Tuesday 29 June 2010

Up Town, Top Speaking

Last week at the IEA, Mark Wallace of the Taxpayers' Alliance began his speech with this piece of trivia to illustrate modern day state hyper-regulation.

· Pythagoras’ Theory – 24 words
· Lords’ Prayer – 66 words
· Archimedes Principle – 67 words
· Ten Commandments - 179 words
· Gettysburg Address – 267 words
· US Declaration of Independence – 1,321 words
· Magna Carta (including signatures) – 3,856 words
· EU regulations on sale and trade of cabbages – 26,253 words
One lives and learns, eh?

Thanks to skilled speakers such as Mark, the Voices of Freedom debates have thus far been highly entertaining and thought-provoking, and even provocative at times, so I'll be popping up there again tonight for the final event of the series.

Entitled "Who holds the liberal torch in 2010?", the list of speakers is again impressive, featuring James Delingpole (writer, journalist and broadcaster), Julian Harris (chairman, Liberal Vision), Chris Mounsey (leader, Libertarian party), Brendan O’Neill (editor, Spiked!), Mark Pack (co-editor, Liberal Democrat Voice), Paul Staines (aka blogger Guido Fawkes), and Michael White (assistant editor, Guardian).

Hmmm, with any luck there could be an eloquent row in the offing there.

If you're going. mine's a pint in the pub after. If not, here's a little vid for your perusal. Although focussing on US stats, it's still a good illustration of why state restriction/prohibition are the most counter-productive and damaging policies (or aspirations) known to man.


Hasta mañana.


6 comments:

Gordon Is a Moron said...

How the fuck do you write 26k words on the sale of cabbages. I am tempted to try and find a copy of it but know I will regret it is I do.

Anonymous said...

Sad to say but it looks like a myth...

I know this is for the US, but still.

http://www.snopes.com/language/document/cabbage.asp

Anonymous said...

Argh, it didn't come out...

Link

Dick Puddlecote said...

Thanks for pointing that out, Salegamine. Like you say, it's a shame ... but what if I found out exactly how many words are in EU regs on cabbages?

I'll get me magnifying glass and deerstalker out. ;-)

Anonymous said...

It doesn't matter the number of exact words, just count the thousands of pages in the latest Lisbon Accords copared to almost ANYTHING else.

Gawain Towler said...

Snopes may be right,

However if you want to see the horror that is the liofe of a market gardener, can I direct you to this page
http://www.fsai.ie/legislation/food_legislation/fruit_and_veg/specific_marketing_standards_veg.html

This is the range of regulations that a market gardener has to complyt with just when it comes to the production and sale of their produce.

Of course then you have to factor in a thousand and one rules governing employment, air quality etc.