There’s No Idea So Bonkers That Some Government, Somewhere, Won’t Try It

Sure and the 20th century provides us with so much evidence of this point, that there’s no idea so bonkers that some government, somewhere, won’t try it. The communist idea that shooting all the clever people then trying to run the economy through the clever people in government telling everyone what to do just as one example. Or perhaps the fascist idea that everything should be done by the state without that pretence that it’ll be the clever people directing matters.

The 21st century has its moments too. Maduro and his idea that printing lots of money will make all rich turned out not to work so well. Germany deciding to use more coal to beat climate change is worth noting.

And then there’s the truly bonkers:

Two victims of a bizarre social experiment in which Berlin’s city hall deliberately placed troubled children in the care of paedophiles are on the brink of winning compensation.

From 1969 to 2003 the authorities put at least nine boys in the hands of convicted sex offenders on the advice of a disgraced social scientist.

The idea behind the Kentler experiment — named after Helmut Kentler, an academic who argued that paedophilia could have “positive consequences” — was that unruly and “feeble-minded” children would benefit from adult sexual attention.

In the late 1960s Kentler persuaded West Berlin’s ruling Senate that the homeless boys would jump at the opportunity to be fostered by paedophiles and would be “head over heels in love” with their new father figures.

Even Dame Margaret, Lady Hodge, would have balked at that one.