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In a message dated 9/24/2002 11:24:58 AM, jamesr@best.com writes:

>This situation wouldn't have happened in the first place if California
>didn't have economically insane regulations.  They created a regulatory
>climate that facilitated this.  So yes, it is the product of
>over-regulation.
>

Which is to say, if you reduce the argument to absurdity, that law causes 
crime. 

(Yes, I agree that badly written law can make life so frustrating that people 
have little choice but to subvery it if they want to get anything done. This 
is also true of corporate policies, and all other attempts to regulate 
conduct by rules. Rules just don't work well when situations are fluid or 
ambiguous. But I don't think that the misbehavior of energy companies in 
California can properly be called well-intentioned lawbreaking by parties who 
were trying to do the right thing but could do so only by falling afoul of 
some technicality.)

If you want to get to root causes, we should probably go to the slaying of 
Abel by Cain. Perhaps we can figure out what went wrong then, and roll our 
learning forward through history and create a FoRKtopia.

Nonpartisanly, which is to say casting stones on all houses, whether 
bicameral or unicameral, built on sand or on rock, to the left of them or to 
the right of them, of glass or brick or twig or straw, 

Tom


