I don't think that the intention is to make it harder to do business or to complicate life. I believe that the intent is to protect certain species that are being mismanaged for profit with no regard for the consequences.Fish and wildlife? They can't tell the difference between a large-mouth bass and a bass guitar? The government has grown so perverse. They seem to think it is their mission to make it harder to conduct business and complicate our lives beyond all reason. The perverse part is that they are supposed to be our servants and protectors.
The problem is always in the implementation. Ultimately, you have to employ humans to implement the regulations, and most of the people doing it see it only as a job, or worse, their own little feifdom or empire that makes them feel important. In order to accomplish this with humans of average (at best) intelligence, everything's has to be spelled out in black and white, because they don't have the intellectual acumen to understand how to make intelligent and meaningful decisions on their own, let alone not permit their own petty needs and agendas get in the way.
While it may appear on the surface to be some conspiracy on the part of the government to interject itself into people's lives for no good reason, or to go about it in a away that is unnecessarily burdensome in terms of cost, time and aggravation, in most cases, it stems from an initial intent to do good and look out for all of us.
The reality is, humans in general (not all, but certainly most), when left to their own devices, will typically place profit over all else. This is undeniable and the examples are legion where people have been exploited, poisoned or killed in the name of profit. The examples of the befoulment of our planet and the unnecessary squandering of its resources for profit and to satisfy our desire for things and profit are countless.
One has to ask oneself which is better: a world with unfettered pursuit of profit and the associated fallout with regard to our health, well-being and our future, or one where we put up with some cost and aggravation associated with the imperfect implementation of regulations that are put in place to prevent greed from spoiling our health and our planet in the pursuit of a buck.
So, while I certainly share in the frustrations associated with government
red tape and its burdens on those trying to make an honest living, I have dealt enough with the government to know that it is also an inherent and unavoidable fact that regulations are implemented by the same species that seems so hell bent on ignoring the serious and deleterious consequences of many of its profit maximizing activities.
I wish all people could be trusted to self-regulate themselves by balancing the need to make a living with the duty to their fellow man and the planet we call home. Unfortunately, it has been proven time and again that there are too many people in the world who are unwilling to do so.
So while I will no doubt continue to air my frustrations when the minions of the government perform their jobs in ways that annoy the crap out of me, I will do so with a certain resignation that those weaknesses are as much a function of human foibles as those who make government regulation a necessary evil.
