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Regulate, Regulate, Regulate
Let no action pass free the gate.
First comes election of graft ladened pols
Influenced by tears and woes of well meaning trolls.
They pass legislation based on whims not fact,
They know Laws can be changed if found to be abstract.
Next come the Agencies whose interest is in survival
Theirs - not yours, Theirs is a well oiled Cabal.
To interpret what the third hand of government has provided
Requires a host of lawyers whose bottoms from sitting are vastly wide-d.
They draw up regulations, not as the people or legislature intended,
And throw in enough gobbledegook to make sure all are offended.
Of course more funding is ensured
So the public will be properly enured.
Handbooks and pamphlets require paper without end,
The printing industry is gratified to see such a trend.
With punctuation all in the proper form
Final rules are in place to reestablish the "norm".
That long ago standard to which all agree
Seems to have been lost when cutting the last tree.
Was it global warming or cooling that was the cause
For controlling man actions by passing these laws?
Forgot in the chase was the reason supreme
It's population explosion that has come on the scene.
All must be fed, housed and pampered without end
So away with the freedoms, we'll all live in a pen.
Time in prison is appropriate for those in violation
And a nice fine will squelch any misguided elation.
Rule of law has a nice sound provided
the Law is one that is properly write-d.
S. J. Mahtrow, Nov 2001.
Eleanor Hodgman Porter's novel Pollyanna was one of the smash hits of the Edwardian Age, but not everone was equally enamored of its doggedly optimistic heroine. A spoof by Myrtyl Mason Mollyanna , published in 1917 created for the reader, the country of Travail. The government is a model of totalitarian impartiality: "It oppressed all its citizens just the same." Pleasure in Travail was forbidden, because it would detract from the society's single goal: the achievement of "the Highest Standard of Living in the Known World" � and this included the simplest pleasures of the senses. Travailians were expected to be oblivious to the delights of bird song and flowers, sunshine and wine, and an elaborate system of penalties was in place to ensure that they remained free of temptation. A worker caught looking at a rainbow, for example, might be forced to work blindfolded for several days. Listening to music would get your earlobes snipped. In the most celebrated of Mason's grotesque revenges, a worker caught sniffing flowers might be reminded of the importance of constant labor by having his nose put literally to a grindstone...." The Cat's Pajamas , Tad Tuleja, 1988, pp157
The novel, Mollyanna , existed only in the mind of Tad Tuleja.
Daniel Koshland, a long time editor of Science magazine wrote the following satire on regulations.
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This communication received by Science was signed by John Winthrop, formerly of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, now on Cloud Nine.
It is particularly gratifying for me to look down from my celestial orbit and see the return of Puritanism to the United States. Years ago I was active in a colony that outlawed smoking, drinking, and dancing, but in subsequent times I have observed a most unseemly loss of enthusiasm for these pioneering ideas. My colleagues and I realized long ago that people could not manage their own lives, and it is good to see an emergence of scientific support for this intuitive understanding. However, warning labels on cigarettes and liquor bottles, and education as to the inevitable consequences of dancing, will not be enough. Strict laws will be needed to protect people from themselves, analogous to the brilliant principle of destroying a village to save it.
In addition to the meager list above, modem society must vastly expand the measures it provides for the safety of its hapless members. Because loud noise impairs hearing and causes psychological stress, young people must he enjoined to listen to rock music at the whisper level instead of the ear-splitting level. Consider skiing, boating, and hang gliding; they are easily more hazardous to one's health than passive smoke and should he abolished. Radiation hazards at 30,000 feet require that airlines protect their passengers by flying at lower altitudes. Flying at treetop level would cause a noise problem, but computers indicate that restricting air travel to 35 miles per hour at 11,547 feet would minimize all danger. At this rate passengers on the Seattle to New York flight might die of old age, but that is a minor tradeoff in the battle against involuntary risk.
Because extrapolation from people living downwind from three-pack-a-day smokers suggests that passive smoking results in an increased cancer rate, designated smoking areas in office buildings, football stadiums, and wind tunnels will not reduce risk to zero and must be declared illegal. With improvement in technology, calculations will show that a smoker in Iowa causes measurable risk to a pedestrian in Los Angeles, and therefore either smoking in Iowa or pedestrianism in Los Angeles will have to he outlawed, whichever is cheaper. Because a martini before dinner is orders of magnitude more dangerous than passive smoking, this too will have to go. Those whose personalities require a happy hour will become more churlish to their employees, more abusive to their children, and less likely to lend a lawnmower to their neighbor, but that is a small price to pay for progress.
A recent report from sleep researchers indicated that most people get far too little sleep. Furthermore, there is a tendency for hard-driving individuals to brag about how few hours of rest they need while maintaining heroically busy schedules. Actually, they are lowering life expectancy and doing their jobs poorly, according to the sleep researchers. Like 9-year-olds, most individuals just cannot be trusted to go to bed on time, and a national curfew will be needed.
There will, of course, be people who advocate commonsense approaches, such as outlawing only behavior that endangers others at risk levels higher than driving to work, but allowing freedom of choice for those who, properly warned, endanger only themselves. This alluring pragmatism will dilute and endanger the entire campaign; an integral part of Puritanism is its disdainful view of the behavior of others. Appropriate dress is a subject for future legislation, because affronts to the eyes should rank with those to the ears and lungs in any orderly world.
The implementation of these necessary and admirable injunctions may, of course, stimulate some irrational rebelliousness. Obnoxious civil liberty fanatics may make the claim that people should be allowed to die as they wish, or even more outrageously, to live as they like. Such a lack of discipline can only lead to chaos and will yield horrible consequences such as loud laughter in subways or jogging without a helmet. We must face the fact that humans inherit a regrettable instinct to have fun, and therefore severe deterrents are needed. Capital punishment seems too strong, but the stocks, a device invented by us Puritans, seem appropriate for those who need protection from themselves. They work very effectively up here in our idyllic Puritanical society, which may explain why some new arrivals are bewildered about whether they have entered heaven or hell."
Daniel E. Koshland, Science , June, 1, 1990
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