Prevention is Much Worse Than The Cure, Part I

The Despotism of Prevention

Prevention is better than cure, says the proverb. We intuitively understand that with respect to health and well-being this proverb speaks the truth. Better not to get sick at all rather than go through the affliction of illness and its cure.

But when the principle of “prevention” is transcribed to civil law the result is always so bad that in the end it would have been far far better to put up with the disease than suffer under the regime of prevention. Ironically, we intuitively understand that as well. To revert to the comparison with health, there are some diseases which are so secular and common that a prevention regime would be an intolerable burden. Consider the common cold. The weight and burden of having to live in a way to prevent ever getting a cold would be a far worse affliction than the cold itself.

Despite these common-sense truisms, Unbelief has afflicted us with a legal system which mandates prevention regimes for almost all harms. The upshot is despotic government and a society where the burden of prevention is much, much worse than the harm which is ostensibly being avoided.

The current example du jour is the intent to regulate cell phone use in cars: the legislation will carry sanctions; it will require policing; it will not prevent accidents; it will generate more harm than good. We are now getting down to the fine point of the legislation: cell-phone GPS navigation systems will not be allowed (even if mounted on a hands free cradle), while other non cell-phone car GPS systems will remain legal. Clearly the law is an ass, in this case, and everybody knows it.

The vast majority of the citizenry approve the intent, but will ignore the law. They have to. If they actually spent their time scrupulously doing everything which the preventative regime required they would exhaust themselves emotionally, financially, and socially. Most people just mutter about “nanny-state”, “PC rubbish”, and so forth and move on. The prohibitions against drink-driving, certain road speeds, not wearing seat belts, smacking children for disciplinary purposes, taking certain drugs—these are all examples of pervasive preventative cotton wool legislation. It is everywhere. It is growing apace. No change of government makes any difference. It is the inevitable outcome of modern western democratic government. Every one whether the UK, Australia, the US, Canada, Western Europe, and New Zealand have all gone this way.

These developments are not accidental. They are the inevitable outcome of a belief in the State as saviour, messiah and redeemer. Evils exist in the world, but the Messianic State and its rules and regulations will drive them far from us. The overwhelming religious dogma of our day is that the State and its organs of government will set us free from all evil. Once “freedom” almost universally meant freedom from the control of the government. Now it almost universally means freedom from harm, want, inadequacy or threat—and to achieve this, modern Unbelieving man is subjected to every kind of pettifogging bureaucratic rule and law imaginable.

Every so often the beast, which is the electorate, rebels. At our most recent election irritation over nanny-state led many to desert the Labour regime of Helen Clark and its Green cheerleaders. Telling us what light bulbs we had to use, and what kinds of showers heads we would be allowed to put in our bathrooms were two particular straws which broke the camel's back. Now, to be fair, Clark and her colleagues have good grounds to be offended at this reaction. They were simply doing what governments had been doing in the West for the past one hundred and fifty years—and they were progressing, becoming better and better at it. Moreover, since their ejection from the seat of power, the National government has not changed this general direction at all. It has promptly set out with a whole new plethora of rules, regulations, preventions, provisions, and acts of redemption to remove all evils from the nation.

All modern Western governments, regardless of brand, are the same. Whether Republican or Democrat, Social Democrat or Christian Democrat, Labour or Conservative, Liberal or Labour, National or Labour—all political parties who have any possibility of leading government in the West are fundamentally the same. They all believe it is the role and responsibility of government, by means of law, rules, regulations, stipulations, and provisions to remove threats and potential harm from the world. Note—the ideology has moved from the cure of actual harm to prevention. This is the key, watershed difference marking out the current age from the former, more Christian one.

All western governments share a deep belief in the state as Messianic Redeemer. That is why in the United States the Republicans under Bush ran up huge deficits; only to be eclipsed in their turn by Democrat Obama. When the Republicans return, they will outspend Obama—mark our words. Prevention is endlessly expensive. In New Zealand, Labour's spending is being turbo-charged by National. Those who seek to excuse the present regime by pleading financial crises or unusual exigencies are self-deceived and the excuse risible. The entirety of National's approach can be summed up in this slogan: “we will take care of you”. It is the same slogan as Labour's—it is only the colour on the banner that differs. “Would you like your poison-pill in blue or red, madam?” Taking care of us requires law upon law, regulation upon regulation, and layer upon layer of bureaucratic interference in our lives. Prevention has become far, far worse than any cure.

This will not change until the vast majority of our people are genuinely Christian again. It will only get worse and worse. When a culture clothes itself in pretensions of deity, the increasing weight of garments required to be worn suffocate life. As each new regulation is promulgated, as each new garment put on, the life of human society ebbs away just that bit more. When it comes to the body politic, prevention is definitely much, much worse than the cure.

In Part II, we will solve this problem (which is easily solved) from the Scriptures. But while the solution is clear, the acceptance and adoption of it is not. It requires that men smash their idol-worship of Man, and humble themselves before the Living God and His Christ. Historically this has most often happened when the idols are visibly and publicly smashed by outside forces. Humility arises, unfortunately, most often from a deep valley of humiliation.