[Uncle Miltie]

The only thing worse than stupid individuals making decisions for themselves is bureaucrats making stupid decisions for millions.

At least the stupid person can learn from their mistakes.

The bureaucrat is not affected by his mistakes, and cannot learn.

And, it is anti-freedom to presume anyone else SHOULD make decisions for you.

[nitzy]

Right.

When choices are left to individuals, the correct and most profitable path will likely be taken on a MACRO level. While there will certainly be people who choose to walk down the ditches of that path and wander into the woods, the society as a whole will progress in a profitable direction. People will not only learn from their own mistakes but from the mistakes of others.

On the other hand, when you shield people from the natural negative consequences of their actions, the society is not guided in any direction at all (other than the one in which the government leads it).

[Ohioan]

You nailed it, to be sure. The notion that committees of academics or bureaucrats sitting around a conference table will make better decisions for other people, than those people will make for themselves is idiotic.

So, too, is the notion that those academics or bureaucrats are less prone to the emotion driven errors that often do in fact afflict other decision makers. All we know of human nature cries out that those who are so arrogant as to believe that they can better plan the lives of others by imposed dictates from afar, are suffering from delusions, which almost guarantee what are usually excused as "unintended" consequences.

See, for example, Social Reform: Confusion & "Unintended Consequences?"