We are each of us faced with large problems, and small problems. Sometimes, to keep from feeling overwhelmed when there are large problems that take a lot of time to work through, we turn to the small, nitty little things that irritate the crap out of us, and we tackle those. Knock a bunch of those off our plates -- or at least grouse satisfactorily about them -- and we can convince ourselves we've accomplished something.
This is about a nitty, irritating thing of little consequence, but since it points to a larger issue -- a society that wants to punish the many for the sins of the few as the lazy-ass way to address issues -- I felt it worth blogging about.
There are four entrances to the parking lot where I work. My drive in, while not the very worst in the world, is nevertheless significant enough that I really want to make it as efficient and pain free as I possibly can. I have a route I take and it takes me past one of the four entrances. That is the entrance I use. It's convenient.
This morning, it was blocked off.
I rounded the corner, and the next two were also blocked off. The final, fourth entrance, the furthest from my route and from the area where I park, was open.
Irritating. Nitty. Small. So you just know I had to comment and see if I could, well, "do something about it."
I asked the guard on duty at the entrance, the guy who stares at you to make sure you're wearing a badge and not carrying a bazooka into the building, why they chose to block off the entrances. Turns out the contractors on the site who have been converting the old manufacturing building into offices and labs -- and there are tons of these guys on site -- have taken to using these entrances as sort of thoroughfares, blasting through the parking lot with their trucks and trailers as they come and go.
'k, so rather than pull the contractors into a meeting and telling them "don't do that any more" they just block off the entrances. So all of us, including the 600 employees in the facility, have to funnel into one entrance.
Some one thought this was a good solution. From my perspective it's sort of like building a wall around your family room to keep your toddler from coloring on the walls in there. Sure, it keeps the kid from coloring on those walls, but now no one can go in there to watch TV.
From my perspective, it sometimes feels that's how society at large handles things, too. I'm talking nanny-laws. For example, the relative handful of people who refuse to wear seat belts who then get into accidents that cost the insurance industry some money they'd rather not spend has spawned nanny seatbelt laws. Pop down to the corner store, don't bother pulling the band across your chest, a cop notices you're seat belt-less, and you stand a chance of having to pay a fine. I always figured it should be different -- IF I choose to not wear a seat belt AND I get into an accident where someone has to scrape my sorry ass off the road and someone else has to foot that bill, well, punish me and mine at that point. Or, better, the person who caused the accident that turned me into jelly. Don't punish me if nothing happens, fuck sake! Raise my insurance rates if and only if my hypothetical choice to not belt up causes them to pay out more.
Or this one: New Fast Food Outlets Banned In South LA
On Tuesday, Los Angeles City Council unanimously agreed to ban the opening of new fast food outlets in South LA for one year, in the hope this will give time for healthier restaurants to gain more of a foothold in a part of the city that one recent survey said had 30 per cent childhood obesity.
So that doesn't really penalize all of us, but the thinking is the same: because some people overeat food that is of questionable health value, the city is banning new incidences of those sorts of eateries. I still do not believe that there is a societal harm that is costing all of us when many of us have lifestyles that lead us to obesity. Any societal harm to date seems to be stemming more from the nanny nature of government taking the brunt of increased costs of social services. Maybe put social services on a diet, instead of people? I don't know. I don't have the answer. But it irritates me that punishing the many for the sins of the few is in the forefront of the mind, here.
I also think about lawsuits that, in the end, cost us all in increased prices for products and services, because the actions of one or two idiots end up making some lawyer wealthy. This is more gut-feel, though. I lack hard data for this and, being as this is a blog and not a piece of serious journalism, I can't be arsed to spend time searching for it.
I'm really just cranking on about the moron who thought chaining off the parking lot made sense. :-)
You have two topics mixed together. One is bureaucratic stupidity, and the other is nannyism. Granted they're a deadly combination, but they seem like separate issues.
There's a personal responsibility clause written into the wiring of the universe. Whatever you do, or don't do, the consequences are right in front of you on that little path to the grave.
People try to make everything nice with insurance and cops and various forms of protectionism to avoid that personal responsibility. In the final analysis you can't avoid it.
Nannys are a bunch of fucking pussies born in Disneyworld who are too lazy even to whine about things they don't like, so they elect legislators to make laws to keep the crap they'd whine about away from their sweet widdle worlds.
Oooh, people are getting too fat! Make a law to keep greasy food away from them! It'll be good for them!
As if making marijuana and heroin, or alcohol, illegal will stop people from using them.
Fuckwits. I'm thinking nannies in cattle cars here. But that's just mean of me. We need to find a way to let Darwin kill the motherfuckers off before they finish strangling everybody else. Make them take responsibility for their own actions and maybe they'll back off on taking responsibility for other peoples' actions.
Splash me with a bucket of water, Dorothy.