People and Laws

 “We do not need to get good laws to restrain bad people. We need to get good people to restrain us from bad laws." - G. K. Chesterton

One of the latest social outrages is the upsurge in "teen takeovers" in cities across the country. The out-of-control teens harass, commit vandalism, fight, assault bystanders and police, shoot people, and more. 

Pundits and lawmakers are decrying the takeovers, and some are calling for new laws to help charge the teens, and even to charge their parents.

Laws to restrain.

Meanwhile, back in 2022, the State of New York, concerned about the environment, mandated that school districts replace their diesel school busses with "zero emission - i.e. electric - ones. The original mandate declared that after 2027 districts would no longer be able to buy diesel busses, and that by 2035 their bus fleets be entirely electric. 

Some districts tried to comply. They quickly discovered that the electric busses were many times more expensive than diesel ones. That would inflate their budgets and would mean raising taxes. Meanwhile, rural districts discovered that the busses would not be able to cover all the long routes with a single charge, and that this got even worse in the cold winters which drained the batteries even more quickly to heat the busses. And as opponents of the plan in the first place had pointed out, New York's electric infrastructure is woefully inadequate to handle the new demand. The state is now trying to find new sources of electricity - including covering acres of fertile farmland with solar panels, hurting the state's agricultural industry. 

Some communities have begun to rebel, voting down the purchase of the electric busses. The state's politicians, fearing voter backlash, have kicked the can down the road, moving the 2027 purchasing deadline to 2032, and the complete switchover from 2035 to 2040. Instead of revoking a bad law, they have simply delayed implementing it.

There are many other examples that illustrate Chesterton's observation, but these two will do.

With the teens, we are trying to restrain "bad people" with laws and more laws rather than addressing the underlying social issues that lead teens to act in these violent ways. We can ask "Where are the parents?", but they have abrogated or even are completely oblivious to their responsibilities, and, in many cases, are afflicted with the same social disorders and ignorance as their progeny. What we need are for parents and role models to be good people to provide proper examples and guidance.

As for the bus mandate, while dealing with a somewhat real concern - though one that seems to be blindly exaggerated (think of all the environmental "prophets" who predicted that the ice caps would all melt and parts of our coastal cities would now be under water) - they passed a law without thinking through its implications or even realistic chances of being implemented.

The lawmakers who shoved this mandate through did not heed the warnings of those good people with common sense who tried to restrain them.

Once again, Chesterton proves prophetic.