Govt vs citizen: Should we ban things we can't control?

Road safety is a problem in India. The authorities are getting push back from the citizenry about the carnage on the roads. What is convenient for them is: to shut down roads.

Finding terrorists is difficult. Terrorists can use open wifi networks or trains. What is convenient for the authorities is to shut down open wifi networks or trains. Achieving safety in public spaces late in the night is difficult. What is convenient for the authorities is to force all establishments to close down at 10pm. In similar fashion, I was disappointed to read Chanpreet Khurana write about how the Delhi Metro is trying to achieve safety of women: through gender segregation. This is profoundly wrong. Women must have complete flexibility to dress as they like, go where they like, at any time they like. It is the job of the State to achieve extreme levels of safety while never interfering with the freedom of women. Gender segregation is absolutely not the answer. It is a cop out. It will lead to a worsening of safety of women, overall, by emphasising to the authorities that they actually don’t have to figure out how to achieve a sound criminal justice system. The next time a woman gets attacked in a mixed-gender coach, she will be blamed for having done the wrong thing.

The rules of society must be designed to be convenient to citizens. Decisions should not be taken which make life convenient for bureaucrats and politicians. Achieving a capable State is hard work! That is what politicians and bureaucrats must do, as opposed to finding easy ways to dodge the problem. It is only in a police state that a policeman’s job is easy. On a related note, see Faulty Tradeoffs in Security.

It is very convenient for bureaucrats to ban things in Indian finance and cut Indian finance off from the world. This reduces their work. Why bother learning about what is a CDS when you can just ban it? The strategy of blocking the emergence of a capable Indian financial system is self-serving and convenient; it avoids the difficult work of actually constructing capable financial regulators. As Percy Mistry says, in Indian finance, instead of regulators adapting themselves to the needs of the financial system, we have the financial system distorting itself to fit the needs of the regulators. In an accountable democracy, it must be the State that constantly adapts to achieve freedom for each citizen.