust skews behavior towards failure.
3 - Law must set boundaries protecting an open field of freedom, not intercede in all disputes.
4 - To rebuild boundaries of freedom, two changes are essential:
  • simplify the law
  • restore authority to judges and officials to apply law
I do encourage you to view the video (approx. 20 minutes) as the arguments Phillip makes are quite compelling. 



What do you think? Do we stand a chance of getting somewhere with these proposals?


No comments:

Post a Comment