The fence analogy kinda breaks down here. The sum total of regulations are like a collection of Chestson's Fences, each one added to the legal code for specific edge cases and the outcome of removing any individual one will have different results.
It doesn't mean anything to talk about reducing regulations without being specific about which rules you actually have an issue with, but it can provide the illusion of consensus.
I mean, you agreed on something, which is the bloat of a system, you just disagree on the "how to fix it" part.
If I said "We need a crane that can lift 3000lbs" and you agree, and you come up with a design that uses an electric motor system, and I come up with a design that uses a diesel engine, we still agreed on something, just not the implementation of how to do it.
I realize it's not a perfect analogy, but if you and I could agree on some bad consequence of "too many regulations" (e.g. the prices of healthcare are too high as a result of the regulations), that is some common ground. The question then comes down "which regulations would be best to cut to lower costs?" and reduces to an optimization problem.
> I mean, you agreed on something, which is the bloat of a system, you just disagree on the "how to fix it" part.
Unfortunately, the "how to fix it" part is the part that requires building political consensus. Getting agreement on X being too expensive is easy; everyone always wants everything to be cheaper.
> If I said "We need a crane that can lift 3000lbs" and you agree, and you come up with a design that uses an electric motor system, and I come up with a design that uses a diesel engine, we still agreed on something, just not the implementation of how to do it.
> I realize it's not a perfect analogy, but if you and I could agree on some bad consequence of "too many regulations" (e.g. the prices of healthcare are too high as a result of the regulations), that is some common ground. The question then comes down "which regulations would be best to cut to lower costs?" and reduces to an optimization problem.
The problem I have is that using "too many regulations" as the foundation is inevitably doomed. Lets say we find some collection of regulations that could be cut. Well, any solution is going to, at a glance, look like an additional regulation to the layman. And that's before the parasites that are profiting from the existing inefficiencies start spinning narratives about how this is another government overreach and how we're killing America.
It doesn't mean anything to talk about reducing regulations without being specific about which rules you actually have an issue with, but it can provide the illusion of consensus.
Like we could both talk about healthcare and say that healthcare is too regulated in the US and that we should reduce the regulations! This a broadly agreeable position! But if I'm thinking of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_of_need and you're thinking of the ACA cap on insurance profits (Medical Loss Ratio https://content.naic.org/cipr-topics/medical-loss-ratio#:~:t...), then we didn't actually agree on anything, did we?