Government By Actuary

March 26, 2013 Leave a comment

Over the weekend Nanny Bloomberg declared that “I do think there are certain times we (government) should infringe in your freedom.” The left has long believed in government by expert. They’ve essentially moved to government by actuary. Actuaries tend to work at insurance companies calculating risk, the left now basically wants to use their calculations to figure out risk and tax or ban accordingly. Thus the left determines that fat people “cost” taxpayers money and thus they want to tax their conduct in order to make up the difference. In the alternative they behave like Nanny Bloomberg and simply ban the “offending” conduct.

Rather than be free to choose what we eat, the left wants to control us based on expert findings. There’s a limit to their argument of course. The left doesn’t like to look at fat people so they’re an easy target. They don’t like smokers either. But turn the tables to a group the left likes and they go crazy. Ann Coulter did just that over the weekend arguing that sodomy creates great cost to society, usually in the form of expensive HIV treatments. The left doesn’t want to hear any of this and immediately demands that the bedroom remain off limits. How can it remain off limits though when we’re running government via actuary?

The left only wants to talk about the costs associated with people who they either want to control or don’t particularly care about. Thus fat people and smokers are their target. Homosexuals, drug users and unwed mothers are the left’s core constituency, thus they don’t want to talk about their cost to society. AIDS remains a disease dominated by homosexuals and drug users in the United States, the costs of which are extremely high. Drug use creates all sorts of costs to society beyond locking up users and dealers. Unwed mothers create an astronomical cost to society but the left doesn’t want to talk abstinence, which is the only birth control method that actually works.

In a free society we shouldn’t even be considering the cost to taxpayers. If you’re a hundred pounds overweight, that ought to be your financial risk. Instead, the left has ensured that it is the taxpayers risk. It is hardly surprising that after making all risks those assumed by taxpayers that the left would then want to tax and otherwise control people. Especially when those people aren’t a core constituency for the left and/or aren’t a group they’re afraid to lose to the GOP. The minute any of their core constituency is questioned for their cost, the left will suddenly cry personal freedom. The hypocrisy is amazing.

When it comes to our personal health we all create our own risk. Whether we eat too much or too little, whether we engage in risky illicit activities such as sodomy or drug use or whether we engage in risky recreational activities such as skiing, we all create risk for ourselves. When we accept socialized medicine and other massive government programs that shift our personal risk onto government, we can hardly be surprised when government wants to tax our risky activities or ban them. If we want to retain our freedom, we have to push back against massive government intrusions into healthcare. Government doesn’t know what’s best for us but they certainly have actuaries at their disposal who will tell them which of us will cost government the most. We shouldn’t get to that point in a free society.

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Obama’s SOTU Speech Won’t Cost A Dime

February 13, 2013 18 Comments

President Obama delivered his State of the Union address last night. It won’t cost us a dime to discuss the absurdity of Obama’s ‘it won’t cost us a dime line.’ It won’t cost us a dime for universal pre-school, where kids as young as 3 can get indoctrinated by unionized left-wing teachers. It won’t cost us a dime to spend $40 billion for internal “investments” also known as expenditures. It won’t cost us a dime to create more regulations that cripple business and cost jobs. It won’t cost a dime to raise the minimum wage even though it will result in fewer employed Americans and more folks on welfare. Same to for Obama’s illegal immigration amnesty program, it won’t cost a dime until they get in the welfare line, the Medicaid line, the government education line, the Obama phone line and whatever other line that may be available for government hand outs.

The increased “investment” spending is hardly a surprise, we expected that from Obama last night. We expected his emotion based appeal for gun control and illegal immigrant amnesty. Obama’s investments amount to more stimulus on borrowed money. Gun control is largely a dead issue, it is unlikely any serious measures will pass either house of Congress. Amnesty for illegals is something we can talk about another day but it was hardly surprising that he demanded amnesty for people living here illegally. He’s been pushing this for years.

There are however two issues that we must discuss that will cost us money and provide us nothing in return. Raising the minimum wage by nearly $2 will do nothing but cost Americans jobs and thus cost the treasury both in tax money and welfare expenditures. We have an economy with 8% unemployment, an economy where the government regularly takes people out of the workforce to keep unemployment low. Real unemployment is closer to 15%. Obamacare is coming online next year in full, it will cost jobs because of its cost on businesses. Raising the minimum wage increases labor costs. Businesses will be forced to make cuts in labor or increase prices. Generally it’s labor that gets cut, especially in a down economy. That will increase the welfare rolls while not generating any tax revenue.

