Op-Ed: Itxu Díaz: Government Overreach and Its Obsession to Touch Everything

The government is a necessary evil. But it is an evil nonetheless.

Democracy puts someone who is not even related to you in charge of all the really important things in your life, including how fast you can drive or the price of beer. Perhaps it is someone who has lived in Washington for ten generations who has never even seen a sheep who decides how Nebraska herders should address their animals to ensure that the language is inclusive enough.

And there is little you can do about it. Anarchy is not an option.

I guess the government is like an elephant. It is not the fastest means of transportation. It does not serve to deter thieves from your home. It is not the most graceful animal. But if you leave it long enough, maybe it can accomplish all three. So in the end all you ask of your elephant is not to fall on you. The same goes for the government.

The main issue with having a big government is that it ends up taking care of things that work better on their own. In order to justify the disproportionate size of the different departments and agencies, politicians are forced to invent regulations on issues you didn’t even know existed.

Europe is a good example of this because it is the only continent in the world that you can cross from one end to the other, jumping from one stupid rule to another, without touching the ground. The European Union could even try to regulate the direction your blood circulates through your body and no member of the European Parliament would be the slightest bit surprised.

If it were left up to the Biden-Harris administration, America would be in the same boat.

The administrative web — European, national, regional, local — of the Old World is so dense that we would save a lot of paper if they printed a single guide with what is allowed. A couple of paragraphs would be sufficient.

Of course, the guide would have to be published on recycled paper, no plastic whatsoever, in 150 languages, in feminine and masculine, in singular and plural, with a disclaimer respecting Islamist beliefs