MAKING RULES DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY CREATE ACCOUNTABILITY Excerpt from "How to Be a Real Conservative" - a book in progress - welcome your help in making it better. Few things reveal the disingenuous of the new age liberal movement more than the mission to replace liberty with control. The resulting restrictions on the creativity, opportunity, and potentials of the individual and broader culture are extraordinary. The mission of passing rules and laws is comparatively easy. Execution and enforcement are another matter. The first effort is based in fantasy and the illusions of power, while the second involves accountabilities and the limits of power. One path seeks to create order without accountability and the other recognizes accountability as a foundation for order. In today’s liberalized America, we have lots of signs to guide behavior on our highways, but neither the will nor the manpower to reliably enforce those signs. Cities pass laws restricting firearm liberties for responsible citizens at the same time they maintain a revolving door for criminals at liberty to abuse the property and persons of those citizens. Regulations are passed by the ton to manage the behavior of energy and finance companies, yet abuses are given a conspiratorial wink by PAC fed politicians and lackey regulators fattened by the spoils. In the author’s hometown a crack dealer must be caught and convicted three times before he or she receives meaningful jail time. Inconsistent enforcement efforts and the lack of alternative sentencing resources insure a never-ending parade of young men corrupted into becoming career criminals before accountability is responsibly applied. A pattern that is pervasive throughout our culture is thus revealed – though rules, regulations, and laws exist with a depth and breadth unprecedented in history, a misguided emphasis on restriction over consequence guarantees social failure and regression. One mission of the true conservative is to sidestep those who confuse permissiveness with compassion. Handing responsible citizens a heavy regulatory burden as you minimize accountability for those who abuse the rest of us is leadership cowardice – not compassion. Passing new laws without matching enthusiasm for enforcement is like dropping bombs from 30,000 feet and rationalizing the consequences of your action because you don’t observe the impact. The best way to contain the frivolity of those who enjoy making rules, regulations, and laws is to build-in matching accountability for funding and enforcing their creations. You use fewer pots when you have to wash the dishes. “Never mistake motion for action.” – Ernest Hemingway The Candid Conservative Says- One law, properly enforced, has the power of 100 laws properly applied to paper…
Posted on: Fri, 12 Jul 2013 15:11:32 +0000