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Comment by 1a_user | Hacker News Reader

Why do American laws have such stupid names?

I live in the UK, and the similar law is called the Digital Economy Act, and specific regulations would be named something like the Adult Content (Access by Minors) Regulations

Why do American lawmakers feel the need to make ridiculous acronyms for their laws? It's genuinely baffling. All it does is make it look like they're not taking it seriously.

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So people who would otherwise be extremely against it, feel as if they should support it.

Like the ironically named PATRIOT act, which went against much that the original US patriots fought a revolution for.

Don't forget the Build Back Better Plan which got renamed to the "Inflation Reduction Act" even though the CBO estimated that the bill would have no statistically significant effect on inflation. The assholes in congress straight up lie to the American public with the names of their bills.

It’s marketing.

It is only a small group of people who seriously consider the names of bills, and an even smaller group who gets upset if the bill doesn’t match the name. The US does not dominate the globe relative to most other cultures because we make everything at random, we are extremely good at propaganda/marketing

This stuff is starting to leak into the UK. Why? Because it's not policy that's directed at outcomes, it's policy that's directed at getting particular media coverage. It's part of the permanent campaign. If you pass a bill that improves lives for hundreds of millions of citizens and nobody remembers the name, you wasted your time and don't get re-elected.

> If you pass a bill that improves lives for hundreds of millions of citizens and nobody remembers the name, you wasted your time

I think people that pass bills that are aimed at improving the lives of the citizens do not particularly care.

Which is why our political system is filled with people that care about getting re-elected at the expense of the citizens.

Americans have a very direct no BS way of communicating. It's a drug-store and not a "Chemist's". It's a f'ing elevator and not a "lift". You go to the "cinema" and we go to the movies (shit's moving around). Dustbin? Trashcan...

The legislative bills have always had very embarrassing propaganda names though. It plays into the George Creel media industry the US government has always favored.

“elevate” is more of a fancy word than “lift” which is more direct

Elevator is what it is, elevate is what it does. If we wanted to use 'lift' we'd have to call it a lifter. I don't care for either term because I take elevators/lifters down too, but I don't want to have to change to calling it a 'descender' depending on what floor I'm on either.

I do agree it's just infantile. As if voters can't make an informed decision unless the name of the bill is just trivialized.

I'm not sure when exactly it started, but American laws didn't have these ridiculous acronyms 40 or 50 years ago.

Wait, are you saying you're against the Puppies and Kittens Act?!

Haha right, and the breakdown of the bill will be something like:

Military expenditure: $10.3 billion Kitten welfare program: $7.32

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