It's a difficult argument over which is actually the worst, but if you wanted to make a list of bad policies currently being pursued with vigor at a national level in the United States, I think an uncontroversial top three would be:
1) For sheer daily cruelty, the prohibition of marijuana.
2) For long-term harm to our general survival, the impotent response to climate change.
3) For absolute face-palming stupidity, abstinence-only education.
These are by no means exclusive -- and arguably I'm showing my gender bias by not including the restrictions on women's rights to choose in the top three. What all three have in common is that there's basically no respectable evidence that the alleged benefits of the current approach even remotely approach the costs.
Here's my question, though: it would be bad enough if a country were busily pursuing just one of these policies. What kind of odds would you give a country that was busily pursuing all three?
1) For sheer daily cruelty, the prohibition of marijuana.
2) For long-term harm to our general survival, the impotent response to climate change.
3) For absolute face-palming stupidity, abstinence-only education.
These are by no means exclusive -- and arguably I'm showing my gender bias by not including the restrictions on women's rights to choose in the top three. What all three have in common is that there's basically no respectable evidence that the alleged benefits of the current approach even remotely approach the costs.
Here's my question, though: it would be bad enough if a country were busily pursuing just one of these policies. What kind of odds would you give a country that was busily pursuing all three?
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