And as much as I could have something to say about all of these things, it makes me wonder, when did government become so trivial?  And when did government decide that they are serving the public interest best by arranging all the intimate details of how people live, how they do their work and even, if things keep going the way they do, what they put in their mouths.

When you think about it, there are some significant changes that have been introduced through law.  Most criminal codes go a long way to ensuring the rights of the citizens in most countries.  Allowing women to vote, work, own property and be the partner who initiates marital separation again springs to mind as fairly significant advances.  The abolition of slavery in both the US and UK, and the abolition of apartheid in South Africa, all are historically significant.  Even in Australia, the referendum to give Aboriginal people equal rights to those of other Australian’s is  a history defining moment.  (Along with the blocking of supply to Whitlam, but that wasn’t so much legislation as the blocking of it.  However it has been a long time since we have had something truly history defining go through our parliaments.

When you think about it, things may have not been that much better during the middle ages, because of social restrictions and power structures, but at least people were much more free.  I’m not entirely sure that most of the legislation we have has made life safer, easier, or human interactions more pleasant because of it.  In fact quite the opposite.  The best thing it’s probably achieved is keeping a lot of mediocre people in employment in the civil service, in an environment that frustrates the few good people it manages to attract.  I’m tempted to go into a little rant about over legislation, but really I just mean to say, I think the government should stick to the history shaping decisions, and leave the trivial ones to the communities, rather than trying to control people too much.