I'm having a bit of an argument with some conservatives. The topic is that American public libraries have worked out that by automatically forgiving late fees, they get more books back and it actually saves money for the libraries because it was costing them more to pay the fine-enforcers than the actually money retrieved in fines. So, you have an amnesty and tons of people come in to drop off books that they were holding because they couldn't afford the fines, which keep growing as a result. (the article noted some library which spent $1 million on debt collectors to collect $600K in fines).
The conservative commentators are all "it's liberalism gone mad" about waiving late fees. So ... punishing people because "rules are rules" is more important than actually saving money and delivering a better service? So "punish the late book returners. rules are rules. damn the costs" seems to be the position. We set the rules, they are arbitrary. If the rules are counter-productive then the rules should be changed.
I've noticed conservatives quite often react like that, any time a punishment is removed, even if the punishment is shown to be counter-productive they're up in arms about it. One example was when Alabama brought in make-up exams rather than just failing students outright they were up in arms about it "liberalism gone mad" apparently, to give a second chance to pass a class. Oh right, so if you fail calculus you should be permanently labeled as "he failed calculus" rather than being given a chance to try again? What do they think the point of having an education is. Hint: it's not to divide people into "pass" and "fail" groups.