I apologize for boring all of you with a look at how and why policy works (or doesn’t) and how it affects the non-government component of society (us). There is a motif to the serial dysfunction of governmental intervention – common threads that lead to increased hazard – that we are, not only not guarding against, but, in some cases, legislating into existence.

Absolute Size. Regardless of the intent or skill of the authors, there is a point of diminishing returns, beyond which the efficacy of a law is inversely proportionate to the size of the bill. Increased size increases opportunities for self-contradiction, unintended consequences, shrinking cost/benefit differential, cronyism exemptions, clandestine non-germane rider clauses, and operational confusion. Vast, sweeping programs invariably produce less and cost more than the salesmen told us they would. Every time. Incredibly, proponents of ObamaCare were fond of holing up Social Security as a shining example of how good government is at running parts of society. Social Security is a confidence game that would make Charles Ponzi blush – it has over $30 trillion in unfunded commitments ($30 TRILLION!) and is dependent upon current donors to pay-in so current recipients can take-out. New investors paying old investors in an enterprise devoid of equity … that’s a Ponzi Scheme.

That’s how government runs big programs.

Complexity. Regardless of the merits of the law, it will be faithfully implemented and enforced inversely proportionate to the operational complexity of the bill. The more convoluted a bureaucratic task, the higher the incidence of corruption and incompetence. Every time. Lon Fuller, long-time Miami law professor, famously postulated eight characteristics a law must exhibit to be considered legitimately binding on the people. Things like not being self-contradictory, being within the citizens’ ability to obey, citizens must know the law exists – but also, a law must be understandable to be legitimately binding. A citizen cannot justly be punished for not obeying something he can’t be assumed to understand. If a bill is complex beyond comprehensibility, it cannot be justified as a law.

There are also social and cultural dynamics animated by crises in general, and by this crisis in particular.

If anyone is interested in the rest of the conversation, it will be available upon completion as a single PDF or DOC document (I’ll keep you posted), but further sections will not be published here.