Solutions without Problems - Couverture souple

Babbie, Dr. Earl Robert

Couverture souple

ISBN 13 : 9798334587489

Editeur : Independently published, 2024

Synopsis

What do the Salem witch trials, banning gay marriage, outlawing marijuana, and Voter ID laws all have in common? Each is a “solution” designed to solve a non-existent problem, with disastrous consequences. This book details a long list of examples from politics and social policy, religion, medicine and other aspects of social life.

Each of these “solutions” brings with it a Pandora’s Box of negative side-effects. Solving non-existent problems is like shooting ghosts: you don’t hurt the ghosts, but you damage anything and anyone in your line of fire. Young women were executed in the belief they were witches, gays have been denied the right to marry those they love, and many thousands spend their ruined lives in prison for lighting up a joint. The attempt to prevent a virtually non-existent form of illegal voting denies the vote to millions who are fully qualified for the Constitutionally-guaranteed right to vote.

In addition to the human costs of these ill-advised solutions, they can also be expensive for the groups implementing them. Outlawing marijuana, for example, creates enormous criminal justice costs: discovering, prosecuting, and imprisoning the offenders. Voter ID laws have hefty costs that include the printing of ID cards, public education campaigns to explain the new regulations, additional staff to serve those requiring and requesting such IDs, staff to train poll workers to handle the mountain of provisional ballots, plus millions to defend such contentious laws in court. All these costs to individuals and to society are the result of attempts to solve problems that didn’t exist in the first place.

There is an individual-level parallel to the topic of this book in anorexia nervosa. A young woman believes she is overweight, and the solution to that imagined problem is to eat less and less. But she only imagines she is fat; there is no real problem to solve. However, the ‘solution’ causes real damage in the form of ill health and possibly death.

Finally, the kind of “solutions” without problems discussed in this book (soluprobs® for short) establish networks of vested interests that can constitute inertia, preventing reform. Decriminalizing marijuana, for example, threatens the livelihood of drug-dealers, DEA agents, prosecutors, defense lawyers, and prison guards among others. In a broader view, I suppose, this bombshell of a book would not be possible except for the regrettable history of shooting ghosts. Perhaps we can tolerate that consequence, but just that one.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Independently published
• Date d'édition: 2024
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 13: 9798334587489
• Reliure: Taschenbuch
• Nombre de pages: 148
• Coordonnées du fabricant: Manufactured by Amazon on behalf of the author; https://www.amazon.de/hz/contact-us; ; c/o Amazon Media EU S.à.r.l., 38 Avenue John F. Kennedy; Luxembourg; L-1855; Luxembourg