Mens Foresight

As humans I think we can ‘see’ the future in a way that has no parallel. That is a scary thing, as what we see in the future are dangers and problems. The result of this is that we take action to eliminate those dangers and problems.
An example of this is the panther in Little House in the Big Woods. It attacked one man unsuccessfully and all of the men came together to hunt it down and kill it, no doubt envisioning the panther attacking them or one of their children. (This is why large predators are mostly extinct or endangered today.)
Generally this is good, and works out well for us. The problem that arises is when we try to us this same process (foresight-preventive action) on other people--- as they are not definitely our enemies but partially our brothers.
This affects government policy. First the whole idea of preventive war is based on the need to strike now to avoid future threats. This makes war much more likely and this mindset helped trigger World War 1 over a minor issue. However this is a bad example for my point because other nations, can, in fact be your enemy.
Better examples are found in domestic law. Sarbanes-Oxley was passed in response to accounting scandals like those of Enron. It was intended to prevent fraud of that nature from even being possible. It has resulted in a slightly increased cost of doing business (more so for small companies) without doing much to prevent fraud. See Bernie Madoff. The problem is that unlike the panthers etc., our fellow humans are just as smart as we. Therefore we can make preventative measures and they can then unwind them and do what they want anyway. It makes it slightly more difficult for them, but then again it makes it slightly more difficult for us too.
In short: “good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." –Republic Plato
I think it is sufficient that people who do commit fraud get caught and punished. As for prevention we should look to methods of instilling virtue, not to procedures. What protections we can make, other men can unmake. Also an examination of incentives are in order. Why was it that CEO’s pay was linked to short term stock price increases?