Small government advocates carp about government intrusion, over-regulation, and the wisdom of forcing laws down to local levels, sometimes at the risk of being inconsistent. But, inconsistency is bipartisan, a product of trying to solve difficult problems without context or tainted by economic preferences or moral beliefs that others don't share.
It’s de rigueur for small government advocates to carp about government intrusion, over-regulation, or the wisdom of forcing laws down to local levels, sometimes at the risk of being inconsistent.
Inconsistency is bipartisan and a product of trying to solve difficult problems without context or tainted by personal economic preferences or moral beliefs that others don’t share.
Fair-Weather Libertarians
For example, gay marriage. Many fair-weather libertarians, Tea Partiers, and conservatives support the federal Defense of Marriage Act, despite its codifying government meddling in personal lives. The position creates a conflict between a personal moral decision and a fear of Big Brotherism. One can’t make a black and white argument for both. You either have to sacrifice a little personal morality or soften some iron-clad objections to government meddling.
So, let’s look at a new issue within the paradigm of small government, regulation, and personal freedom – the state of California requiring porn actors use condoms to cut STDs for professional pud-wielders and, by extension, the rest of us.
The decision’s already at a state level, so one point for the local decision crowd.
But, it should be a regulation bother for the strict, anti-regulation folks. More unsheathed boffing, more big bonuses for horny porny CEOs. Almost nothing is more profitable than porn in a free-market.
Schtuping for Hire
Yet, many with a pantload of self-proclaimed piety wouldn’t object if Big Brother and the Choking Company moved in and outlawed porn altogether, not withstanding government’s interference in schtuping for hire.
Most people would prefer a sharply delineated world where decisions are a binary yes or no. But, they also want exclusive moral notions of right or wrong, despite what that means to everyone else.
When they catch others in their inconsistency trap, they’re powerful anti-inconsistency wolverines scarfing up the carrion. When they catch their leg in the trap they’ll chew it off to explain their own inconsistencies with arguments as weak as an elementary school debate team’s.
News flash. The world is complex. The world is capricious. Big, small, or medium government isn’t the answer on its own. Neither is keeping everything we’re already swimming in. Sometimes yes is no and sometimes no is yes. Anyone who thinks the world should always be totally fair or consistent or based solely on their morals or ideology is a dog pissing on an imaginary tree.
And, it gets the rest of our shoes smelly and wet.
Cross posted at The Omnipotent Poobah Speaks!