@Daryl: Well, I read your proposals but they strike me as… random. Why 51% and not 50.1% Why 95% and not 99% or 67% or whatever. And I don’t even want to get into definitions of what is a precinct and so on. You’re smart so surely you understand that written law is a word game and no matter what rules you write it can always be twisted as need requires. The more you write, there more there is to twist. The less you write, the more room there is to simply nullify the intent of whatever was written (think of the Commerce Clause, for example).
The Confucians believed that the law should never be written down. “Unlike many other major civilizations where written law was held in honor and often attributed to divine origin, law in early China was viewed in purely secular terms and its initial appearance was greeted with hostility by Confucian thinkers as indicative of a serious moral decline, a violation of human morality, and even a disturbance of the total cosmic order. Historically, the people’s awareness and acceptance of ethical norms was shaped far more by the pervasive influence of custom and usage of property and by inculcating moral precepts than by any formally enacted system of law.”
While I think that writing is a powerful tool for furthering our understanding of law, I agree with the Confucians, in principle. Written law is a sign of serious moral decline.
Also, one last try on that link:
Clayton -