Unintended Consquences

In the Twelfth Century, an abbott named Bernard of Clairvaux is believed to have coined the proverb, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."


Today, the concept behind this very wise insight is often referred to as "the law of unintended consequences."


'Unintended consequences' are results from a given action that are other than what that action sought to produce. These are not coincidences, but direct causes and effects, and they often over-ride or exceed their actual intent.


The Founders of the United States of America understood this concept very well, which is one reason why they worked very hard to write a Constitution that very clearly specified for the federal government a set of enumerated powers as well as very clear limits to what the federal government may do. This in turn limited the harm that could be inflicted, as is inherent in any form of government.


Today, the perils and harm inflicted by the over-bearing and tyrannical governments that the Founders referenced have become dim memories or forgotten altogether, and even recent examples of tyranny are dismissed as 'not possible here', and many people have abdicated their duty as free people to monitor their government against the enumerated powers and limits of the Constitution. As a result, the federal government has been by default allowed to far exceed its constitutionally-enumerated powers and limits, and usurp the powers reserved to the states and The People, and the law of unintended consequences has become the law of the land.


Thus, we stand on the brink of tyranny and chaos.


A few examples:


Minimum wage or "living wage". 


Good intention: 


Prevent exploitation, raise economic status of unskilled and entry workers.


Unintended consequences: 


Fewer jobs for unskilled and entry workers, reduced benefits, less availability of on-the-job training, more illegal hiring and exploitation, economic status of intended beneficiaries is not improved, etc.


Methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE) gasoline additive.


Good intention: 


Make gasoline burn more cleanly, producing less air pollution.


Unintended consequences: 


Existing storage tanks could not contain highly-toxic MTBE, and it leaked out into the watershed and reservoirs, poisoning drinking water (some areas had to find alternate sources of water); having to replace storage tanks with new MTBE-impervious ones that cost hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars per station, putting a large number of independent gas stations out of business, which in turn handed the market to the oil  company-owned stations, which reduced competition and raised pump prices; accelerated wear on motors; reduced  milage, negating the benefit, etc.


Gun control and confiscation laws.


Good intention: 


Prevent violence, murder.


Unintended consequences: 


Criminals become disinhibited from preying on presumably unarmed law-abiding citizens; violent crime and murder increased; innocent people, usually the weakest among us, are rendered unable to defend themselves; law-abiding citizens are made felons and lives  ruined because they unwittingly run afoul of  any of thousands of constantly-changing arcane and unclear prohibitions and restrictions - that are almost all in violation of the First Amendment, (I know someone who was made a felon  this way, and my unarmed cousin was murdered in his house), etc.


Community Reinvestment Act, Fannie Mae.


Good intention: 


Create opportunities for home ownership, and easier access to home ownership, particularly among people of middle and lower economic status.


Unintended Consequences:


Forced banks to lower lending standards in order to meet mandated loan numbers in certain communities, which spread into the broader market; banks knew they could sell most of their loans to taxpayer-backed Fannie Mae, thus largely removing risk and incentive to avoid risky lending; the real estate market exploded into an over-priced bubble; investment instruments were created out of these loans in order to create opportunities to indirectly invest in the real estate boom and distribute risk; when the economy slowed down, the price of real estate stagnated or decreased, eliminating the basis for speculation and collapsing the real estate and mortgage markets, and the broader financial industry behind them.


Banning DDT.


Good intention:


Protect birds from damage to eggs due to DDT.


Unintended consequences: 


Malaria-carrying anopheles mosquitos, to that point under control by DDT, proliferated, taking worldwide deaths due to malaria from near eradication, about 3,000 cases per year, to 2 to 3 MILLION per year, over the period of the ban amounting to about 60 million deaths, mostly children and the weak, exceeding the total death toll caused by Adolf Hitler's perverse ambitions. As it turns out, the ban was based on sloppy science and misrepresenting completely contrary lab results, in a book by Rachel Carson, and birds'  survival were never in danger from DDT.


Of course, every such outcome spawns a whole new set of voluminous laws, regulations, and rules in attempts to solve the unintended consequences without repealing the cause, and the cycle is repeated and exacerbated.


The road to Hell, indeed!


There are many, many more examples, and it's not hard to think of them. And there are hundreds of thousands of laws, regulations, and rules (only a fraction of which anybody, including in government or law practice are familiar with, and thus any one of us could at this moment be a "criminal" without knowing it), all with 'good intentions,' whose unintended consequences we could review, but our time would be better spent kicking out the malefactors and fools in the federal government, and seeing to electing and appointing people to government positions who don't have personal interests in amassing government powers and careers.


