Opinion: Legislation does more harm than good

I oppose allowing tornadoes to terrorize people and destroy property. Think of the children! Any politician who doesn’t support common sense weather regulation has blood on his hands.

Politicians must pass a law saying tornadoes are not permitted within city limits, but only in rural areas without structures, crops, or livestock and strictly between the hours of 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. That should fix it, or at least be a good first step toward banning them entirely.

Then, when people continue to suffer loss from the weather, expand the regulations to cover hail, blizzards, floods, heatwaves, and any other dangerous weather. If it saves one life, it’s worth it,

At least, this seems to be how politically minded people, including politicians and bureaucrats, imagine reality works. It doesn’t.

Bad people who want to harm others pay as little attention to rules as the weather does.

Since the weather won’t listen to rules, the rules would have to be aimed at the rest of us. Forbidding people from having a roof or windows that could be damaged in hail storms would make as much sense as telling the population which defensive tools they are allowed to have. Neither makes any sense unless you are brainwashed by politics.

Which most people seem to be, to some extent.

The reality is, rules end up hurting the innocent more than they inconvenience troublemakers. Since rules often target behaviors that aren’t actually wrong but only prohibited, they are entirely harmful.

Maybe you’d claim these rules might not stop anything, but they give society a way to punish the wrong-doers after the fact, to discourage others from following the same path. If this is your excuse, several thousand years of evidence say this doesn’t work. The weather can’t care and every bad guy believes he’ll be the exception who’ll never be caught.

The results in both instances are identical.

Rather than making up pointless and harmful legislation targeting the innocent victims and potential victims of bad weather, the smart thing to do is to let people build storm shelters and weather-proof buildings, and buy insurance. In other words, don’t prevent people from taking responsibility for their own life and property. Respect their liberty to do so.

Anything else will end up doing more harm than good, creating excuses for even more ridiculous legislation in the face of failure. This cycle of failure is called “politics.”

Farwell’s Kent McManigal champions liberty. Contact him at:

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