getting a liberal to admit that many government regulations are just plain stupid. Your "barge drop" example is a good case in point. Unless they expected to go whitewater rafting with that barge, the regulation is just another example of "it doesn't have to make sense, it's just our policy."

All too often, good intentions lead to unintended consequences. One example was the 1980 Superfund Act. Who could object to cleaning up toxic waste sites? Well, it turns out that people objected to a huge percentage of the money going to legal fees instead of cleanup. Like the tobacco settlements where tort lawyers stand to make billions, it was just another example of the rich (lawyers) getting richer at everyone else's expense.