Let's write some laws
Laws, laws, laws! It’s been estimated that average person breaks up to 25 laws per day. City Councils make ‘em, as do county commissioners, school boards, legislators and hindy covering bureaucrats. Every day, thousands of people are frantically making or changing laws. Though, we could probably exclude the current do-nothing U.S. Congress that gets its new laws from White House tweets.
We need rules of human conduct to have some semblance of order and to separate us from the lower animal forms, but we could get along just dandy with a whole lot less of those government kind.
Of course, I’m not down on all types of laws. Most of us approve the laws of chemistry, physics and mathematics, because they make provable sense. They are logical. I saw a railroad sign in Florida many years ago, which illustrated several laws of science. It said “The South Coast Limited goes through this crossing at 80 miles-per-hour, whether you are on the tracks or not.” None of us need a lawyer to understand that kind of law.
Many of the everyday laws I like the very best are those that just have the author’s last nine. The most famous of these may be Murphy’s Law, which actually has three parts: 1: Nothing is as easy as it looks. 2: Everything takes longer than you think it will. 3: If anything can go wrong, it will. It is Murphy’s third rule that we most easily recall.
I can’t recall who said “Workers are promoted to their highest level of incompetence.”
If anyone has collected the best of these laws into a handy reference book, I’m not aware of it, but most of us have a small personal collection. Some favorites are worth recollecting now and then.
Chamberlain’s Law of Probable Dispersal states that “Whatever hits the fan will not be evenly distributed.”
Stengel’s Basic Law of Baseball says “Good hitting will always stop good pitching, or vice versa.”
Yogi Berra’s Law of Accumulated Wisdom states “You can observe a lot just by watching.” Yogi authored many good ones, including this one regarding a New York restaurant. “Nobody goes there anymore because it’s always too crowded.” He’s also the one who said “It ain’t over ‘till it’s over.”
There was a graphically illustrated sign in my brother’s busy office at the Bell Manufacturing office, which said “It is hard to remember why you wanted to drain the swamp when you are up to your ass in alligators.” (Author unknown) There’s no law against any of us making up laws. I guess I’ll try a few.
“Californians can’t stand solitude unless there are people around.”
“The person that wrote the ad is never the one that waits on ya.”
“The best fishermen are not regularly employed.”
Hey! This is fun. I tell you what let’s do. Why don’t a few of you deep thinking readers sit down and make up a law or three. Write ‘em down. Who knows, somebody just might make the world forget less famous philosophers like Murphy and Ostrom.
G.George Ostrom is an award-winning columnist from Kalispell.