While sunshine and lollipops burst over campus during Biola’s Define The Relationship (DTR) Week, the various state and federal governments should also have their own DTR Week. Only it would be called Drop That Regulation Week.
Like uncontrollable, passionate lovers, government officials and bureaucracies are often obsessed with rules and regulations. But any obsession can become unhealthy, especially to those outside the relationship.
EPA’s propositions regulate milk
For example, last summer, the EPA wanted to seize authority to regulate farmers. It proposed (pun intended) to force farmers to submit plans and to implement emergency procedures for responding to, you will never guess, spilled milk.
The EPA justified the regulation by insisting that milk contains oil. Thus, farmers must take measures, no matter the cost, to guard against having their land catastrophically inundated by milk.
Fortunately, the EPA has offered to withdraw the idea, and Congress is pushing to eliminate it. Although this may be a good way to inaugurate a government DTR Week, there are many more instances of government’s obsession to regulation.
San Francisco regulates Happy Meals
The most heart-breaking example is found in San Francisco. In November 2010, the city’s Board of Supervisors enacted a city-wide ban on Happy Meals. Toys may only be included in meals that satisfy certain nutritional prerequisites.
Meanwhile, policymakers rarely question the real and opportunity costs of such legislation. For government, any minuscule benefit is worth any cost.
On one hand, having rules and maintaining the rule of law is vital because anarchy, or a state of lawlessness, is destructive. Rules, however, can be perverse and excessive, in which case anarchy is replaced with its equally dangerous counterpart — tyranny.
Many rules may not be solution
Still, some policymakers deceive themselves to think they can concoct the perfect combination of mandates to protect every citizen from every possible misfortune. They are foolish to consider themselves omniscient and able to craft their much sought-after Utopian state.
The world’s problems cannot be solved by fiat because fallen people with a free will always find a way to elude or break a new rule. Creating more rules only perpetuates a vicious cycle.
First Lady Michelle Obama can urge fast food restaurants to reduce their portions, but people will simply buy more food. California restaurant customers will still order what they prefer, despite the state law that requires restaurants to post nutrition facts on all foods.
Health laws will end obesity; environmental laws save the planet. The list goes on.
The solution to problems is internal: People need to mature by learning self-governance and to teach others to do the same. Yet, a paternalistic government erodes human free will and removes the need for self-governance.
Perhaps DTR Week for government is not a bad idea. Who knows if some well-intentioned bureaucrat, who obviously does not know about Biola’s DTR Week, will decide to regulate love relationships? After all, some love relationships can become unhealthy and a matter of grave social concern.
