Under what a pan-European government might do?
Here’s one suggestive example: The Eurocrats in Brussels have just released 50 pages of regulations to harmonize EU standards for . . . condoms. The regulations offer interesting diagrams of how exactly condoms were tested for durability and strength, as follows:
Moreover, the standards are extremely helpful for those who are not able, without government direction, to open a condom package: “Move the condom inside the package such that it is away from the area where the package is to be torn. Tear the package and remove the condom. . . . Unroll the condom ensuring that it is not excessively stretched in any direction.” But the bulk of the document gives precise instructions on how bureacurats can evaluate the condoms that are sold in their jurisdiction: “Examine the condom visually under normal or corrected vision.” The standards raise the question, If European bureaucrats are so stupid that they have to be told to put on their glasses before looking at something, can they be trusted no matter how precise the regulations?
And these standards get plenty precise. The 50 pages are filled with prose like this: “Each lot shall be sampled in accordance with ISO 2859-1 general respection level I, but utilising a minimum sample size and corresponding acceptance/rejection numbers equivalent to sample size code letter M.” Furthermore, the air-flow-calibration test is to be conducted with “a volume flow rate at ambient temperature and pressure (Q) in cubic decimetres per second as follows”:
Q = q root (P[barR + P [Rin]) X T[in] / T[r] X )P[bar] + P[in])
Don’t try that at home.
