Sunday was, as Marc pointed out yesterday, the day on which hundreds of new laws (223, to be exact) went into effect for Maryland residents. Most of these were so narrow-focused that they probably won’t affect your life in any way, but a few of them will end up costing you money. The Baltimore Sun has a good summary of the few that will matter to the most people.

After I tweeted out that list yesterday, I received a reply from Maryland Juice, a political blogger that tends to lean towards the opposite end of the spectrum as we do. This is what he said (translated from Twitter-speak below):

The Washington Post article compares VA and MD’s new laws. The contrast: More taxes in MD vs. More right-wing regulations in VA.

He’s right, I’ll give him that. The Washington Post article is more interesting than the Baltimore Sun article – and for more reasons than one.

First: VA enacted 766 new laws while MD only enacted 223. If you ask me, 223 new laws every year is too many. But 766? That’s way too many. It goes to show what a  blessing it was that our legislators spent so much time arguing over same sex marriage and the budget. It left less time for them to come up with hundreds of silly laws.

More importantly, however – as Maryland Juice points out – it does seem that blue Maryland focused much more on the taxes than red Virginia. And it does seem that red Virginia focused much more on the intrusive laws than blue Maryland.

It just goes to show: we can pretend all we want that all our problems would be solved if “the other guys” were in power. But really, both parties have their own agendas, and “solving America’s problems” don’t appear at the top of either one. They’re out to remake society in the way that they see fit, leaving everyday citizens like you and me to pick up the pieces and try to live our lives as best we can.

If only there was an alternative – a party that stood for lower taxes and for a life as free from government intrusion as possible. If only there were groups that advocated limited government and individual liberty as their two major tenets. And if only there were institutions that worked tirelessly to promote these ideals each and every day of the week.

If only…