Being Wrong

Iraq seems like it has been in the news every day for years now. I'm not getting into the whole "should we have went" debate. We're there now.

I am, however, interested in this idea of the Iraqis setting up a constitution. I think the one thing they have to be, the one thing that will save them from a lot of problems, is wrong.

Wrong? What's that mean? How could being wrong save the Iraqis? Shouldn't they try to be right -- do the right things?

I think many times when we set up systems, whether it's corporate systems or constitutions for governments, we try to exactly the right thing. We try to make all the laws perfect, we try to pick the absolute best people to do the jobs, etc. We're always trying to tweak things so they are exactly right. Many of us do the same thing with our politics -- there is a reason the US tax code is too heavy for anybody to pick up! We're always trying to make the laws just a little better.

But this is the wrong way to go about it. Instead of trying for the best, we should be planning for the worst. Our current constitution in the United States is built on the premise that politicians are all lying, power-hungry weasels. Many times this is a true statement. Sometimes it is not. It's also built on the premise that branches and departments of government have a tendency to take over everything if you let them. This is also a true more often than not over long periods of time.

In short, the government of the United States was planned for things to go wrong, not go right. We planned for a president that would try to be king. We planned for a Congress that would try to run the army by consensus. We planned for judges who are crooked or incapable.

We didn't sit around and try to think of the twelve thousand laws that will make everybody live together. That is an impossible task, if for no other reason than the law as it applies to somebody living by themselves in the desert is a completely different concept than somebody living in the city.

We agreed on principles of correction. That is, every so often we change the president and the congress. The president has a veto, the congress has an override. For every power that could be taken by any one branch of government, there is a check. A check and a balance.

Now I know that many of you US readers have heard all about checks and balances if you went to public school growing up. But have you really thought about the philosophy behind the way the government was set up? Nobody is counting on the president to be some great man, or your congressman to somehow have angel wings. In fact, it's just the opposite. The system is made for people to try to abuse it, because abuse it they will.

Human nature always wants to complicate things. We want to divide up our laws and exactly reward or punish people. It's a huge mistake, and we've been making it for a long tim. We have the very real and severe problem of overcomplicating the laws. You see, the more complicated the laws, the easier it is to actually abuse the system. Politicians have known this for years, continuing to make the law so complicated that nobody really understands it anymore. Most of us have been suckers and not figured it out.

Thomas Paine, one of the American Founding Fathers, said something like "A simple system of government is preferable to a complex system of government. With a simple system, if somebody is oppressing you, you look to the King -- he is at fault. In a complicated system, they can take away all your rights and there is nobody to blame."

The Iraqis should consider this as they form their government. If the ruling party cannot agree on a leader, what then? The constitution should be set up so that it's all planned. Any one person or branch of their government should not be allowed to run the show. They had better plan on being wrong. And wrong a lot.