< PREVIOUS ] [ 1992 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >
One traditional rule of medicine is first, do no
harm.
In other words, the treatment should not cause
more damage than the affliction.
But such ancient wisdom (or, indeed, any other kind of wisdom) seldom reaches the ears of those who govern us.
Consider the malady of unemployment. My two teen-aged daughters wanted summer jobs, so they ventured to the local Job Service office.
In my jejune days, the office immediately sent you off to buck hay, shovel dirt, haul alfalfa, flip burgers or change sheets.
To get started on those exciting and glamorous careers
now, you fill out five pages of forms. The state also wants
report cards, test scores from school counselors, and, to
be real snoopy, some check stubs and certificates for
verification of the source of income for everyone living
in the household/family for the past 6 months.
Does all this needless information cure unemployment? I can't imagine how this paperwork will give a kid a summer job, although the requisite verification, compilation and filing must employ hundreds of two-bit ribbon clerks who might otherwise constipate a productive enterprise.
Then perhaps the disease is abuse of a government program designed to help the needy. Is our public treasury any better off for spending $25,000 to prevent the possible fraudulent gain of $5,000 worth of Job Training Partnership Act benefits? The cure is worse than the disease.
Look at federal law enforcement. At a cost of millions of dollars a year and immense paperwork burdens on American business, the Immigration and Naturalization Service is supposed to protect us from the plague of illegal immigration. It obviously doesn't, and even worse, there is no one to protect people from the INS. The cure doesn't work, and its side-effects are worse than the disease that the INS was supposed to cure.
There's the DEA, protecting us from the scourge of
drugs. However, for every person I can think of who's been
a victim of drug use, I can think of three or four who've
been victims of drug enforcement. Our constitutional rights
evaporate under helicopter surveillance, no-knock raids and
pre-trial asset seizures. The Bush Justice
Department even has the gall to seek an increase in
everyone's telephone rates, so that it will be easier for
them to run wire-taps on fiber-optic lines.
These cures cause far more damage to society than a few pot farmers ever could.
It's as if you go to a doctor with a bellyache.
Swallow a teaspoon of turpentine mixed with
kerosene,
he prescribes. A fortnight later, you feel
even worse. Then drink a quart a day,
he says. He
might lose his medical license for such foolish advice, but
he could always enjoy a career in government.
< PREVIOUS ] [ 1992 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >