Out of control control.

This is a short quote from an excellent piece by Eric Fry. He sees Western peoples demanding their governments "do something." He writes as though this is a recent phenomenon but I doubt he has any illusions about the long the West has dumped life's problems in the lap of the government. Government has responded with a vengeance.

But today, the ancient idea of allowing capitalism to determine winners and losers, rather than the government, is equally unthinkable…and anathema!

As a consequence, every taxpayer in the West is in the failure-subsidy business, and every failing institution and struggling individual is in the begging business. Ironically, therefore, both self-determination and self-reliance have perished by the same sword.

The governments of the West have come to see themselves as a financial Army Corps of Engineers — overpowering the course of nature with brute force.

I like the "We are as God" line of analysis. This attitude pervades what liberals say and do. No social problem cannot be fixed. Beautiful people with degrees can conceive of a solution so a solution must be possible. It's so easy to figure out ideas to fix things, people who think some problems are insoluble by human hands must be fascists.

When the amount of control exercised by the human gods who walk among us is slight, damage is limited. When control starts to be pervasive, the cumulative effect of too much control is a distortion of the morals and motivation of the people. As Fry notes, taxpayers subsidize failure. And what you subsidize, you get more of.

Just the ticket.

"Read more: Pea Shooters, Elephants and Government Solutions'." By Eric Fry, The Daily Reckoning, 10/25/11.