The role of government

As a lifelong libertarian, I have always wondered why we accept and even call for so much regulation in our normal lives, especially when (as far as we are aware at least) we only get the one chance so would want as much freedom as possible. I won't go into the heavy philosophy which has been covered in that field for millennia, but the specifics today which you can personally relate to and are based in practical terms rather than theory.

The two criminal law rules are either for protection of the person and property, and morals. In criminal law week one we went through this, and I and the lecturer could not see the role for any government in choosing a set of morals for anyone else, as they are totally based on culture and opinion and never stay the same in time or place. So I can personally sweep those aside in one go, and continue to say I would vote for the government who would repeal the most laws rather than make them. Of course, the Hegelian dialectic, problem-reaction-solution has also been used since the dawn of government to create false fears in order for them to legislate to remove the imaginary causes of them. This is not really true government at all, it is simply organised deception and not part of what I am talking about.

Regulations are needed the most where there is either the chance of physical danger and the means required to prevent harm from it, and the chance of exploitation. As I accepted the protection principle for criminal law, against physical assault, theft and criminal damage they are covered, as no one would want a totally lawless society where anyone so minded could enter your property and lay waste to it and your family members. But as that law was in place for hundreds of years in most cases why do we need governments today to keep altering or adding to it when preventing an assault was and will always be the same? We don't. In fact, to make a slight diversion, it turned out after the exposure of various banking scandals, our government actually removed a swathe of serious fraud from the criminal law, as they claim the organised fixing of bank and foreign exchange rates (with more coming out each month) is not a crime under the Theft Act (obtaining a financial advantage by false pretences). They can both repeal and rewrite law, but not always in a positive way. Plus this is a huge clue that when governments make or repeal some laws they are not protecting you or me but their friends and themselves. Not such a responsible government after all.

So let's look at some direct examples. Driving can be deadly when carried out untrained or drunk, so needs specific rules and regulations to both reduce the danger and catch those responsible with use of registration and compensate victims through insurance. When in doubt take personal examples and imagine the alternatives, then you'll nearly always get the right decision. Employment obviously opens the door to exploitation of the weaker workers, so toilets, meal breaks and safe working conditions are essential, as basic human rights (even they have their roles in libertarianism, it's not anarchism). Then the manufacturing has to be safe and not polluting, and the products need to be as described. Agreements (contracts) must be fair and binding, and using my own example everyone wants products to do as they claim, be consistent and safe to use. As human nature tends to want as much as possible for as little work and trouble as possible, this tendency needs to be curbed and no group or individual should have an unfair advantage over any other.

I do not believe financing the weak and poor to be a regulatory issue, as it is simply providing a safety net in a civilised society which can afford it. In fact there is enough in many countries to provide a basic income for everyone regardless, freeing up resources from the state for means tests and medical examinations, and simply providing the basics for all. If you're paying tax isn't the best destination paying it back to the people directly, rather than seeing it vanish into a black hole or bailing out the banks? This applies to free health care as well (whatever the Americans think, they are both a historic oddity and so wealthy compared to most they can afford the average costs, but not the major illnesses which can cause a person to lose everything from no fault of their own). The writings of Buckminster Fuller explain this theory in full if you want to learn more.

Few if any of these theories are not tried and tested, like my examples in an earlier piece about having a boss or parents who regulate your every move, causing suffering and rebellion and no pleasure from your experience, where all you need are reactive nudges to get things right rather than an active schedule forcing you to do everything their way when they want, and a constant series of checks. The government are working for us, doing things we cannot do ourselves and need national or locally organising. They are needed to administer the activities described above, rather than rule us. I described the logical criminal and civil laws created at the start of the legal system itself, and only altered in response to changing circumstances rather than changing opinions of voters and governments, while the acts do not change at all. You must all have experienced times in your life when your freedom was restricted for no other reason than it could be. That is the true meaning of equality, rather than the twisted version used by the left. We are all equal as individuals so must be treated as so, and have an equal opportunity to succeed. But as people our lives are equal but our personalities are unique, so we can never be equal in any other way, be it intelligence, strength, wealth, you name it. There is a long list of personal qualities, good and bad, and we are all assigned a set of our own, some which we can change and improve, or waste, and others we are stuck with. That is why the left wing version of equality is false as it tries to force us all into the same individual, assuming or believing women, men, intelligent, whatever can all be pushed to be like everyone else. There is no basis of truth behind that otherwise there would only be one sex and we would reproduce as clones. That is why people who are born with mental retardation will never get a degree however much they are educated, and as I assume even those on the furthest left wing accept that, why do they not accept the same intelligence differences exist across the spectrum, the spurious idea that if someone can pass one exam they could pass them all with the right training, is a utopian nightmare as it assumes no one is really different, and as such if they don't do well it's the fault of society rather than the qualities of the individual. You can make the best of your qualities or repress them, but you can never create them from nowhere. Science is finding more and more genetic bases of each inborn quality, and separated twins are virtually the same in all qualities even when they have never met each other.

It is unfortunately the fault of those on the loony left (loony as they deny studies demonstrating everyone is different however much they wish they weren't, which is delusional) that we are subjected to so much regulation in the 21st century. If you have a government party who believe a delusion, like the Soviets or North Koreans, least of all the religious fanatics in Iran, you will have state totalitarianism. If your government's views are based on false views of life, you will have your life forced to fit the false view, whatever it is. So there is no technical difference between outlawing homosexuality, which is no different to being born black, and stopping bright people from getting into the best universities as their parents have more money than the others who get your place despite having lower grades. If you do not accept people are equal as individuals but born different your government will reflect that error, and spend much of its time and resources trying to change a natural society into an engineered, twisted and repressed one. There is not a single doubt about this. Science began with objective testing of individuals and ended with scientific testing of their genes, and the more they look the more they find to be genetic. You must accept some people are shorter or weaker than others, those are givens, so why not, just because you can't see it directly, more intelligent or aggressive or creative? Children who start drawing or playing the piano like professionals at the age of seven are hardly doing so from encouragement, and some not even from teaching as you can simply pick up a pencil and draw with absolutely no training. Individual genius is impossible to claim as universal, otherwise why isn't every child at that age doing the same thing as the one in a million like Mozart?

I hope using the extreme examples people can see just because the rest aren't so clear and are more subtle they are only variations on the same scale, just because they are more subtle it is easier to deny and ignore them, but if you even claim some people could reach great heights but come from the wrong background despite having few signs of it, or women could all become managing directors, despite needing years for childcare and not being nearly as competitive or interested in such positions as men (they have checked), the maniacal forcing of society to keep those at the top down and try and raise those at the bottom, by 'positive' discrimination, racism against white people (discrimination and racism is the same if directed against anyone, whatever they tell you), and fix exam results by dropping the pass marks so everyone does better all you are doing is creating false hopes and wrecking a free society. Even outlawing words I described in a separate piece, taking medical terms like mongol, spastic and idiot, which all had exact meanings, for 'differently abled', 'mentally challenged' etc, and changing the word for black people every decade and demonising anyone still using an earlier one, is creating trouble for the sake of it. Going back to the moral principle, using any word for anything may be insulting, but insults are part of language, and if some are outlawed people just find new ones. And if you make insulting someone illegal every single person on earth would have a criminal record. If you're not sure about an idea then take it to the extreme and you will be able to see it clearly. And just because the other examples are not extreme and so easy to see does not make them any less true and real, they are just on a different scale. But the principle never changes and never can.