The Theory of Increasing Government Idiocy

http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=1132 ^ | William M. Briggs

[mattstat]

In software, it’s called feature creep. This is the bloat or encrustation that forms on a working computer program. It is caused by adding overly specific functions that originate with a “Wouldn’t it be cool to have a…?” but which are not strictly necessary, or even inapposite to the software’s main purpose.

As a piece of software ages, function creep is almost inevitable unless it is kept harshly in check. Lead engineers must be brutal in slapping down minor functionaries that come to him with wish lists. “We need new rules!” they will plead, tears in eyes. But he must harden his heart and focus on the software’s main mission. For the moment he gives in to one request, he will give in to others, and the software begins to pick up debris like a snowball rolling down a hill. Finally, the code reaches the point where it is barely recognizable from it earlier self; where it once took only one person to run, it now takes a dozen, four of them consultants with large hourly rates and occult knowledge.

How does such software survive? It cannot, unless it is a monopoly, unless all are forced to use it because it is the only option. Then the sluggish, brute package becomes commonplace, people adapt and they stop questioning their needless toils. Upstart rivals to the software are not just slapped down, but it is thought rude to question or consider them. At last, however, the package becomes so laden with gook, it collapses in on itself, and takes it users with them.

As it is with software, so it is with governments.

This country was founded on the idea of liberty, on the sentiment of...

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

If the U.S. Code were software it would have crashed decades ago.

[Senator John Blutarski]

This article can be politically summed up as:

“Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Those very wise “privileged white male class oppressors” who crafted our original constitution recognized this syndrome all too well. The Left unfortunately are either too obtuse or too starry-eyed to grasp this dangerous fact, the very one which has perverted every utopian social engineering scheme their sophomoric little minds have ever conceived.