The Tweeches Zone

Most of the strife and disharmony in our world flows directly from too many rules being made without regard to the Tweeches Zone. Let me explain and illustrate.

“Ukrainians,” says Putin, “have no separate existence outside Mother Russia, and should just settle down and accept that fact.” “Women,” say the mullahs “need to keep covered, quiet, and at home.” In many countries, if you want to get rid of your neighbor, just tell the authorities he’s gay and he’ll summarily be taken out and shot.

There are lots of rules. Some are morally supportable, some are not. The question is, how do we decide which rules can be morally supported, and which are simply mob rule? Well, that’s a question which has driven philosophers and first year law students crazy for centuries. But perhaps there are a few clues.

First, generally speaking, fewer rules are better than too many rules. Too many rules breed contempt and confusion, and create thickets in which the careful parser can hide. A maze of picayune regulation also tends to create economic and social inefficiencies.

Second, we surely need some rules just to make sure the baboons don’t take over the zoo. Stuff like “you can’t kill your neighbor”, “you can’t rob the bank”, “you need to answer insurance applications honestly”. Things that make sense to all of us because they help make the world safer and more predictable. In a sense, they’re just iterations of the Golden Rule.

Third, once we get past rules for public safety and economic efficiency, we risk getting into tastes and opinions, often based upon somebody’s amateur interpretation of ancient writings. Many of these are based on the curious notion that one’s all-powerful deity needs protection.

Lest Canadians get too smug, we’d do well to remember that the criminal offense of blasphemous libel remained in our Criminal Code until 2018. And a really good argument can be made that we’ve swung hard over in the other direction, enforcing the new majority religion of “correct thought” as rigidly as we used to enforce Protestant sensibilities.

Then there are the rules which give some folks a special advantage over others. These are kind of nice if you’re the recipient. There’s no way I’m going to attack any of the neat spiffs which accrue to Canadians over 65, even if I have no personal need. Think I’m going to turn down free prescription drugs and discount bus rides? And which politician would have the courage to take spiffs away from Grandad?

Hard and fast rules about subjects where there are strong arguments for both sides, or where a minority has a morally supportable negative opinion, or which are based upon anyone’s religious beliefs, or where the imposition of the rules will significantly advantage one group at the expense of another, are all of doubtful moral standing. And if a law can’t be supported morally, well…….

Neither the American constitution’s clarion “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, nor Canada’s more prosaic “peace, order, and good government” would appear to support the body politic sticking its nose into where it doesn’t belong.

The Tweeches Zone has much to recommend it.