Death of Common Sense : How Law is Suffocating America

Rating:
Summary: Progress impeded by "The Process"
Review: This book takes a disturbing look into The Law as the suffocater of progress and the enemy of common sense. Not that we all need too much reminding of that nowadays, though.

The examples are many, but are juicier (if that word is appropriate) in the second half of the book.

After you read this you'll wonder how ANYTHING ever gets accomplished anymore, especially in NYC.

Watch the movie "...And Justice For All" to get your blood pumping, then read this book to get your blood vessels to actually burst. It'll make you want to emigrate to another country at times.

Rating:
Summary: What shall we do?
Review: Philip Howard's book the The Death of Common Sense is both an enlightening and disturbing look at the inner workings of American government. Less than half of Americans vote because politicians never come through on their promises. Howard tells us why politicians seem impotent. The laws of the land are smuthering us all. Their is a "How to" guide for the right way of everything. Even though the "right way" may be flawed or lengthy, it must be followed.

For example, OSHA labeled sand as a hazardous material. The same sand as we see at the beach is hazardous. Not beacause it produces cancer or anything, but becuase sand contains trace amounts of silica. Silica is a dangerous element on its own. OSHA also found the very brick that built your house to be hazardous. If a brick is broken, it kicks up dust. We breathe this dust into our lungs. Long term damage could be caused. This is absurd! All because the government wants to head off lawsuits before they start.

How about construction on the highway. Bidding often takes foru years. Bidding has to be opened to everybody. And the bureaucrats have to take their time to make sure the process is fair. This "how to" maanual is in both houses of congress too. All the steps have to be followed to make everybody happy or the process will be blocked.

The bottom line is Howard has exposed bureaucrats to be a cancer in the American government. How do we start Americans in motion to reverse this tide?

Rating:
Summary: To Build a Better Bureaucrat
Review: The Death of Common Sense by Philip K. Howard is a mostly anecdotal work about the litigious society that America has become. Howard relates several stories about people and organizations who have been minding their own business or who have actively engaged in good works who have been stifled by an overzealous bureaucracy intent upon enforcing government regulations originally intended to promote the public welfare. These regulations, in the instances cited by Howard, have actually contributed to a decrease in the public welfare as prosperous citizens and charitably inclined organizations have been hounded by them.

It isn't the regulations that Howard is protesting against per se. His work is more geared towards what the title reflects, a lapse in judgement by those who enforce these regulations.

Howard doesn't admit that these regulations were intended for good and have, in many instances, been used for such. This is where the weakness in Howard's argument lies. He seems to be protesting against all enforcement of these regulations as contrary to the public welfare.

Another weakness in Howard's work is his pleading for a return to an era when common sense supposedly reigned. The fact is that all bureaucracies are highly fallible. They are composed of human beings immersed in a world of rules and procedure. Oftentimes the rule becomes supreme over its enforcement because the rule is the reason for the enforcers job.

Howard, like most people, has no method for correcting this flaw of human nature. If machines could somehow undertake the responsibility of enforcement, then we might see a more rational approach than that currently employed by humans. Failing that though, we just have to do what Howard has done: hope for more reasonable bureaucrats.

Rating:
Summary: outline
Review: Part I "The Death of Common Sense"
Using several cases (see other reviews) details the harm of rationalist philosophy applied to law -- the misguided notion that laws can be made "self-executing".
Part II "The Buck Never Stops"
The abstractly laudable desire to maintain absolute impartiality creates an absolute nightmare of red tape -- the focus in this section is on Process spawned by mistrust and the bureaucratic reflex to avoid responsibility for decisions.

Part III "A Nation of Enemies"
Vocal, assertive minorities are able to control government policy-making. Rights over responsibilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is the prime example here (see other reviews for details).
Part IV "Releasing Ourselves"
We must have law that allows thinking. Modern law wants to legislate away uncertainty with ever-thicker rulebooks, but uncertainty, risk, is exactly what drives various parties to work together, in the real world. Don't fear gov't authority. Don't think in extremes. Bureaucracy is the enemy of real democracy. Legislation cannot save us from ourselves. In the end, we must rely, as always, on common sense.

Note: rating lost a star because author kept using one example (Glen-Gery Brick Company) again and again, when fresh examples would have been more compelling. Also, as other reviewers have noted, the last section, on what we as citizens can concretely do to help change the situation, was vague and thin.

If this book interests you, you might also be interested in the political writings of Noam Chomsky. He has written an enormous, readable, extremely well-researched corpus of work that concerned, open-minded citizens can use to consider for themselves where they stand on various issues. If we were to hazard a label, Chomsky would be a "libertarian socialist". Try "Manufacturing Consent"... you might not look at your morning paper quite the same way.

Rating:
Summary: Almost Perfect
Review: The previous reviewers have all been correct: Howard does a masterful job of exposing the grave injustices and glaring inefficiencies of our hyper-regulatory bureaucratic system of governance, but fails to provide a clear and detailed solution to the problem. He recommends simplifying bureaucratic guidlines and leaving more to human judgement, but fails to argue his point with sufficient force. Still, the book is a must-read for anyone frustrated with the current state of affairs in the administration of government.

Rating:
Summary: disappointing that he offers no solutions
Review: This book provides a devastating critique of the blizzard of rules & regulations that government has promulgated in the past century and the damage they have caused to our society & our economy.

