I doubt this is a surprise to most of my readers, because, so far as I can tell they are mostly sane small goverment sorts, but anyway, this morning in my blog-reading I found three cases of government regulation having the usual effect of making things worse.
Numero Un is The Englishman's Castle where the proprietor would like to turn the piggies on his farm into dosh via the sale of their constituent parts in the form hams, bacon etc. etc. made in the traditional manner. Now my understanding of this is that the pig raising is what one might call the small-holding scale with one or two pigs at a time being butchered and smoked, cured etc. and the resulting organic traditionally produced meat would seem like just the sort of thing that yuppies in Islington would delight in feeding to their guests at soirees. Unfortunately there is a catch, the EU in its infinite wisdom, and combined with the even greater intellectual resources at DEFRA, have made this idea possible only if the producer jumps through more bureaucratic hoops than a lion at the circus. Result: the Islingtonites are forced to get their hams from large industrial enterprises not small-holdings and dosh fails to arrive in the pocket of the Englishman. Additional result: the Englishman is less likely to make a go of his farm without turning it into an unsightly piece of industrial farm landscape, or precisely the opposite of the aims of the CAP and related schemes.
Numero Deux is across the Atlantic where a poor couple who have fallen in to the maw of the "child support" bureaucratic monster. You see these two people made the mistake of
Getting married
Having children (three)
Getting divorced
Losing job(s) and hence requesting state social security
As a result, despite a basically amicable divorce settlement, custody arrangement (50:50 plus or minus), the dad finds himself up before the beak required to pay more than two thirds of his (small) income in child support each month. And if he doesn't get a sane hearing he'll be classed as a "deadbeat dad" and put in jail for failing to meet that requirement, something which he obviously can't do since living on $250/month is not possible in the USA. If he does go to jail then
He loses his job and hence all his income
The state doesn't get any money but has to pay to feed him
He probably loses his house etc. because he can't pay the rent
His ex wife gets to look after the kids 100% of the time
Which reduces her chances of finding a job
Which means the state needs to pay more
Lauren writes soemthing in conclusion which I thought was anathema amongst "liberals" but which gives me hope that sometimes they understand :
...no matter what we are told about child support and custody laws, ultimately the state’s main concern is itself. In the meantime, a specialized set of lawmakers make a racket off of our greatest fears of forcible separation from our families.
The third case, also from across the pond, is the "annoying" internet speech statute which rocketed around the blogosphere. As with numero deux, although some of the details are US-centric, the chances are high that our European masters will come up with something similar - indeed the proposed British "hate-speech" legislation is not disimilar. The problem here is that in an attempt to reduce stalking and harassing phone calls a law was passed that makes such calls an offense. This law has just been updated to cover the internet and as is the norm the legislators have drafted the law in such a way that practically anything could be considered an offense. Whether existing case law will make it less over-reaching is debatable - the page linked above has opinions for and against - but either way the lesson is clear. Governments pass stupid laws and then pass more laws to try and rectify the damage caused by their previous laws and never consider the idea of actually revoking the original.
The lesson should be clear: contrary to the claims of l'Escroc, Bliar, and statists all over the place, the state is not your friend and never has been.