No web-site is complete without a corner to rant and rave about your convictions in the way society should be run so here is mine.
"Personal Responsibility"
After having escaped from the overly tolerant and regulated country of The Netherlands that I was born in I am now finding New Zealand was indeed behind and unfortunately rapidly catching up making sure to repeat the mistakes others have made using the motto: "Everyone else in the world did this too" Our government creates new rules for everything they get their mitts on thus removing personal responsibility from our vocabulary.
"What the hell are you talking about" I hear you say. Well, the biggest problem I have at the moment is that there is an entire population out there trying to lobby, rule and regulate everything there is in a vain attempt to make the world from good to perfect.
We are a privileged generation. I was born in 1964 and never knew hunger, never suffered the threat of violence and never really have been forced to do things and certainly never suffered the hardship of a war. I believe that because of this we take things for granted. Even think these are our rights. So as a generation we fail to celebrate every day without war, we fail to appreciate our daily meals and we certainly expect things to be pretty much perfect. This is exactly where we go wrong. You see, it is not so hard to make something bad into something good. Everyone will agree that having food to eat is better than being hungry so we all have the same goal. Get food. But as our basic needs are catered for we go and seek out things we can improve. We have done so for decades now and actually are running out of things to improve that we can all agree on.
Nowadays we have lot's of bored or distrought busybody's looking for small things to improve. The problem with those small things is that not everyone agrees with the fact that it is a problem, that it needs solving or agrees about the solution proposed. It is almost weekly that politicians manage to make my blood boil with the next stupid hair brain blanket style rule, law or regulation in order to fix a relative tiny problem or non issue. You shall do this and you shall do that.
A New Zealand citizen is supposed to know the law but the reality is that the law system is so complex that even professional lawyers get tangled up in a web of ambiguity that needs sorting out for which of course they happily charge. And what do we do as a perfect generation that fails to appreciate life? Indeed we make up some more rules to make the unclear rules "clearer"
So where is all this leading to. Well actually I am starting to see light at the end of this crazy tunnel. Laws and regulations have become so petty, vague, unnecessary and patronising that people are starting to laugh it off and stop caring about rules. You can't even know them all so how can you be expected to stick to them. In fact how can a society enforce the huge and ever growing pile of rules. It is getting increasingly difficult and the lid is about to blow off.
For every rule you put in place you effectively remove a sense of personal responsibility. If the blanket rule says it is good enough then why should I bother to do better or even anticipate failure in a special situation. Let's take the house building laws for example. 100 years ago people would have their villas build by workmen who took pride and responsibility in their work. Sturdy wooden villas were build that still grace many streets today. Yet, people felt the need to regulate minimum beam sizes, minimum ceiling heights and so on. So the builder will no longer assume proper market driven quality but instead resort to the minimum standards defined. After all it is the law so it must be alright. So now we have leaky houses rotting away under out very eyes. Flimsy constructions with cramped rooms and low ceilings that look ready for demolition 20 years later. Rules do that to people. Nobody likes rules but when they are enforced on people they they will respond by denying responsibility for that part.
So, our society is filled with people who no longer feel involved. They no longer feel they can make a difference and don't feel appreciated as an individual or a member of a community. So they revolt, stop caring about them selves, their kids or environment. This is increasingly becoming a problem and guess what our perfect generation does about it? Yeah, you guessed it, we make more rules. Funny enough those people who are supposed to be "helped" by those rules, are the least likely ones to comply leaving the still caring and law abiding citizen fuming about yet another dumb law wondering when to give up and join the apathetic masses. You may not smack your kid because there is too much child beating. No adds on TV for fatty foods because kids get too fat. So what will the parent do? Of course! They stop caring about the food their kids eat because the government know better anyway. "Thou shall not cut down native trees larger than x meters". Ok, say the people, I wont plant them in my garden because I can't get rid of them later on. For every rule to fix a problem there will always be more new problems and exception that are created by the rule. Computer programmers have known this effect for years and know there is no such thing as bug free software. Well , here is some news for you, there is no such thing as a bug free society either!
Here in Waitakere City where I live the local council has one of the strictest building laws in the country. In fact even if you build a new house according all the rules and regulations you will still have trouble to get the local authorities to sign off your house. The signoff "Code of compliance" used to be an important thing. Having your house papers in order was essential before you be able to sell your house but since it is near impossible to satisfy the council, people give up. As a result there are an increasing number of houses in the city that don't have a code of compliance and what is so cool, buyers stop caring. Real estate agents now laugh when a potential buyers has an issue with missing papers. "Hey this is Waitakere City, it is near impossible to get a code of compliance here "Would you like to pay another 30 grand on top of the purchase price for a piece of paper?" There is a glimmer of hope after all.
Our world is about as good as it gets. Push for more and you get less. We already lose self esteem, self value and appreciation for all the good things we have. We are even losing the freedom we have once known. We must stop trying to make our world a better place, we can do that for ourselves where needed and the rest our perfect generation needs to learn that the world is not perfect, can't be made perfect and therefore never will be perfect. It's like a painting, that very last stoke can just spoil the piece of art. I believe we are about to put that last fatal stroke to canvas in our generation.
My favourite politician is the one that say's "Yeah there is a little problem there but solving makes it worse".
The best politician is a lazy one and get's my vote