Bad Ideas

Lily Tomlin posed the difficulty, "I worry that the person who thought up Muzak may be thinking up something else."  The same could be said about a jillion bad ideas.  United Nations?  Allying with Joseph Stalin?  The TSA?  The NSA?  The Iraq War.  Don't you worry that the current incarnation of POTUS is thinking about or being lured into something else?  But we should not fear ideas, rather we should fear the implementation of bad ideas.  Ideas are of such a constitution that about 97% of them should go away, and then 97% of the remainder should be rethought.  The trouble is that too large a number of idea people become enamored of their own ideas -- they will see them to rotten fruition come hell or high water.  The second trouble is that there are too many people who seek fame and fortune by saying yes -- congress people come to mind.  It is no short-term skin off their noses if they implement stupid ideas -- they will be history before history catches up to them.  The most important part for us voluntaryists is that we regard ideas as potential good, but we see that a good deal of weeding is necessary to a garden.  A rule of thumb: if any idea needs much coercion, or worse, enforcement, it is likely a horrible idea.