In a piece about President Donald Trump’s domestic business policies—specifically, his administration’s lawsuit to block the merger of AT&T with Time Warner Inc and his parallel move to facilitate other kinds of close relationships between companies like AT&T and Time Warner, The Wall Street Journal described a rationale for these apparently conflicting moves: follow existing law, rather than piling on regulation after regulation to govern (new) behaviors.

[T]he actions reveal one consistency, and what might be viewed as an emerging Trump administration regulatory philosophy: instead of new bright-line rules, such as those put in place under the Obama administration, it is stressing the enforcement of longstanding laws and regulations.

Indeed.  A properly free, capitalist market will do its own regulation just fine, with customers voting—and enforcing—with their dollars.

And

The moves are a shift in emphasis from the approach taken by the Obama administration, which in 2015 adopted highly specific rules governing [for instance] internet providers….

Which were simply insulting to adult Americans.  We don’t need to be told, down to the veriest jot or tiddle, how to perform in the market.  We can operate just fine without Government’s micromanagement.  Better, even.

And there’s the illogic of new regulations: if current law or regulations are being disregarded (hence the push for new regulations), how is it possible to expect any new regulations to be followed?