Yes. Next question?
...
It’s part of a larger question: how can you guarantee that another person will place your interests first and not their own?
The answer people who clamor for safety over freedom don’t want to
hear is: you can’t. The ones trusted with your safety, unless it is in
their own interest otherwise, can decide to leave you to your fate at
any time. History has shown that while some few will put the safety of
those in their care even against their own self interest (parents
looking out for their children might be an exception to “few” and even
that is questionable in the larger scope of history) that’s a pretty
long-shot bet. In the end, those you would entrust with your safety
look out for themselves long before they look after you.
3 comments:
This is another way of saying what Warren Meyers at coyoteblog keeps repeating: Ultimately, it's a matter of motivation. When a bureaucrat has power over your life, he may or may not have all the relevant facts about how something applies to you, he may or may not have the mental capacity and time to evaluate everything, but what he does not have is a reason to put your welfare above or even equal to his own. A government agency may start out staffed with idealists who put the mission first (and even that can be quite bad for those affected by the agency), but in the long run, the idealists are always replaced by those employees that put the interests of the agency first.
When it comes to gun control, freedom IS safety. The best safety is not being helpless in the face of danger.
--generic
MarkM: Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy
Anony, that's a marvelous way to put it.
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