The only question is, will we once again rise to our duty as free people and do so?

"A Republic, If You Can Keep it"

As Benjamin Franklin left Independence Hall after the final day of deliberation and the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, a woman stopped him and asked, "Well, Doctor [Franklin], what have we got - a republic or a monarchy?”

Franklin answered, "A republic, if you can keep it."

Franklin's answer was quite wise, and perhaps prescient. 

He understood that the Constitution that he had just helped write, and the government and nation it would now define, was only as good as the diligence of The People in holding their elected and appointed officials to its enumerated powers and limits, as well the willingness and ability of The People to assume the risks and responsibilities that would now be essential and necessary in order to live in a civil society with unprecedented liberty and freedom, and clearly defined protections thereof.

He also understood how difficult this might become, hence his "if you can keep it."

What does this mean?

It means that in order to keep the republic, you are required to participate. Most people would respond to this by saying "I vote, so, I'm participating." WRONG. Participation means: 

1) Understanding just what it is in which you would participate, that is, the Constitution, the supporting documents of the Constitution, history, and current events.

2) Understanding just what your elected and appointed officials are doing, as well as the consequences of their actions - both intended and unintended.

3) Holding your elected and appointed officials to the powers and limits of the Constitution and to the highest ethical standards and fiscal responsibility.

If you don't have the knowledge derived from 1) and 2) you are incapable of completing 3), and you should NOT vote.

I just had the intense displeasure of sitting in a restaurant well within good earshot a group of people who were engaged in a conversation I can only loosely describe as 'political'. These people were so completely clueless that they would make excellent fodder for one of those late night TV impromptu street interviews in which people make utter asses of themselves by their appallingly ignorant incorrect answers.

One woman kept remarking incredulously about her housekeeper. "She's brilliant!" she repeated at several points. "She's written a few books." "Her English is better than mine. She has a Shakespearean command of English." But the woman also couldn't understand how her housekeeper, who she repeatedly suggested is smarter than her, could hold an opposing view to hers and vote, "against her own self-interest". This woman simply could not understand how her smart housekeeper could find taking other peoples' money via government police powers, both directly and in the form of government services, repugnant.

A man at the table actually declared with complete, but ignorant confidence to his companions, that "progressive income tax rates are in the Constitution" (they are not, only the power to levy taxes is mentioned in the Constitution).

It not hard to realize exactly how we have the crooks, tyrants, parasites, lunatics, and idiots currently in Congress, the courts, the White House, statehouses, and bureaucracies when you realize that these people, and tens of millions just like them, vote.

Even worse, because there are so many ignorant fools as these, the Constitution has been rendered little better than a quaint historical document by hubristic and power-hungry politicians, judges, and bureaucrats taking advantage of this lack of knowledge, vigilance, and action. A sampling of how:

The Tenth Amendment says that any power not enumerated elsewhere in the Constitution is reserved to The People and the states. Every day, the federal government flagrantly violates this Amendment, with the help of the next example.

The 'commerce clause', which gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce for the purpose of keeping commerce between the states free and unimpeded, has been perverted via the bizarre judicial contortion that since any given penny eventually crosses state lines, everything and anything is "interstate commerce" and can be "regulated" (with "regulation" taking on an entirely different meaning and scope than that intended by the writers of the Constitution), and thus the federal government gave itself powers it was never intended to have, that are supposed to be left to The People and the states.

Obamacare attempts to pay for itself via a federal mandate that individuals buy a private product, that is, health insurance. Seems like a good way to cover the costs, but the government has absolutely NO right to force a citizen to engage in any act. If this insurance mandate is upheld, it would mean that the government has the right to force anyone to do anything. This violates so much of the Constitution it's too much to specify here!

And most recently, the National Defense Authorization Act, which in flagrant violation of the Constitution gives the federal government the power to arrest American citizens on American soil on mere suspicion of "terrorist affiliations", and imprison them without evidence, charges, hearings, trial, or habeas corpus. This effectively repeals the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, doing away with all guarantees of due process. Knowing a couple of people who were falsely accused of crimes, this is no abstract fear I express!


Of course, many of you think none of this touches you, or that you benefit from it. The problem is, everything comes with a cost. What you don't pay for with money, time, and labor, or that of other people, you pay for with reduced liberty and freedom, and thus opportunity and future, and eventually and inevitably it touches everyone, and we are harmed in ways we've never yet had to suffer in America (but are starting to), that have caused immeasurable misery and enslavement throughout the rest of the world.

So, I wonder - can you keep it?

Or is it already gone?

In which case I challenge you: Can you take it back?