Conservatives always tell me that they want a competent government. The worst thing that could happen to a government is if it became competent. Today people around the world enjoy incompetent governments, which means their random decrees are not nearly as consequential as they could be:
A Brazilian judge has ordered (Google Translate) that all mobile phone providers in the country block WhatsApp traffic for 72 hours, beginning yesterday.
However, Brazilians are discovering that the ban only covers mobile carriers—so Brazilians still can use WhatsApp over Wi-Fi or a VPN connection over their mobile data plan.
Imagine if Brazil’s government was competent. The entire country could have been cutoff from a very popular means of communicating securely.
I’m a fan of incompetent government. So long as a government cannot effectively enforce the decrees it issues the amount of damage it can cause is limited (when compared to what the damage could be, I’m not claiming the damage is usually minor).
Unfortunately an incompetent government can bankrupt a nation just as quickly as a (mythical) competent government can. Case in point: the United States, 2016.