Howard provides numerous examples of nonsensical regulations (New York City refusing to allow Mother Teresa to build a homeless shelter unless a $100,000 elevator is installed, the EPA ruling that bricks are poisonous because if they are sawn in pieces there may be some silicate particles, etc.), but these are easy targets.

The most graphic illustration of the insanity of government regulation comes in his discussion of the Americans with Disabilies Act & the mayhem it has caused: kneeling buses spend a half hour during people's work commute, loading & unloading a wheelchair rider; public transportation vehicles end up with far less seats than before in order to accomodate the chairs; street curbs are ramped for the wheelchairs, but now the blind have trouble telling where the curb ends, etc. It's time to ask whether all this is a worthwhile price to pay to benefit a minute proportion of the population.

Equally disturbing, is the discussion of Special Education. What is the sense of an educational system that devotes a huge proportion of it's resources to nearly ineducable students?

The most interesting part of the book may be his examination of the motivation behind the regulatory scheme we now face. He points out that the original motivation for regulation was fairness. Social policy planners believed that only be having an elaborate & inflexible pattern of regulation that covered every eventuality, could you guarantee that bureaucrats would be freed from outside influences. However, the result has been to require that everyone follow the same scheme of rules, regardless of whether they make any sense.

As Howard argues, this has brought us to a crisis point in American life. We are increasingly frustrated by the intrusion of these rules into our lives, increasingly distrustful of government & increasingly willing to find ways around these regulations.

However, and this is a significant weakness of the book, Howard does not offer a real prescription for these problems. His critique is powerful enough that it's hard to believe that we wouldn't be better off if we scrapped all government regulation & started over, but Howard understandably shies away from any such radical solution.

GRADE: B

Rating:
Summary: What happened to our country?
Review: Wow...this book is an amazing testimony to what is wrong with the relationships we have as Americans. Long have people lamented the lack of responsibility taken by people in this country...now it is clear that this is a systemic problem as well. The nation's bureaucracy is designed to give responsibility to no one.

The only letdown in this book was the lack of solutions out of the mess. Throughout, I was challenging myself to find a way - any way - to bring the country out of it's rights craze and back to sanity, yet I was unable to think of a plausible solution. I would like to see more in the way of solutions from the author.

Every political science student, every elected politician, and every bureaucrat should read this book...

Rating:
Summary: Lots of news, little substance, no real solutions
Review: Mr. Howard fills this book with many irritating, frightening, and maddening examples of how strict adherence to the letter of the law can lead to idiotic decisions. It's kind of like watching a "Real Cops" or "Amazing Videos" show on TV. If this is what you enjoy, buy this book and indulge yourself.

This book also appeals to government bashers. If you enjoy reading about how stupid laws can be, you don't mind ignoring all the good laws can do, and you like reading people slam the government, this is a good choice.

But, if you really care, you won't want to waste your time with this book. Howard offers no practical solutions. I can summarize his proposed remedies with two words: Benevolent Dictator. Howard calls for laws as general principles with justice metted out by wise "judges". This type of system, rife with corruption since man first walked the earth, concentrates power in the hands of a few and leaves the common man without recourse.

Sure, our legal system is too big. Yes, we have too many laws. But the solution should be reform, not a backward revolution.

Rating:
Summary: Conclusory and Illusory
Review: The only common sense that is dead is the failure of Mr. Howard to support his conclusions. It is not necessary, for purposes of this review, to set forth the conclusions of Mr. Howard. It is necessary, however, to comment on the method by which Mr. Howard arrived at his conclusions.

Mr. Howard cites several examples of stupidity. No one could seriously dispute that. From those examples, Mr. Howard makes several quantum leaps to arrive at conclusions that are not validly logical.

I didn't say they defy logic. They may, in fact, be correct. But Mr. Howard's conclusions do not meet the test of logic and reason. They leave much to be desired. Mr. Howard's conclusions are based upon a few anecdotes. The sparcity of these anecdotes make Mr. Howard's ideas conclusory and illusory.

One can support just about any conclusion if the basis of the conclusion are a few anecdotes. The book may not be nonsense. The ideas may be correct. This book does not, though, lay a proper foundation for its ideas and, therefore, is a waste of time to read.

Rating:
Summary: I laughed until I cried
Review: The utter inanity of Howard's explosive expose would, in the word's of Mark Twain, make a dead man laugh. Then you consider the reality and one must weep. There are in fact many authors who have looked to the future and relayed the good news of an imminent utopia about to erupt in our midst, arriving at light speed on the winged feet of technology.

Hold on Horatio. You forgot the Lawyers, the Media, and the Government. All three have a different plan. Virginia Postrel, Reg Whittaker, et al, are apparently blind to the visceral stupidity and craven corruption of the three amigos just mentioned.

One author has not succumbed to the conventional idiocy that ignores Howard's reality. Jerry Furland. the author of "Transfer-the end of the beginning", stands in the vanguard of those who gladly shoulder the burden of scorn of the "progressive and oh so hip" crowd who despite every known attribute of Mankind, continue to insist that we can handle it. Well, I see little hope of that. People, to include me, generally suck. The Founding Fathers recognised that. Result: the U.S. Constitution. Howard shows us that despite the advantages of birth, Americans are intent on self-destruction and will pursue that goal amid general applause and approbation.

Oh, Furland is not an intellectual per se. That is his strength. To be an intellectual, widely recognized as such, is to abandone all pretense of intellect. This Furland will hopefully never do. Great book Mr. Howard!