Obama wants to waste money on the manufactured problem of pre-school education. This despite the fact that programs like Head Start simply don’t work. Adding pre-school education will only increase government spending on a new, unnecessary entitlement program. It will get union teachers more jobs and earlier access to the hearts and minds of children. Obama’s proposals will cost a fortune, far more than the thin dime Obama says his proposals won’t cost. States are already struggling to fund k-12 education, taxpayers are being taxed to death. Yet the President wants a massive entitlement program to add two years worth of cost onto every child who goes through the government education program. It’s utter madness that will cost a fortune and produce zero positive results.

In both of these cases Obama doesn’t care about the outcome. For the President and the Democrats raising the minimum wage both helps current and creates new voters. Those lucky enough to keep their job get a wage increase thanks to government. Those who don’t keep their job join those on the dole, voting to protect their unemployment checks. In the case of pre-school education, this is nothing more than a payoff for the teachers unions who helped elect the President. Obama’s SOTU speech was nothing more than the enshrinement of extreme left-wing division politics that this President is known for. There was nothing surprising about it, other than the fact that it was only 59 minutes. One would have thought Obama would speak for at least 90 minutes.

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Drone Strikes On Americans Deserves Public Debate

February 6, 2013 2 Comments

The Justice Department has declared that drone strikes on American citizens is legal. The Federal government must believe that such Americans are going to engage in an imminent attack on the United States. Unfortunately the government hasn’t defined imminent and they don’t have to have clear evidence that a specific attack will happen in the immediate future in order to launch a drone strike on an American citizen. Jay Carney calls this “ethical and wise” but we really need to take a second look at these drone strikes. Perhaps it’s time to take a second look at drone strikes. Not just against American citizens but against all targets.

Drone strikes have increased dramatically under the Obama administration. Bush started the practice, though his use of drones was largely limited to using them in declared war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama has extended the practice, allegedly to attack al Qaeda all over the world. All of these attacks and all of the arguments the government is making regarding the attacks are centered around al Qaeda. For obvious reasons we’re at war with al Qaeda and perhaps more importantly they’re at war with us. It isn’t per se a bad thing that we’re attacking al Qaeda via drone strike.

The problem is that we cannot view drone strikes in a vacuum. It’s impossible to limit their use and the arguments for their use only to al Qaeda. Eventually al Qaeda will no longer exist yet we will have set a precedent for the use of drones which can then be extended to other situations. The precedent isn’t just set for the United States, it’s set for the whole world. Don’t think Iran wouldn’t love to get hold of a drone to chase around Israeli’s or our President with. If the President of the United States can play judge, jury and executioner with drones, you can bet that other nations will want similar power.

The President playing judge, jury and executioner is even worse when we’re talking about American citizens. We all understand when the police shoot a suspect who points a gun or even something that looks like a gun in their general direction. The police are in immediate danger and their shooting is generally justifiable. But when government shoots missiles from a drone at an American citizen in a foreign country because they think that maybe, perhaps they could be involved in some sort of crime against the country. That’s something else entirely. We’re too quick to give a pass to the government because of what al Qaeda has done. With the precedent the Obama administration is setting, what American is safe?

The government could very easily act on bad information. The government could target political opponents they don’t particularly care for. It would be easy to take the precedent being set for al Qaeda abroad and apply it here in the United States to other groups. Left, right, religious, secular, no group is safe if these drone strikes can be extended beyond al Qaeda. With our Federal government, they very rarely give back power. Our government almost always extends their power. That’s what makes these drone strikes so dangerous. We ought not have our vision clouded by the name al Qaeda. This is a serious issue that requires serious debate. The Obama administration is making a massive power grab argument, we the people need to have a say in this.

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Fearless Louisiana Police Stop Milk Sale

January 29, 2013 Leave a comment

The State of Louisiana is a crime free zone. They have lots of law enforcement officers in that state making sure the citizens and visitors are safe from crime. They do this not just because the Super Bowl is coming to New Orleans, they do this year round. It’s a very safe state, no crime is permitted. Your heart will be warmed to hear that those nasty milk criminals at Fresh Market who sold a gallon of milk for $2.99 have been stopped cold by the state. Feel protected Louisiana, feel very protected from this outrageous criminal act!

