It occurred to me today that we should stop it with all of these regs.

I’m a teacher, and as any teacher knows, there are two systems for controlling students –> they can either control themselves, or someone else will have to do it.

Read this post if you are interested in my classroom management style.

I was talking with a fellow teacher today about American manufacturing. During the discussion, it was suggested that American manufacturing has been disabled by governmental regulation that ties the hands of American companies, so that they can’t compete with foreign industry leaders who aren’t being hog-tied by the same rules.

It was at this point in the conversation that I realized that we all are bound to follow the rules. But, when some people don’t, then regulation comes in to control the group.

The problem with rules and regulations is that they won’t control the people who they were created to control in the first place. If rules and regulations were effective tools in controlling people’s behavior, one would hope that no such external rules or regulations would be necessary at all, since everyone would be following their own rules.

WHAT?!?!

Let me put it this way.

The easiest rules for us to follow are our own rules. For example, I have a rule that is called the Two-Syllable U Rule, which states that I only shave my face on days whose name has two syllables and whose names contain a ‘U’, which means that I only shave on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. I follow that rule, pretty regularly, week in and week out. If you ever see me on a Saturday evening and you think to yourself, “Phil should shave his face every once in a while”, it’s because I am following my own rules on the issue, thank you very much.

Whose was involved in the making of the rule? Me. Who is involved in enforcing the rule? Me. Who’s going to get upset if the rule is disobeyed? Me.

It’s a personal rule.

Now, back to the industry example that came up during this discussion that I had with my coworker.

Let’s say fifteen companies open up factories next to a river, because they need the water for the transport of their product downstream, or they need the water from the river for some part of their production process, or maybe for some other reason. And each of those companies has a CEO that decides, as a personal rule, that they are not going to negatively impact the river through the conduct of their business.

How much government regulation is necessary in this scenario? None.

But then, Business Number 16 moves into the neighborhood, and the CEO of Business Number 16 is a real piece of work. He decides, “Screw the river. Screw my neighbors. Screw what is right and decent and honorable. I’m going to dump waste in the river, and no one is going to stop me.”

Enter, stage left, some regulations, issued by some regulators.

Now, the question is this: “Who’s going to follow those regulations?” The fifteen pre-existing businesses are, but not because of the newly-created regulations. Those fifteen businesses are going to follow the regulations because they were going to do, what the regulations are calling for, anyway.

Who’s not going to follow the regulations?

The single business for whom the regulations were created.

Why not?

Well, if they were rule-followers in the first place, what are the chances that they would have done something that made it necessary for regulations to be created?

Do I, as a classroom teacher, need to make rules for Sally Sunshine, sitting in the front row of my class, paying attention 100% of the time and obedient 100% of the time.

No.

I make the rules for Donny Delinquent. But, he won’t follow them.

Unless the stick is big enough.

* * *

My wife and I have discovered, when it comes to our kids, that they only really listen to me.

Because I carry the stick.

Which isn’t to say that I carry an actual stick, or that I would ever actually beat my kids. Granted, they’ve each been spanked a time or two, but ‘the stick’ here refers to a metaphorical approach to parenting wherein I make the children suffer consequences for their bad choices.

Much as life will make each of us to suffer the consequences of our bad choices.

When I tell the kids, “If this room is not clean ten minutes from now, I will take every cellphone in this house and I will lock them all in the trunk of my car”, the room gets cleaned.

Now, I’m no fool.

I understand that they are doing it because I carry the stick, not because they love me and they want to please me. And, while it would be ideal for them to do the right things because they want to do the right things, as a matter of some personal rule of theirs, or because they love me and want their father to be happy, you can’t argue with the fact that I can get my children to clean a room lickety-split.

* * *

The idea of rules and regulations, why we follow them and why we don’t, and whether or not there might be a better system for getting people to behave themselves, has always been very interesting to me, as a parent, and as a Christian, and as a human being. I will have some more to say on the topic tomorrow. At this point in the process, I think it suffices to say that I just wish that everyone would take it upon themselves to follow the rules that, not too long ago, we were all in agreement on.

Is it me, or have we recently been involved in a lot of ‘rule-breaking’?