Protect Us

I just read an article (http://www.aolnews.com/health/article/your-kids-buy-e-cigs-do-you-know-whats-in-them/19633977?test=latestnews) on E-cigs.  I had never heard about them before, but apparently they are a new trend.

 

There is a lot of buzz about regulating them, like most things.  The more I read how this spokesman or that for various foundations and campaigns to protect us from ourselves wanted the government to step in and regulate these things, the more grumpy I got.

Why did I get grumpy you ask...because there are so many little campaigns trying to get us to beg the government to protect us from ourselves.  The worst ones are some that want to protect children from various things. 

I have three main problems with the "Protect us from Ourselves" crowd's push for government regulation.

1. Regulation doesn't work.  Whether it is cigarettes, R rated movies, alcohol, mortgages, prescription drugs, or anything else, it just doesn't have much impact.  Regulations are a bunch of legalistic words written on paper stored in some regulation library.  The average person wouldn't understand the meaning if they read them, and those that can understand (lawyers and politicians...pretty much one in the same these days) immediately set to work on figuring out where the loopholes are (usually put there by these same people).

2. Because regulations don't work, they become too broad in an effort to make them work.  The problem with this is it is self-defeating.  As the regulations over-reach in an attempt to be effective they interfere with activities that were not the target of the original regulation.  This can either cause certain unrelated liberties to be sacrificed (if the regulation is enforced) or further degrade it's effectiveness as people reject it (if it is not enforced).  Those who reject the regulation (gun laws are great examples) ignore them, leaving only those who would have likely exercised good sense to begin with obeying the regulation.  The net effect is usually null if not negative.

3. Regulation cost money.  The cost is hard to measure because it is not just the cost of the bureaucracy it creates (which is usually significant and endless), but also the cost on the free market and the burden of obedience.  Having worked for a top 10 mortgage company I can tell you that the cost to mortgage comapanies related to compliance with regulations is huge.  All that cost impact dividends to investors, inflates the cost of services to customers, and reduces the number of employees the company can afford to have.

So why do we have so many regulations if they are such a bad idea?  Fear and the desire to control others instead of convincing them to change behavior with reason.  Somewhere along the way the idea that our government was responsible for making life fair for all meant forcing certain behaviors on certain citizens.  It works something like this:

1. I think drinking alcohol is bad, so I don't drink it. 
2. I see a drunk and don't like how I feel when I see a drunk. 
3. I tell the drunk that drinking alcohol is a bad idea. 
4. The drunk ignores me and drinks anyway.
5. I work with other who are like minded to educate all on the evils of alcohol.
6. The drunk ignores me and drinks anyway.
7. We boycott store that sell alcohol.
8. Some stores stop selling alcohol.
9. The stores that do sell it have greater profits on alcohol because of less competition.
10. The drunk ignores me and drinks anyway.
11. We go to the government to have alcohol regulated (abolition in this case).
12. Politicians resist (the like a good drink every now and then).
13. We remind them that they will need to re-elected (and we vote, but the drunk won't).
14. Politicians protect their careers by passing a law regulating alcohol.
15. Gangsters bootleg alcohol and sell it on the black market making huge profits.
16. The drunk ignores me and drinks anyway.

 Whether it is alcohol, guns, cigarettes, R rated movies, prescription drugs, alternative medical treatment, or most anything else, regulation is not effective.  In the end regulation serves to increase the size and expense of our bloated government while needlessly reducing the liberties of people who would have acted responsible in the first place.

 

Now that regulation has turned into a revenue generating system for the government it will be hard to remove.  Take driving for instance.  The constitution says we have a right to free travel, but some thought to regulate that free travel in many ways.  Now the government has a revenue stream from the requirement to have a drivers license in order to drive and speed limit regulations.  This is how we have gotten so many layers of regulation.

 

The worst part is how it has changed the way we think.  Our founding fathers did not risk everything for the right to have the government regulate every aspect of our lives.  Just the opposite is true, they risked all to remove regulation and establish personal liberty.  It is true that for there to be civilization, there must be some sacrifice of absolute personal liberty, but if you read the writings of our founding fathers they warn of the certain doom of personal liberty by taking the very path we have chosen.  Regulation removes the larger part of personal responsibility and give it, along with the attached liberty, to the government.  This has gone on long enough that we expect the government to limit our choices for our own good.  Those who have no self-control or discipline may think this beneficial, but it is a theft of liberty, and nothing more, to those of us who would be responsible for ourselves.