All kidding aside, in Louisiana it is apparently illegal to sell milk at less than 6% above cost. A grocery store in Perkins Rowe decided to have a sale on milk that apparently was below the 6% above cost figure. That prompted the state to step in and shut down the sale. Apparently benefitting consumers by providing what amounts to a teaser price on milk is an outrageous anti-competitive crime in Louisiana. A gallon of milk in Baton Rouge ranges from $4-6.49. One wonders who these people are who spend $4 on a gallon of milk, much less $6.49. In Louisiana though, merchants have almost no choice but to sell at those prices per state law.

This is a wonderful example of government over reach that harms consumers and merchants. In fact it doesn’t do all that much for milk producers since their product is already sold by the time it hits store shelves. Government in its infinite wisdom is dictating the price of milk in Louisiana. What basis they have for their 6% determination is anyone’s guess. One imagines that this law is in place to “protect” smaller merchants from larger supermarkets who may have the ability to sell discount milk. In the end though, this does nothing but hurt consumers, particularly families.

Here in Grand Rapids milk hovers around the Louisiana sale price of $2.99. One of the stores always has a sale, one of them discounted milk to $2.59 last week. One store in particular often sells milk for $1.69/gallon. They’re obviously losing money on the milk sale but what they lose in milk sales they make up for in other sales. Few people go into a supermarket and walk out with just milk, even if milk is their only intended purchase. A store that offers good prices on staple products knows it will gain loyalty from consumers who will then buy more profitable non-staple groceries.

This is all basic grocery supply and demand. In the end it benefits consumers and merchants. We consumers get better prices for staples like milk, merchants make money off of loyal customers and/or sales of non-staple items. Yet in Louisiana the government won’t allow the free market to work. In fact, Louisiana has a lot of bizarre laws like this. Did you know that in order to sell flowers in Louisiana you have to be licensed by the state. The state surely is protecting the rubes in Louisiana from illegal floral arrangements.

We laugh at Nanny Bloomberg’s ridiculous nanny state laws but Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is considered a potentially serious candidate for President in the Republican Party. What has Gov. Jindal done to curb these excesses in Louisiana’s state government? Has he offered to eliminate licenses for the most absurd of professions? Has he offered bills to open milk up to the free market? When a state is spending its time tracking down discount milk sellers you know there is a problem. One wonders what the Republican Governor of two terms has done or is doing about it.

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Cowardly Obama To Surround Himself With Children For Gun Control Proposal

January 16, 2013 Leave a comment

President Obama is set to announce his proposal for more gun control later today. He’ll do so in front of dozens of children. Yesterday the President released a bunch of letters written to them by children demanding gun control. As Ben Shapiro might say to Piers Morgan, the President is bullying 2nd amendment advocates by hiding behind children. This is a classic Alinsky tactic meant to demonize those who support gun rights. We are to be demonized, polarized and ostracised. If it takes the President hiding behind a bunch of children who were told by their teachers (left-wing NEA members no doubt) what to say or write, so be it.

Anything the President proposes that has to go through Congress is more or less dead on arrival. The House GOP is unlikely to take up any gun control bill this year. The Democrat Controlled Senate would have a hard time passing anything remotely close to what Obama is offering today. Even if we take the filibuster out of the equation, there are Democrats already complaining about Obama’s proposals. Even Harry Reid seems to be walking back from gun control a bit. Obama will no doubt blame Republicans if gun control doesn’t happen but the fact his proposal has almost as little chance of passing the Senate as it does the House.

Allegedly the President is going to sign 19 executive orders wherein he will try to enforce gun control unilaterally. Some of these executive orders aren’t really that big of a deal. The President ordering the Justice Department to enforce already existing law (and hopefully not handing off assault rifles to Mexican drug cartels in the process) is hardly something to get worked  up about. The question is how far will the President take it. If he attempts to regulate magazines and clips or attempts any sort of ban, he’s overstepped his Constitutional authority.

