It's midnitght.
At 277 Elm (45N78W)
Curling season just finished with loss in 3rd game of annual Men's Industrial spiel (I've over 20 consecutive of them under my belt.)
It is, he says, Ed's last came with the Barristers.
Sad really, but we've had plenty of warning, which is the most you can expect.
By tuyping this little intro I lost the main thought, brief as it was.
Gone.
Trying to recall it but all the while typing.
It was a curmudgeonly thought, as I recall.
Rather cynical.
But with the potential to be humourous.
Oh yeah,.
I think it had to do with having everything I want.
I got it all.
As much, in any respect, as I ought to have.
Oh yeah, here's the slogan that occurred to me.
I'm a species kind of guy.
Not so much a Canadian.
Or an Ontarian.
Or a Sudburian.
Or a Northerner.
Or of European ancestory. (Gaelish or Gaulleish or a mix).
Or should those 'Or-s' be 'Nor-s'., save for the last.
That's who I'm pulling for.
Leastwise in the short run.
I'm pulling for good ol' Homo Sapiens.
With a longer run view that a new, improved species will eventually emerge,
at which point I'll be pulling for that new species
That's my job.
Or my 'raison d'etre'.
My grand purpose in life.
To ensure we Progress.
And with certainty, the conventional wisdom about Progress,
on an evolutionary time scale,
involves a preferred species.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Well Intentioned Misdeed - The Idling Bylaw
Ask a pharmacist (or general medical practitioner for that matter) how to treat back pains and chances are good that medication for pain relief and muscle relaxation will be prescribed. Ask an acupuncturist for advice on the same back pain, and don't be surprised if a course of acupuncture is prescribed. Ask a chiropractor and the answer is sure to be a series of chiropractic spinal manipulations. Ask a physiotherapist and you're in for a rigorous exercise regimen, otherwise called physical therapy.
Can you see a pattern developing?
Now take the concern of idling motor vehicles, going nowhere yet spewing noxious fumes that contribute carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, and worsening prospects for climate change. If you ask a legislator, say a municipal councilor, how best to solve the problem you can safely wager the answer will be let's make a new law that prohibits idling.
It occurs to me that the revealed pattern is a variation on the old joke about a down and out drunk looking for something late at night by the curbside. A sober gentlewoman happens by and sees the poor fellow on his knees under a streetlight. She asks with genuine concern "what is it that your doing good man?" The drunk replies "I'm looking for some coins that I must have dropped." Without aforethought the woman says "Well where do you think you dropped them?" Also without much thought, the drunk answers, his arm extended and his finger pointing to the other side of the street "Over there." Surprised the woman says "Why then are you looking here?" Perhaps you know the punchline: "Well this is where the light is".
Ah yes, looking where the light is, is a familiar pattern. But it is not that clever a strategy, and we may frankly conclude it is rarely an effective strategy.
My thesis is that while the solution the law makers offer was bound to be anticipated, it is a wrong headed solution, and indeed no solution of any consequence. It is looking for a solution where the light shines. Municipal councilors have few tools available to them, bylaw making being the obvious one. But merely because the law making option is open to them does not mean that law making is an appropriate solution.
In a general way I argue that legislative solutions (read: New Laws), and especially laws of prohibition to influence or control human behaviour are almost always misguided and ineffective, if not counterproductive. Perhaps more importantly, laws of prohibition invariably have unintended consequences that undo any benefits the new law might have yielded. More on this later.
Admittedly there are some citizens who would readily and promptly change their behaviour because the law makers have prohibited something that was their habit to do. And one may also imagine that the number of these citizens who would change their behaviour to conform to the new law increases with the increase in enforcement resources, and an increase in penalties for noncompliance.
But where the enforcement plan is modest or minimal, and where the penalties are not especially onerous, law makers ought not to expect much uptake by the citizenry. The behavioural changes will tend to be equally modest or minimal.
And what about the unintended consequences? For openers, it is quite likely that a whole new group of law breakers has been created. These people may have been good law abiding folk before the new law, but once the prohibition comes into effect, for those that don't immediately change their behaviour, they have now become violators, or scofflaws. And absent extraordinary enforcement of the new law, most of these law breakers will simply continue their now illegal conduct.
Worse yet, there is a real chance that some of these otherwise good folk will lose some respect for the Law. And when that happens, it is to be observed at once that this is a bad thing in the larger societal context. Our society functions as well as it does in no small way because there is widespread respect for our laws. It does not take a superior imagination to appreciate that when a society has widespread disrespect for its Laws, that society is headed in a wrong direction.
So a question emerges; if a new law of prohibition is not an effective way to change people's behaviour, what alternatives might be preferred?
The better path for my money might loosely be called 'advocacy'. Others might call it 'education'. In other contexts it has been called 'jawboning'. This option can allow legislators and do-gooders to join forces in an effort to modify human behaviour towards socially desirable outcomes. But these efforts do not invoke the power or force of the Law, including all the of the government's arsenal of sanctions - fines, or in default of payment confiscation of property or potentially even jail.
Felicitously, in our own times, and in our own communities, we have a real world example of a staggeringly effective 'advocacy' program to promote behavioural change on a rather grand scale. It is the Blue Box recycling program. The buy-in of citizens is quite remarkable. Not perfect mind you, but overwhelming in the proportion of folk who make recycling with the blue boxes a normal part of their quotidian pattern.
