[gridlock]

Morality can only be achieved by the citizen on an individual basis. A nation of immoral people is doomed; using the government to try to enforce morality only delays the inevitable.

The Law of Unintended Consequences is well established and all but proven in my mind. We see it over and over again. Speed restrictions on highways that increase accident rates, CAFE legislation that decreases fleet milage, public schools that prevent kids from learning, tax policy that stifles commercial activity and decreases revenues... and the list goes on and on. It has become a truism that whatever the government tries to do, they wind up doing the exact opposite by accident.

And yet "social consevatives" want to harness this power in order to enforce morality, and expect to get the results they desire. Instead, they wind up supplanting morals-friendly social networks and acheive the exact opposite of what they intended.

This should come as no surprise.

[tacticalogic]

And yet "social consevatives" want to harness this power in order to enforce morality, and expect to get the results they desire. Instead, they wind up supplanting morals-friendly social networks and acheive the exact opposite of what they intended.

You see it over and over again. They go running to Washington thinking they're going to get federal laws imposed on everyone that reflect their "local values". Instead they end upu having local laws dictated to them that reflect the values of the beltway.

[RKV]

I like how Jefferson put it...

"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power."

Too many so-called conservatives don't trust the people and want to get the government involved in enforcing their moral values.