Whenever a government program is failing, the instinct of those who work in government is to do more of it. They insist on spending more money on it; finding ways to be more involved and controlling. It's a bad instinct and leads to bigger failures. Eventually, failures so big they cause a collapse. It's only a matter of time and degree.
One recent example in the news involves schools. Schools fail to educate adequately, so government sentences the school inmates-- sometimes called "students"-- to even more hours of what isn't working. Cutting into more of the students' lives; further reducing their valuable free time. Free time is essential and schools aren't designed to educate anyway.
This failure doesn't only apply to school systems, though. It's the same old story over and over again whenever government gets involved in anything.
Anti-gun legislation causes crime to increase, so legislation addicts double down and do more of what drives the problem. They apparently don't care as long as they can sound enlightened and concerned when speaking to the misinformed public on television.
Welfare and other social programs, supposedly implemented to fight poverty, caused more poverty and trapped families in a cycle of poverty for generations. So, obviously, the solution is to do more of the same?
Prohibition has increased the strength of the drugs available and directly created cartels and crime. Instead of abandoning something which has failed as hard as anything can fail, the prohibitionists choose to make things worse with even more penalties.
Pick any government program and the story is the same.
Do they not see the results of their policies? Or, is this level of failure acceptable as long as it looks like they're "doing something" and keeps the tax money flowing into the coffers, keeping politicians without any useful skills off the streets?
I understand-- it is hard to admit you've been doing something stupid; something which is making a problem you claim you want to solve worse than ever. It's hard to change course, especially if you're part of an institution which wants to present itself as the adult option. Government is still institutionalized failure.
It's essential to stop doing what's not working. It's unforgiveable to insist on doing more of it, harder than before, rather than admit you're the problem. If something is imporant in any way, it's too important to allow government to be involved. Unless you prefer to fail.
