I was ambivalent about instant replay in Baseball until I read this George Will column. Will connects the calls for instant replay to our cultural obsession with perfecting society.

The problem is that reformers will not restrain their metabolic urge for perfection. Listen, as they seem not to, to the logic of their language. They say: If you can replay something, you can get it right—judge it infallibly—and that is all that matters. This is an argument for using replays on every close call—plays at the bases and home plate, hit batters. And: Did an outfielder catch or trap a sinking line drive, etc.?

But it is not true that cameras positioned around a ballpark can answer every question, or even be more definitive than baseball’s remarkably skilled umpires, who render judgments close to a play. And even if cameras could deliver certainty, it is foolish to think that all other values should be sacrificed to that one

This an interesting philosophical question that reaches far beyond baseball. For instance, ever since Election 2000 we’ve become obsessed with recounts. And recounts are premised on the notion that there is some objectively absolute number of votes that can be counted to perfection. But the reality is that an election without irregularities is a rigged one. There simply isn’t any such thing in a free society, especially one this large.

But we can’t accept such an imperfect answer. Instead we ask government to spend billions on touch-screen voting that turns out (gasp!) imperfect.

The madness must stop.