Nope, it's not important to me, but I still find it a waste of time and energy to have laws that the vast majority of people find tedious and misguided, but suit the "sensibilities" of the time. The Temperance Movement had its moment, too - is it so important for us to have a drink when it ruins the lives of so many families and good people?
Your points are good, and valid, but only to a point. I've worked in hostile work environments, but they weren't hostile because of behavior such as bigotry or sexism. It hostile because management was a group of idiots who couldn't distinguish between a hole in the ground and other parts of their anatomy (nod to our current laws).
Unfortunately, we can't legislate good management behavior, but we feel compelled to legislate social behavior. It is the hypocrisy of this that I find galling. It is also the hubris that implies that government can, somehow, legislate how people think, act, and speak.
Finally, there is a cost to managing defensively. My father once pointed out (he's a doctor) that the cost of malpractice easily added more than 50% to his medical fees. Between the insurance, which added about 20%, there was the cost of practices he had to engage in to AVOID having to utilize the insurance. In his estimation, these costs were more than the cost of the insurance itself. As a result, he suffered one lawsuit in 40 years of surgical practice (it was tossed out, too). Does he feel that these practices paid for themselves because he didn't appear in court? Toss up. He's not pleased with the skyrocketing costs of medicine, because it is cost to society as a whole. But the winners are the lawyers, and they (70% of Congress) make the laws. Interestingly, the primary winners in most of these office regulations are the same group of people...
Your words aren't lost on me. We're just looking at the same situation from different positions. I'm not opposed to the sentiment behind these rules, and I support their goals. But we can't make the world safe for everyone, and laws like these bother more people than they are designed to help.
And that should be a consideration when laws are designed. |
