Reviews for The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America

The average rating for The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-03-01 00:00:00 Tim Morneau As I read this book, I nodded my head along with the author’s points on almost every page. He describes specific examples of the red tape and bureaucratic insanity we have all experienced firsthand throughout our lives. Though it is somewhat a depressing read, considering that bureaucracy and paperwork have increased by an order of magnitude since this edition was published two decades ago, it was worth picking up anyway. For a book focused on webs of laws and bureaucrats, it was a surprisingly smooth read. My only major criticism is that the author was long on problems and short on practical and specific solutions. I came across this book the old fashioned way. I pulled it off the shelf while browsing my local library, which is why I read the 1994 edition rather than the more recent version. Howard pulls example after example out of the darkness of overstuffed file cabinets and into the light. He shows plain the tyranny of a government which has grown so burdened by regulation that it staggers under its own weight. The immovability of bureaucracy and process which were intended to make government fairer have had the opposite of the intended effect, and instead have astronomical time and productivity costs which harm both individuals with a direct stake and the public at large. Howard puts a name to many of the frustrations we all have with government but never thought about the root cause or full extent of the problems. Whether you work for the government yourself, you have a child in public schools, or you simply want to register your car or use public transportation, you are affected by suffocating laws and the regulations which stem from them. We all continue to face the immovable monolith of government, and as described by Philip K. Howard in The Death of Common Sense, the obstructions and senselessness of the modern U.S. Government, from the federal down to the municipal level, affect each one of us in more ways that we have ever imagined.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-01-10 00:00:00 Dorothiea Gandolfo I know that this book looks like it would be mind-numbingly boring but it is actually a great read and only takes a few hours. If all of the stories weren't frustratingly true then this could be comedy. This book makes a journey through government regulation that is supposed to save us from ourselves but instead makes government the masters of us, shackled by either bureaucratic stupidity or power trips. For example, in NYC the city government sold two buildings, abandoned after being gutted by fire and sitting for years, to a Catholic charity for $1 each, after which the church spent over $500,000 renovating the buildings and turning it into a shelter that would take 64 homeless men off the street, give them a clean room and job training so that they can re-enter society as productive members. After two years a building inspector told them that because the building code requires all renovated multi-story buildings to have an elevator, they must either install one (at a cost of $100,000 to them) or shut the building down. Not having the money to do that, the building was shut down and the men put back on the street. This short book does a perfect job of showing us why we have to regain control of a tyrannical government.