I have no trouble at all persuading my conservative readers that it's a real problem when the majority of the population experiences zero marginal cost when they think about voting for a new spending program . . . that we're likely, in that scenario, to get a lot of excessively burdensome spending problems that don't really merit the tax dollars that are spent on them. (And yes, conversely, liberals grasp the civil liberties problem immediately, but are curiously immune to it when it involves property rights.)Government is a blunt instrument, wielded by a deaf, dumb, and blind giant. It was ever so, it will be ever so. "Driving without a Birth Certificate" won't be the last of it.
Non-cash costs to liberty are real costs, even if they happen to someone else--but if they happen to someone else, some smaller sub-population, we're likely to impose far too many such burdens.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Word
From Megan McArdle, on Arizona's crackdown on its citizens:
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1 comment:
SOMETHING has to be done about illegal immigration. They are by definition criminals. They get in car accidents, no insurance, and disappear, leaving the victim with the bill.
A law requiring a person to produce a driver's license or other ID when they have a contact with the police is not a big deal. I have to produce ID when I am stopped by the cops now. Why should they be any different?
The birth certificate requirement is a red herring that has nothing to do with the law in AZ, which hasn't gone into effect yet, and which doesn't require a birth certificate anyway.
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