Unintended Consequences

Anyone who has lived long enough to climb onto the school bus without Mommy’s help knows that much of life involves dealing with unintended consequences. Your little six-year old body navigates up the big steps, and whoa! That nasty little Tonya is sitting in YOUR seat. You astutely recognize that you have 4 reasonable options: complain to the bus driver, sit in Tonya’s usual seat, choose another seat, or pummel the snot out of Tonya. Each of those options can lead to a chain of consequences that may be difficult for your fertile six-year old mind to anticipate. The bottom line is that we learn that much of life is coping with unintended consequences…sometimes successfully and other times not so well.

The micro or personal impact of unintended consequences translates more starkly into macro or group settings because the potential number of outcomes grows exponentially when more actors and situations are involved. Thus it should not require an advanced degree in logic for an observer to expect a multiplicity of unintended consequences whenever some bright bureaucratic agency or other government body attempts to craft a law, rule or regulation for all the 310 million people who reside in the United States of America. Foul-ups abound as citizens (and others) scramble to comply with or to avoid the heavy hand of Big Brother.  

Possibly one of the most egregious outcomes from bureaucratic over reach can be seen in the Endangered Species Act. Insignificant snail darters and other minor species have enjoyed the comfort of federal government protection while our national economic engine has suffered because of misplaced federal policy. We currently import 70% of our oil needs….a significant portion from nations who resent us and would harm us in an instant if they didn’t want our money. The largest source of our imported energy is Canada…whose environmental concerns are similar to ours, but they do operate their domestic energy production much more sanely than we do. The unintended consequences include higher energy costs for Americans because shipping and transportation add to the bottom line. Because of their bureaucratic misfeasance, thousands of energy production jobs are exported rather than contributing to local economies throughout the United States. Our national security is at risk because of the necessity for energy to fuel our armed forces in times of conflict. A final unintended consequence (there may be others, but I suffer from limited insight) is the division in the caused by such an unrealistic policy. One often has to choose between the ideal and the pragmatic in order to survive. You may love your pet pig, but pork is tasty. You can’t have the pig and eat it too. We can protect the minnow (darter) and harvest the oil or gas, but our heads-in-the-clouds, unrealistic bureaucrats have determined that protected minnows (they are slightly larger than a large paper clip) are more important than the needs of the people of the nation.

If would be great if the snail darter example were an anomaly, but in most government interactions with the people, it is more indicative of the norm. An all-powerful government enterprise assumes that its ability to use force to assure your compliance is enough justification for it to pursue harmful policies. An unthinking, illogical and power hungry institution believes itself to be the source of all knowledge and good. Some might be alarmed that some of our citizens worship at the altar of government. It isn’t all that surprising because uninformed and weak people have worshiped golden calves and other inanimate objects for ever….with similar results as those who worship government….decay followed by disaster. The snail darter is NOT an item of worship, but it does represent one of the vestments of our unholy government.

All government actions lead to unintended and often devastating consequences. The one-size-fits-all policies and programs yield a plethora of consequences throughout our nation. The good intentions of clueless lawmakers and bureaucrats generate multiple disruptions for our citizens.

Snail darters should be used for bait, and we should “drill, Baby, drill.” Please leave us alone. We’ll do just fine.

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All for One

According to those eminent philosophers, Three Dog Night, “One is the loneliest number.” Though lonely, it is the most basic number, and thus, the individual is the basic component of a group, a community, a state or a planet. There may be other people who resemble us physically, culturally and intellectually, but because each of us is unique, they do not match us exactly. There is evidence, in fact, that cloned creatures exhibit some behavioral differences from their sources. Each of us possesses a composite of attitudes, physical attributes, preferences, dreams and goals that segregate us from others who may be similar. While there may be compelling biological explanations for the variations among us, those unique elements are the underlying justification for engaged monotheism. Each individual has a personal relationship with the Creator who, in turn, acknowledges the individual as unique.


One does not need a theological justification for recognizing true individuality. Rational observation illuminates that people differ in many ways. Simple deductive reasoning illustrates that no two people are exactly alike. Some can protest that it is impossible to know everyone on the planet, ergo there may be a series of exact duplicates scattered around the planet. O.K., so my Somali twin and I share which attributes? Biological science reinforces uniqueness. Each of us has our own retinal scans, fingerprints and DNA (Tiger Woods is aware of this). Despite superficial similarities, each of us is a unique individual. So, we can conclude that individuals are unique through theological, biological and observational methods of inquiry.

In spite of our individuality, there times we choose to “run with the pack.” Although there may be some inherent biological impulse to associate with others, it still remains a choice. From an historical perspective, early settlers in the United States (or the colonies) joined together to “raise” barns and for defensive purposes. They formed churches and social groups to enhance their relationships with one another and to broaden the pool for potential mates. In every case the associations were voluntary although there was some ostracism when it was deemed that an individual was not contributing to the community good. The individual, however, remained as the primary component of the community, and many people on the frontier periodically pulled up roots and relocated further to the west to escape too much “crowding.”

If the individual is the basic unit from a theological, biological and observational perspective, why is it that current society appears to want to suppress individuality—at least in a political milieu? Aberrant and audacious behavior are tolerated or encouraged in social intercourse, dress and entertainment, but forceful individualism is often marginalized in the political realm. “Wacko’s, weirdo’s, loons” are just a few of the pejoratives that are used to characterize those who resent being forced to become one of “sheeple.” Although some elements of voluntary association still remain, an ever-growing government has preempted many aspects of everyday life there were once the province of individuals.

The state, if it has not been formed by conquest, is a voluntary organization. The United States of America was formed by the voluntary association of the thirteen original colonies. The Constitution is the fundamental document of that voluntary banding that defines and limits the power of the federal government relative to the individual states and their citizens. Today we discover a massive federal structure that overrides the separate states and ignores the individual. The ability to act individually is unfettered freedom. Any voluntary association will necessitate that an individual relinquish some element of freedom in order to become a member. In the simplest form, a member will sacrifice Tuesday evenings to attend a Lion’s Club meeting. Consistent failure to attend could result in the member’s name being removed from the roll. The government’s relationship with the individual is much more coercive that the Lion’s Club. Failure to comply with government’s myriad rules and regulations leads to sanctions and penalties. Individual freedom is relegated to those minor areas of life where the government has not yet expressed its will.

One of the great tragic consequences of the growth of the federal government is that the states and local entities have grown at nearly the same rate. Some of the growth is a result of federal mandates and revenue sharing schemes, and other areas of proliferation come about because of the misplaced sense of mandate that local politicians assume. Each new rule, law or regulation erodes the liberty of someone(s). Given the nature of government evolution in recent decades, it seems that many rugged individualists are forced to join together to stop the “Blob” from consuming them.

The next entry in this series will explore how and why individuals should band together to salvage their freedom.

Please comment to: cnpearl@woh.rr.com


Part I: Alone in the Crowd

Part II: All for One