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Too Much Protection

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Too much protection plays into the law of unintended consequences.
Just today, we read that the ever increasing allergy to peanuts might stem from---not eating enough peanuts in the formative years, therefore not developing proper immunities to this allergy. So says the article written by .
"Too much protection"  stories abound today.  When society offers and sometimes forces protection on the individual, the result is oftentimes that the people begin to lose their ability to avoid danger.
It even happens with domestic cattle.  Many breeds of cattle are so domesticated that cows will not object to a predator attacking and carrying away a newborn calf.  Yet the Longhorn cow, not nearly as domesticated as, say, a Holstein cow, will not only "babysit" calves in a small group for other cows, but will get rather nasty if a predator shows up.
Advocates of expanding breadth of  government need to pay heed to the risk of weakening society as a result of overly protective governmental programs.  Many of these programs are designed to offer "protection" for individuals against all sorts of predators.
Thomas Sowell and Jason Riley both warn about how societal programs designed to help minorities in just about every life dimension actually produce the opposite effect.  Too much protection has long range effects which are not good.
Oh, yet another example of the effects of "too much protection":  A story in today's newspaper tells how a rather elderly man borrowed $500 from a "payday" loan place and ended up having to settle the loan by paying $810 in just a few months.  Now, the government comes to the rescue with the promise of yet more regulation to the loaning business.  A much more effective solution is to teach people how to manage their money.   One needs to  make teaching the concepts of personal money management so valuable that people flock to it, thereby learning how to avoid high cost solutions to their financial problems.They, then, provide their own protection.
Another example of protection:  Watch closely the children who get off the school bus and then walk to the left, in front of the bus, to get to the left side of the road.  Watch their eyes carefully.  Most times, you see that they do not even look to the left or to the right to see if there are any oncoming vehicles-----cars that may have ignored the bus's stop sign.   For years they have been assured of total protection from this danger and now do not demonstrate any self preservation instincts.

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