Opinion : The rule of law vs. the law of ever-increasing rules

The rules were broken at the University of Alabama from 2005 to 2007. Nobody disputes that. In fact, the University of Alabama reported the violations itself, to the NCAA, after school officials discovered what had happened. And what happened was this: Members of the football team whose scholarships included an account at the school book store violated NCAA rules when they used their bookstore accounts to buy books for athletes who did not have scholarships to pay for books. This, according to the NCAA, constituted a “major violation” of its rules. The NCAA punished the university by fining it $43,000 – twice the value of the textbooks handed out in violation of NCAA rules. This is one case where it’s easy to make fun of NCAA rules: It’s against the rules for athletes to pass out text books. NCAA football is, indeed, serious business. We can’t have our athletes messing up football by passing out textbooks. All that learning might interfere with the real purpose of sending those athletes to college. The reason for NCAA rules is obvious: It’s important that student-athletes are indeed, student-athletes, and not paid professionals working for universities. But some of the rules are just silly. A few years ago, an Alabama football player was prohibited from attending his own brother’s high school football game. The reason? The NCAA declared that by watching his brother, the athlete would have been “recruiting” for the NCAA. But the NCAA is just one example of a society that is governed by excessive rules. Government, of course, is the worst offender. While there are many laws passed specifically passed by Congress, there are many other rules that are put into place by other government agencies, without any need for congressional approval. It’s called “administrative law.” There is, for example, an administrative law that says a door must look like a door. There is also a government publication that tells us how to say “a door must look like a door.” There is a rule about how much water you can use to flush your toilet (1.6 gallons). And, of course, for every rule, there is a potential punishment. I stopped at the office of a friend the other day. He was frustrated, again, by the rules of government. He showed me two awards he had received from the government, calling him a “Sentinel of Safety.” His company’s employees had worked many thousands of hours without a lost-time accident, in a field that can be dangerous. But that very same government body that declared my friend to be a Sentinel of Safety also fined him for not parking his maintainer properly. “I parked it, set the parking brake, and put down the blade,” he said. But because he did not also lower a blade in the front, he was fined – a large amount. “The government is taking money from my employees and forcing me to raise my prices,” said my exasperated friend. A few years ago, a leading Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives helped pass a law saying it’s against the law for Medicare providers to negotiate for lower drug prices. That man is now a very highly paid lobbyist for the very drug companies who benefitted because of his law. And under the new health care bill passed this year, we can expect many more rules to set senseless limits on how Americans can take care of themselves. We are being pestered to death by rules in every aspect of life. Individually, each rule is created by someone who seeks to help us in some way. But collectively, those rules, laws and regulations are becoming more and more of a burden that complicate every day life and make it more expensive to live, and less profitable for us to work or run businesses. It’s no wonder that people from all over the political spectrum, from Libertarians to the Tea Party, are saying “Hey, enough with the rules, already.” But it seems that the only reply from everyone from the NCAA to Congress is to make rules about how we can ask for fewer rules.