At long last a fellow with letters behind his name has finally come and said what myself and many like minded have been saying for some time "We don't need a rule for everything". That is to say that we don't need to pass a law every time a tragedy strikes.
"If a skeptic was to wonder why Canadian authorities seem to respond to every tragedy by proposing intrusive new rules that can have impacts far beyond the problems they purport to be addressing, Frank Furedi has the answer: Canada has a cultural "addiction to rule-making."" Joseph Brean, National Post • Saturday, Aug. 7, 2010
I have had the good fortune in my life to not have tragedies where a loved one has died as a result of it.(knock on wood) I've had a good number of close calls and have known people who have. However do we always need a law passed every time someone does?
We have fallen pray to a new brand of "legalism" I say new because the first Emperor of China had used such methods for obtaining slave labour basically by passing law after law that essentially you could not breath without breaking a law. Of course it carried dire consequences back then. Unlike today where many "rules" are just legal pick pocketing by the the authorities.
Indeed we are a rule happy society. We have somewhere in the neighbourhood of a million statutes. So in essence at some point in our daily lives we are breaking some rule or another,with little consequence since we don't have the authorities peeking in our windows and following us around..At least not yet anyway.
The single largest problem with this addiction is that it erodes personal liberty and freedom. It derogates our rights, not that our supreme court cares, they are on record saying that yes that rule does infringe your rights but it is a minor infringement. So go away and don't bother us. Nice of them to think so highly of rights and freedoms since it is their job to protect them. My opinion of that august body has fallen dramatically I now refer to them as Supreme Court Jesters.
Well since we have so many rules already could we not recycle them for other things? It would save printing costs and paper in our parliaments. What is more the pity though is these jokers in parliament like justifying their high salaries and want to show us they care beyond their fully indexed pensions. So they proposed legislation for this that and the other tragedy or crisis du jour. What is odd though is, I don't feel any safer for their efforts. In fact I feel poorer for it all because in the end I am less free.
