When people find out I’m a Libertarian they usually respond with some variation of the classic question: “But without government, who will build the roads?” In their case it may be ‘Who will run the army?’ or ‘Stop child labour’ or ‘look after the poor?’ And for those asking these questions, they are sincere concerns… for which I believe I have solid answers, but that’s another blog for another time.

What most people fail to realize is that very little government time and money is invested into essential services which could not be done better by the private sector. The list of things which we need done for us, but which the private sector cannot deliver better than a regulatory body, is vanishingly short… and very likely non-existent.

See most of what government and regulators do is both unnecessary and could be done better by the private sector. Which means there’s an awful lot that could be cut back before we ever touch the roads, the army, child labour laws, or even the genuine poor.

Things like disaster plans for saving magic bunnies from tornadoes.

This summer, Marty the Magician got a letter from the U.S. government. It began with six ominous words: “Dear Members of Our Regulated Community . . .”

Ahh yes, the old ‘I’m from the Government and I’m here to help’… bad start.

The government had a new rule. To keep his rabbit license [your what now? – Topher], Hahne needed to write a rabbit disaster plan.

“Fire. Flood. Tornado. Air conditioning going out. Ice storm. Power failures,” Hahne said, listing a few of the calamities for which he needed a plan to save the rabbit.

When even the Washington Post thinks you’ve gone too far with your regulations, you know you’re really pushing it.

Well the article quickly pivots into a ‘good news’ article, because it turns out that:

Late Tuesday, after a Washington Post article on Hahne was posted online, the Agriculture Department announced that the disaster-plan rule would be reexamined.

Note that they didn’t re-think the rule because someone inside the agency looked at it and thought ‘Is this what my life has come to? I’m a complete and total waste of oxygen for as long as I continue to work this pointless job’… no, they re-examined the rule because they suddenly saw a storm of bad publicity coming their way, and they decided to duck-and-cover before it hit.

And here’s the point – There are thousands, probably tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of similar pointless regulations being written and enforced by regulators in Australia. All wasting time, money, and effort from ordinary people like you and I.

And that is where the political fight is. This isn’t about the funding or roads, the army, or the existence of welfare. It would take a political shift of biblical proportions for any of those issues to be ‘on the table’ and up for discussion in this country anytime in the next 50 years. But what is ‘on the table’, and surely we can all get behind, whether Liberal Party, Labour, libertarian, or yes even the Greens, is that there’s a lot of stuff that just doesn’t need to be done.

And learn a lesson from this incident in the US: These bureaucrats don’t care about you, but they do care about avoiding trouble. It was the fear of publicity of their stupidity that caused the change of heart. It wasn’t till this bunny disaster plan threatened to turn into a PR disaster that change was made possible.

So if ever you find yourself having to fill out some BS form that is absurd to its face, get yourself onto A Current Affair, get a write up in the state or national newspaper, get some press by whatever means is necessary. Because it’s issues like these that are going to get average people to understand that government is most often the problem, not the solution.

H/T to an anonymous reader who sent the WaPo article to me. Thanks for the tip, I welcome more.

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