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Originally Posted by zerospinboson
While thought experiments are certainly acceptable, isn't this one a bit too procrustean? It seems a tool that can be wielded by anyone to invalidate just about any government action whatever, just so long as you consider something "likely" (which will vary with the political views held by the wielder, which in turn means that it's ultimately pointless, as you're only using it to confirm your own intuitions with it).
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It's not intended as a hard and fast rule, but rather as a reminder of the possibility of an unfortunate combination of the law of unintended consequences and the fact that whatever it is that I support (or you support, or he supports, or...) there are plenty of people who disagree... and sometime (probably sooner than I/you/he would like!) those
other folks will be running the government. It's probably better to think of "those other folks" as being more like the differences between "McCain/Obama/Clinton" rather than "FDR/Stalin/Pol Pot." The over all point is the same, only the magnitude of the problem is changed.
Xenophon
P.S. This thread gets really interesting when certain posts are just blank.
