Regulations, which usually attempt to establish formal societal expectations/demands relating to conduct, sometimes overreach their intentions. By trying to address all possible deviations from acceptable behaviors, regulations can be so prescriptive and/or so restrictive that they unintentionally stifle progress. The American Bar Association says effective regulation aims to “align private behavior with the public interest.” In my opinion, governments are capable of imposing regulatory burdens so onerous that they effectively suffocate the very societies they intend to serve, resulting in suicide by strangulation. Ideally, regulations would be sufficiently broad in their prescriptive or restrictive language to establish broad parameters of acceptable/unacceptable conduct; but not so precise as to impose unnecessary constraints. Unfortunately, broad parameters too often can allow for interpretations that are counter to regulatory purposes. Hence increasingly narrow, complex, and detailed regulations. If regulations were accompanied by precise—but separate—descriptions of their purposes, perhaps the need for “over-regulation” would be unnecessary. But the reasons behind over-regulation sometimes seem to be based more on the convenience of regulators than the interests of the public. The causes of over-regulation would be easily solved if just one element of its causes could be repaired: human nature.
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About halfway through yesterday afternoon’s church board meeting, my gut began to bother me a bit. Two hours after the meeting ended, as I watched news coverage of Hurricane Helene’s approach to the Florida coast, I decided I might feel better if I tried to sleep for awhile. “Awhile” turned into eleven and one-half hours. Though I woke several times during the night, most of those hours were spent in slumber. This morning, I feel considerably better, though not yet quite at one hundred percent. When I was awake during the night, I considered what could be causing my discomfort; I decided it must be related to my gall bladder, my pancreas, inflammatory bowel disease, gastroenteritis, or something else. It might be something minor, as well. I am not much of diagnostician. Incidentally, blog reader, I record this sort of information here simply so I have a record of such events—it’s not because I think my medical symptoms and such are of interest to the world at large.
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Only through earnest desire to help one another achieve contentment will humankind recover from its self-made challenges and survive. Survival alone, though, is not enough. Universal physical and emotional comfort is necessary.
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Peace goes into the making of a poem as flour goes into the making of bread.
~ Pablo Neruda ~
