Change the Law or the Legislative Branch?

In one of those rare &ldgt;stream of consciousness&rdqt; moments the other day, I was thinking about an article that appeared in the Daily Comet nearly a year ago.

A barber was given a citation for cutting hair on a Monday which was illegal because of a law within the city limits of Houma, La.

As can be expected, there were numerous people all complaining about the citation that was issued. The local District Attorney even complained that he had to prosecute the case and was to ask the Parish Council to repeal the law because he thought it was unconstitutional.

I can't really remember what triggered this story in my mind, but it brought up another article I had read years ago in Forbes Magazine. In this particular article (sorry about no link, nothing came up on Google and the article does predate widespread usage on the Internet), the author talked about how Americans will easily ignore a law that they don't agree with. While In Germany, the Germans will follow the law, even one that would set speed limits on the Autobahn. The difference is the Germans would toss out the legislators that passed the speed restrictions during the next election.

Here in the United States, I think we have lost all respect for authority, therefore we would just as soon ignore the law and keep electing the same legislators that enacted the unpopular law to begin with.

We American's do have another issue in that we tend to protect the legislator that represents us, seeing them as inherently much better than the legislators that represent our neighbors in the next district over.

I do believe Americans have recognized this fact within themselves and that is why term limits have been enacted nearly everyplace they have been introduced.

That leads me to my question, as Americans should we just ignore the laws we don't agree with, most of them are the &ldqt;petty&rdqt; ones that don't &ldqtlhurt&rdqt; anyone or should we learn to start changing the people that make up our legislative bodies more frequently?

Personally, I do think we need to stop reelecting people over and over such that getting elected once doesn't turn it into a life time gig with family members believing &ldqt;someone in the family should carry it out.&rdqt;.