RALEIGH – The boys weren’t in the best of moods – and that’s an understatement.
I’m referring, as I do occasionally in this space, to the recent behavior of my two boys, the Little Conqueror (Charles Alexander Hood) and the Little General (Andrew Jackson Hood). No doubt preparing for their future military careers, the two boys have been organizing the fortification of the woods in my backyard, employing the talents of other kids from the neighborhood and their Sunday school (the activity is more Old Testament than New Testament, admittedly).
The fort thus far is composed of pieces of slightly rotten firewood, large slabs of bark, big rocks, small rocks, and branches – all fashioned into breastworks that lie in front of a hollowed-out trench of mud.
From an adult’s perspective, Fort Breakspear is probably not much to look at. But to its construction battalion, it is a work of genius and a stout defense against the ravages of implacable enemies (which, I take it, varies daily from Creek Indians and Santa Ana’s army to battle droids, orcs, and the hordes of the White Witch).
So you can imagine the frustration the boys felt on a recent day when told they couldn’t play in the fort. Why the crackdown? Because they didn’t obey the rules I had set forth. They hadn’t asked permission to use my tools. For their own good, to ensure that they and their friends stayed safe, I had to reinforce the importance of following the rules.
Parents don’t make rules for their children just to lord over them. They enforce rules for some larger purpose. Bedtimes facilitate growth and success in school. A balanced diet promotes a healthy body. Asking permission is a way of ensuring that schedules don’t conflict and that safety is maintained. Rules often take away an option we’d really like to have – an option that would be easier and result in immediate gratification – because the resulting constraint in the short run will lead to better outcomes and more opportunities in the long run.
Rules are indispensable in the adult world, too. Government, especially, needs to operate under rules that are well-crafted, clearly articulated, and enforced. Without rules governing how taxes can be levied, proceeds spent, and regulations imposed, politicians and the hired help are subject to perverse incentives that sacrifice the public interest to the benefit of savvy, well-connected special interests.
The Charlotte Observer reported Tuesday on an example from North Carolina politics involving none other than House Speaker Jim Black. Using his clout, Black bypassed the normal process for approving state road projects and inserted $6 million in the state budget to fund the expansion of Lawyers Road, near were I grew up, to facilitate the construction of a new shopping mall. He defended his action by granting that road projects shouldn’t be leapfrogging the priority list this way but asserting that if other lawmakers were going to do it, he was going to do it for his own constituents.
When the former mayor of a town in an adjoining county cried foul, saying the special road project would disadvantage the town’s bid to locate the mall there, Black had a revealing answer: She “ought to run for the legislature and come down here and try to be speaker. Then she would have more influence.”
Sounds remarkably like my eight-year-old’s attempt to bluster his way out of the trouble he was in. Didn’t work.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.