"Okay, I keep hearing people complain about 'social engineering.' I'm not sure what they mean by this, because it's easy to trace "social engineering" back to the Ten Commandments. I'm no anthropologist, so I'll leave it at that, but I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to find earlier examples of social engineering. Our own Constitution is one of the most brilliant examples of social engineering that comes to mind.

"'Social Engineering,' as some people use it, sounds suspiciously like something from the fevered brain of Rush Lim ... (oh, I just can't bring myself to mention him by name). Or is it something from The Sayings of (Former) Speaker Newt?

"It always sounds like "social engineering" means a governmental function of which the speaker disapproves." Yet there are many forms of social engineering that most people don't seem to mind.

"For example, a governmental function like police protection or the regulation of interest rates by the Fed are both forms of social engineering. So also is the social engineering which grants big tax loopholes, er, incentives, to business." Work incentives for those drawing welfare? That's social engineering! Federal subsidies that prop up the American oil industry? Workplace safety incentives by OSHA? Consumer coupons? Our educational system (public and private)? Crosswalk lights? Dog leash laws? The cereal aisle at the grocery store? You guessed it: All are social engineering!

So when someone calls mass transit policies a form of social engineering, the term kind of loses its punch, doesn't it? Especially when 695 and 711 are ALSO social engineering of a different form!

[Adapted with many alterations from Meredith Geeves and www.rdrop.com. Though CS thanks MG for the inspiration with a nod and a smile, MG has no connection to CS, nor vice-versa.]

-- Common Sense (1@hotmail.com), April 14, 2000

Answers

Yawn....

-- (zowie@hotmail.com), April 14, 2000.

My dislike of the term "social engineering" stems from the inclusion of the word "engineering". "Engineering" is a technical discipline, ie., the art or science of making practical applications of the knowledge of pure science, such as chemistry, physics, biology, and so forth. "Social engineering" is nothing like this, but is invariably the act of government imposing its will on the citizenry for the purpose of promoting one or another "feel good" scheme. Now I admit, some of these may be necessary, and a few may actually work, but that's not the point here. As an engineer of many years standing, I just dislike this particular bastardization of the title of my profession.

I feel as strongly about this as I do of the use of the term "Federal Funds" to describe money extorted from a helpless citizenry and then used in income redistribution based on whatever the current politically correct bureaucratic prejudice happens to be.

-- Albert Fosha (AFosha@aol.com), April 14, 2000.

Al, Your posting is great, and I was with you all the way. . .until you used the term "helpless citizenry."

Citizens are not "helpless." They can petition the government, vote politicians into and out of office, and hold ballot issues in order to raise (or not to raise) funds for certain causes. If you don't like government policy or particular candidates or judges, than use the ballot! It's not easy, but you can do it IF enough OTHER people feel as strongly as you do.

-- Common Sense (1@hotmail.com), April 14, 2000.

OK, I'll concede your last point. Probably I should have concluded the modifier "almost" in front of the word "helpless". I guess I'm just feeling a bit grumbly because I just wrote out a big (to me, anyway) check to the IRS as a result of a minor miscalculation of my estimated taxes for last year.

-- Albert Fosha (Afosha@aol.com), April 14, 2000.

"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." -Thomas Paine, "Common Sense", 1776

-- (zowie@hotmail.com), April 14, 2000.

Or better yet,

"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can excercise their constitutional right of amending it, or excercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln

-- (zowie@hotmail.com), April 14, 2000.

Zowie writes:

"Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can excercise their constitutional right of amending it, or excercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln"

Oh please. Talk about taking a quote out of the context of history. Lincoln fought a war AGAINST those who were revolting against the US government and attempting to overthrow it.

Implying that he was pro-revolutionary is revisionist history, and it's totally bunk.

-- BB (bbquax@hotmail.com), April 14, 2000.

Never said that he was pro-revolutionary. But he believed that governments were there FOR the people (recall the Gettysburg address) as opposed to the people being there to provide resources FOR the government. And like most of the founding fathers and pre 1940 politicians, he had a healthy skepticism of the role of government and believed in fairly limited government, extremely limited by today's standards.

"Implying that he was pro-revolutionary is revisionist history, and it's totally bunk. " And I didn't IMPLY squat. I made no statement other than to post the direct quote. Quotations are invariably taken out of context. When was the last time anyone posted an entire speech, and how many would bother to read it if they did? Quotations were the "sound-bite" of an earlier time.

You are the one who is implying someone asserted he is pro- revolutionary. Lincoln clearly put the constitutional right of amending first. Did you have too many shots in your cappuchino, or what? You seem a little bit hysterical.

zowie

-- (zowie@hotmail.com), April 14, 2000.

It would be a mistake, however, to think Lincoln was a populist. He was much closer to an anti-populist. He may also have had the first truly imperial presidency.

-- Howard Morrill (morrill@bundymorrill.com), April 17, 2000.