9 Comments: Really Stupid Stuff Politics Won't Fix

by: elwood

Wed Mar 19, 2008 at 07:20:56 AM EDT

It was triggered by Andy Edwards' front-pager on the attempt to inject a little common sense into New Hampshire marijuana laws and the Governor's promised veto - but the point is, that is far from an isolated case.

My list doesn't necessarily cover the worst public policies we have today. It specifically tries to capture those stupid policies that would never survive if we really lived by majority rule and had political leaders with a reasonable level of leadership. (I think full marriage equality is a no-brainer, but the issue doesn't make the list - I doubt that it would easily command majority support today, even with leadership.)

The candidates willing to actually take a rational stand on these issues are marginalized. Does that reflect poorly on the mainstream candidates? A little bit, certainly - but the real bad guys here are we the voters, and the pundits who act as gatekeepers to political discourse.

The stupid stuff below the fold.

1. The failed embargo on Cuba. It has ensured that Cuba stayed a client state of
   Russia and now China. It helped Castro pose as the victim. It hurt Americans and Cubans, and utterly failed to destabilize the regime.
2. Marijuana laws. They don't work; the notion that marijuana is a "gateway drug" is dubious; alcohol causes far more social problems; prohibition didn't work there either.
3. More generally: a criminal code that locks up a higher portion of citizens here than in any other country (PDF). Are Americans more vicious, more criminal, than other nationalities? Our politicians seem to think so.
   
4. The airport "security" rituals. One sad-sack terrorist tried and failed to bring down a plane he was on using a shoe bomb. The TSA now demands that we all take off our shoes and the airport - even sneakers. Another group supposedly planned to mix chemicals brought onto the plane in separate containers. Now we cannot carry a four-ounce shampoo bottle on board. Does anyone believe these checks have made any difference in our safety? Does anyone believe it is even possible to stop a smart terrorist determined to bring down a plane at the cost of his own life? But we are destroying the American airline industry and pummeling domestic productivity for these farces.
5. Agricultural tariffs. We tax imported foodstuffs such as sugar in order to protect American sugar producers. Are those the industries of the future for America? No. But we have broken the bottom rung of the ladder that third-world nations need, in order to protect Big Farma. As a side-effect, we direct ethanol efforts to corn rather than the more efficient (largely foreign-grown) sugar.
6. Copyright and patent law. Somebody warned that we might see Mickey Mouse pornography when the Disney copyright expired! So Sonny Bono got the copyrights for every "work of art" extended, then more recently Congress adopted the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. The Founders realized that they needed to offer enough of a bribe in the form of a non-competitive market to get people to create new things - but that conversely, competition had to be introduced ASAP.   Does Big Pharma need renewable patents this long, with resultant high drug prices? Our politicians get more funding from the people who hold monopoly status.
   
7. FCC regulation of content. What is the effect of million dollar fines for Janet Jackson's 'wardrobe malfunction'? An uplifted popular culture? No: a migration of engaging content from the airwaves to the unregulated cable channels. If you're comfortable with politicians controlling what people can say on TV and radio, please note that the controls don't work.
8. Selective Service Registration. We've maintained the bureaucracy without using it since the mid 1970s. The military doesn't want a draft. If we actually started it up, we would fly straight into a court case over whether women should be drafted. How long would it take to start a new Selective Service System in an emergency, if we shut this one down tomorrow? Not long.
9. Electronic device interconnects. Aren't we past the stage of technological innovation where we could expect new breakthroughs in laptop power bricks or TV / entertainment center remotes? Wouldn't the consumer be better off with a few regulations that standardized the interfaces? If you lose a power brick, get a universal one (with a standard connector and standard voltages) for $15, not a specific Dell model for $70. With a standard for remote IR signals, find a simple $15 remote that controls basic functions with no configuration at all, and provides access to device specific codes with minimal web-based configuration.

I suspect most readers will nod agreement to five or six of these as just plain obvious. But our political system won't address any of them.