Are you tired of being the victim of unintended consequences of the mistakes of our elected officials? I am

Today's Chuckle

It can be argued that the ten plagues visited upon the Egyptians were the unintended consequences of Pharaoh's refusal to let Moses' people go. Even so, unintended consequences didn't receive serious study until Adam Smith introduced consequentialism during the Scottish Enlightenment, then languished in obscurity. The study of unintended consequences returned to public attention in the 20th Century with the publication of “The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action”, a paper written by sociologist Robert Merton in 1936. Even so, awareness has brought scant relief.

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Not being social scientists, most of us are familiar with unintended consequences as the results of Murphy's Law. Generally, there are three categories:

• Positive: An unexpected benefit also known as luck or serendipity.
  


• Negative: A unexpected side effect in addition to the desired effect.
  


• Perverse: An intended solution which exacerbates the problem that the action was intended to correct.
  

Inasmuch as Murphy allows only for perverse outcomes, we must assume that he was an optimist.

Life is far too complex for anyone to fully master their little corners of it. Thus, isn't it better that we avoid centralized control wherein the unintended consequences of decisions affect society at large? I am perfectly willing to suffer the fate of my own decisions. I'd rather not suffer their mistakes, too. How about you?