Eric,
I think this is brilliant. I would love to see 10 years of law removal.
I'm afraid Obamacare lost me the second I heard about its size. It is
disenfranchising, not only for the voters, but for the congressman who
couldn't digest it.
We pass laws, and if they don't work we add complications. If the courts
nullify parts, we add workarounds, until we have something incomprehensible,
ineffective for its intended purpose, but very good at gumming up the works.
Consider the pointless mess campaign finance reform laws have become.
I love creativity and am always open to trying something new -- but real
creativity includes a willingness to see if it worked, undo the damage, and
try something different if it doesn't. The governments (federal, state) are
weak on step 2.
The useful distinction here is may be complexity vs. complication, and a
bias towards control. Huge bodies of laws and rulings may give the illusion
of control and certainty, but they deaden the vast network of interactions
which make us up. The Federal Reserve, managing one to two key variables
(the discount rate and the reserve requirement) is more effective than the
huge bodies of regulation which are so ripe with unintended consequences
(e.g. the Mark to Market rule).
-Mike Oliker
"Message: 10
Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2012 10:24:06 -0400
From: "ERIC P. CHARLES" <e...@psu.edu>
To: Roger Critchlow <r...@elf.org>
Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
<friam@redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Is my government too big?
Message-ID: <1347719046l.2158618l...@psu.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Roger,
Two points:
1) Being a third party kind of guy, with no particular
loyalty for or against
Obama (though keeping a healthy fear of Romney), I share
Owen's frustration at
Obama's inability/unwillingness to clearly articulate his
successes. His
overall record includes a surprising number of major
successes that few seem to
know about.
2) I don't think anyone has a problem with the government
scaling in needed
ways to the population. Yes, as cities get bigger, they need
more police
officers, firemen, etc. When people complain about "the
growth in government",
I think what they are really complaining about is the
proliferation of new
laws, especially when they involve "mission creep", in which
the government
starts to regulate newer and less necessary parts of their
lives. When there
are too many rules for people (i.e., legislators) to keep
track of, you start
to get schizophrenic sounding contradictions, which are
necessarily enforced
arbitrarily. Much of our problems could be solved if, at
least for a short
period, we convinced legislators to brag about how many laws
they repealed,
rather than them feeling they had to justify their existence
by proposing and
passing new laws. To make matters worse, when the per capita
size of government
remains the same, and the number of new laws continues to
grow at staggering
rates, it must be the case that enforcement of the old laws
and regulations
starts slipping. This means even more arbitrary enforcement
and uncertainty.
Eric
P.S. Not a Federal issue, but: I have a friend who does some
fun looking pistol
competitions, and have been considering getting the licenses
to participate.
The PA gun law is 126 pages thick. When getting the quick
summary from my
friend, I was surprised to learn, for example: 1) There is
no license required
to own and carry a non-concealed, loaded firearm. 2) The
license to carry a
concealed weapon is easy to get, and will even let you drive
with a concealed
loaded pistol on your person! 3) If you are hunting with
have a rifle (or any
long-barrel gun), and accidentally lay it in plain sight in
the passenger seat
of your car, that is a big crime, even if you have said
permit. If anyone could
explain how that combination of laws makes sense....."
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