Developing the blue box program to get to its present state has been a relatively long process, measured in years if not decades. It has been a program that has taken considerable public resources, funded of course through compulsory taxation. But the program has never had the force of law as a backstop to compel compliance. No law breakers were instantly created. No judicial resources have been expended to deal with those who would not comply, nor for that matter to deal with challenges to the legality of the program. No work has been created for enforcement personnel, nor for lawyers. No freedom of individuals has been impinged. Yet who would deny that the program works well.
It may be that had the blue box program been legislated into being, rather than made optional, the change in behaviour might have occurred more readily, that is at a quicker pace. But that gain would have come at a cost, a cost that I judge too much. The primary cost as I see it is the restriction on the liberty of the individual. While it may be somewhat trivial to connect compulsory blue box participation with state sanctioned restricted individual freedom, I hold that the general principle applies.
Governments, be they at the federal, provincial or municipal level, ought to take the approach least intrusive to individual freedom. Allow individuals to make their own choices. Treat adults as adults, not as children who must 'do as they're told'. Give individuals encouragement to change their behaviour, and by all means use public resources to educate and inform, and even provide incentives.
Can you see a pattern developing?
Now take the concern of idling motor vehicles, going nowhere yet spewing noxious fumes that contribute carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, and worsening prospects for climate change. If you ask a legislator, say a municipal councilor, how best to solve the problem you can safely wager the answer will be let's make a new law that prohibits idling.
It occurs to me that the revealed pattern is a variation on the old joke about a down and out drunk looking for something late at night by the curbside. A sober gentlewoman happens by and sees the poor fellow on his knees under a streetlight. She asks with genuine concern "what is it that your doing good man?" The drunk replies "I'm looking for some coins that I must have dropped." Without aforethought the woman says "Well where do you think you dropped them?" Also without much thought, the drunk answers, his arm extended and his finger pointing to the other side of the street "Over there." Surprised the woman says "Why then are you looking here?" Perhaps you know the punchline: "Well this is where the light is".
Ah yes, looking where the light is, is a familiar pattern. But it is not that clever a strategy, and we may frankly conclude it is rarely an effective strategy.
My thesis is that while the solution the law makers offer was bound to be anticipated, it is a wrong headed solution, and indeed no solution of any consequence. It is looking for a solution where the light shines. Municipal councilors have few tools available to them, bylaw making being the obvious one. But merely because the law making option is open to them does not mean that law making is an appropriate solution.
In a general way I argue that legislative solutions (read: New Laws), and especially laws of prohibition to influence or control human behaviour are almost always misguided and ineffective, if not counterproductive. Perhaps more importantly, laws of prohibition invariably have unintended consequences that undo any benefits the new law might have yielded. More on this later.
Admittedly there are some citizens who would readily and promptly change their behaviour because the law makers have prohibited something that was their habit to do. And one may also imagine that the number of these citizens who would change their behaviour to conform to the new law increases with the increase in enforcement resources, and an increase in penalties for noncompliance.
But where the enforcement plan is modest or minimal, and where the penalties are not especially onerous, law makers ought not to expect much uptake by the citizenry. The behavioural changes will tend to be equally modest or minimal.
And what about the unintended consequences? For openers, it is quite likely that a whole new group of law breakers has been created. These people may have been good law abiding folk before the new law, but once the prohibition comes into effect, for those that don't immediately change their behaviour, they have now become violators, or scofflaws. And absent extraordinary enforcement of the new law, most of these law breakers will simply continue their now illegal conduct.
Worse yet, there is a real chance that some of these otherwise good folk will lose some respect for the Law. And when that happens, it is to be observed at once that this is a bad thing in the larger societal context. Our society functions as well as it does in no small way because there is widespread respect for our laws. It does not take a superior imagination to appreciate that when a society has widespread disrespect for its Laws, that society is headed in a wrong direction.
So a question emerges; if a new law of prohibition is not an effective way to change people's behaviour, what alternatives might be preferred?
The better path for my money might loosely be called 'advocacy'. Others might call it 'education'. In other contexts it has been called 'jawboning'. This option can allow legislators and do-gooders to join forces in an effort to modify human behaviour towards socially desirable outcomes. But these efforts do not invoke the power or force of the Law, including all the of the government's arsenal of sanctions - fines, or in default of payment confiscation of property or potentially even jail.
Felicitously, in our own times, and in our own communities, we have a real world example of a staggeringly effective 'advocacy' program to promote behavioural change on a rather grand scale. It is the Blue Box recycling program. The buy-in of citizens is quite remarkable. Not perfect mind you, but overwhelming in the proportion of folk who make recycling with the blue boxes a normal part of their quotidian pattern.
Developing the blue box program to get to its present state has been a relatively long process, measured in years if not decades. It has been a program that has taken considerable public resources, funded of course through compulsory taxation. But the program has never had the force of law as a backstop to compel compliance. No law breakers were instantly created. No judicial resources have been expended to deal with those who would not comply, nor for that matter to deal with challenges to the legality of the program. No work has been created for enforcement personnel, nor for lawyers. No freedom of individuals has been impinged. Yet who would deny that the program works well.
It may be that had the blue box program been legislated into being, rather than made optional, the change in behaviour might have occurred more readily, that is at a quicker pace. But that gain would have come at a cost, a cost that I judge too much. The primary cost as I see it is the restriction on the liberty of the individual. While it may be somewhat trivial to connect compulsory blue box participation with state sanctioned restricted individual freedom, I hold that the general principle applies.
Governments, be they at the federal, provincial or municipal level, ought to take the approach least intrusive to individual freedom. Allow individuals to make their own choices. Treat adults as adults, not as children who must 'do as they're told'. Give individuals encouragement to change their behaviour, and by all means use public resources to educate and inform, and even provide incentives.
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