A Voice in the Wilderness In Defense of "Mere Conservatism"

Dems On Their New Bank”Overhaul” Bill: We’ll Figure It Out Later

In the end, it's only a beginning. The far-reaching new banking and consumer protection bill that President Barack Obama intends to sign on Wednesday now shifts from the politicians to the technocrats.

The legislation gives regulators latitude and time to come up with new rules, requires scores of studies and, in some instances, depends on international agreements falling into place.

For Wall Street, the next phase represents continuing uncertainty. It also offers banks and other financial institutions yet another opportunity to influence and shape the rules that govern their businesses.

Perfect.  This plan sounds flawless...except for the fact that the full plan is not known, even by those who created it.

Last week the controlling political party in the United States passed another 2,000 page bill that few have read and even fewer comprehend.  It is a monstrosity, just like the health care bill before it (and like the cap-and-trade bill looming before November's mid-term elections).

Notice how many times in this Yahoo News article references are made to plans, agencies, bureaucracies, etc.  F.A. Hayek called this obsession with micro-managing un-manageable facets of society, government, and the economy is the Left's "fatal conceit."  They insist on dis-regarding a century's worth of evidence that the top-down controlled state always fails (and fails big).

It reminds me of something a wise (and dastardly) man named Screwtape once said

The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern.