Today I was discussing a reminder email ("You have an appointment coming up!") from my dentist - it had pretty pictures but lacked the date and time of the oppointment.
We've all seen web sites with flashy graphics but no contact info and/or how to buy what they are selling.
It's as if the text itself is intended to obscure the meaning, rather than explain it.
Now imagine the task is "defining the lives of 300 million people a significant fraction of which is actively engaged in attempting to find any loop hole" and think how many lines THAT would take.
1) They regulate complex situations; 2) They reflect complex compromises between factions; 3) They are effectively diffs against existing law, with the excess verbiage that entails.
I'd bet the diff of the VM subsystem of Windows between 7 and 8 would be very complex and inscrutable to a non-programmer too.