>But recently I've gotten more sensitive to cases where we acknowledge that something is the government's job (e.g. protecting kids from violence), but then we

>But recently I've gotten more sensitive to cases where we acknowledge that something is the government's job (e.g. protecting kids from violence), but then we insist that that job should be done poorly. We don't insist they do the job poorly. Instead, we set things up so that they need to cover their own ... asses when they take action. Instead of making a rational decision on a per situation basis, we get things like "0 tolerance" rules; so that the authority figure can say "I was just following the rules". Because if they make a judgement call, SOMEONE will flip out and they'll get fired. And that leads to all kinds of horrible outcomes - Child brings a plastic knife to school to cut their lunch with, they're suspended because it's a weapon - Child is attacked by a bully and is suspended, because they were involved in a fight Adding information gathering systems that will quickly wind up being abused, but have very little possibly positive value... doesn't help with what's currently wrong with the system.