The concern with Obama’s executive orders and/or his proposal to Congress is that it is likely to include a mental health component for gun ownership. New York has already passed a law that requires mental health doctors and therapists to notify the state of any potential threat. Obama could use the medical records portion of Obamacare to sift through the medical records of Americans who may have mental health problems then attempt to confiscate their guns or charge such people with a felony for not getting rid of their guns. The threat of a prison sentence would have a chilling effect on gun ownership.

The way to ban guns in this country is to ban guns in the household of anyone with a mental problem. Mildly disturbed teenager, child with minor learning disability, old lady with dementia, former drug addict, postpartum depressed mother, all of these people could have the guns in their household removed by government due to their “mental” disorder. The sheer number of families with these mild mental conditions, to say nothing of depression which everyone seems to be diagnosed with today, would result in a de facto gun ban.

If the government requires registration of all guns and places the burden on the gun owner to get rid of guns when someone in the household is diagnosed with a mental condition then all the state has to do is go through the Obamacare electronic health records to figure out which families haven’t obeyed the law. The ATF can pick off one family after another and no one will be able to beat the Justice Department because they already have the proof electronically stored thanks to Obamacare. You may think this sounds extreme but don’t think this idea hasn’t been tossed around in the White House. New York has practically gone this far already.

Obama will surround himself with children later this morning and attempt to demonize gun ownership in America. He’s a coward, hiding behind children. He knows the nation doesn’t favor the sort of gun control he is supporting so he’ll attempt to emotionally shame us by confronting the subject with little kids. We’ll see what his proposals turn out to be but you can count on them being full of big government overreach. The fact is none of the proposals he’s going to come up with could have stopped Adam Lanza last month. Obama is going to try to take guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens while not looking at the real problem our nation faces: Antipsychotic drugs that cause people like Lanza to fly off the handle.

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National Service Draft Is Nothing More Than National Slavery

January 14, 2013 2 Comments

General Stanley McChrystal wants to bring back the draft. McChrystal believes that a draft would be good for America as it would “bind people to their nation” and “pull people together in shared experiences.” Shared experiences and binding people to the nation is a progressive’s dream. Until the red end of the progressive movement opposed the Vietnam War, the progressive left always favored a draft. Since Vietnam, they’ve generally supported national service rather than a draft into the military. McChrystal doesn’t per se believe everyone should be drafted into military service. He leaves the door open to other forms of national service, whatever that might be.

The idea of drafting all young people into some form of national service flies in the face of the 13th amendment which outlaws slavery and involuntary servitude. Not surprisingly the Supreme Court during World War One ruled that the military draft didn’t violate the 13th amendment. President Wilson was busy rounding up everyone who opposed the war and throwing them in jail. Lincoln had done the same thing during the Civil War, going so far as to jail judges. It’s hardly a surprise that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of their own freedom and job over the freedom of Americans caught in a slave creating draft.

We had a draft in this nation from just before the Second World War until the mid 70′s. Never mind that we were not at war during most of that time period. The draft took thousands away from their families without recourse and it denied the nation two years of Elvis. The draft disproportionately hit the working class and minorities as those in college were able to obtain deferments. Those who actually went to war have mixed feelings about it. WWII veterans generally have positive things to say while the scale slides when it comes to Vietnam vets. Those who didn’t go to war hardly view their time in the military as some sort of national bonding. Most view it as an interruption to their lives.

Freedom has to actually mean something if we are to remain the America we imagine this nation to be. People must be free to engage in national service rather than compelled by force. In fact, most Americans volunteer their time in some form or another already. We hardly need to turn Americans into slaves, forcing them to give of their time. In the purely military context, the Armed Forces grew stronger when all of their members became willing participants. Not surprisingly people who are forced to take up arms don’t always give the best effort. Especially when they see no purpose behind it.

What McChrystal is trying to do is reshape America in a progressive image, one where the Federal government is directly involved in the lives of young people whether they want the government involved in their lives or not. It’s a progressive dream world. It’s a world that those on the right should oppose. There are people on the right who love the military and love the idea of having kids forced into the Armed Forces. We should oppose that as a denial of their freedom. We cannot force people to love their country by unjustly denying them their freedom for a period of time. We should not allow ourselves to fall into the leftist trap. Freedom must oppose slavery and a national service draft of any kind is nothing more than slavery.

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Obamacare’s Attack On Religious Freedom Headed To Supreme Court

November 29, 2012 4 Comments

The next court battle over Obamacare will focus on religious freedom. This week two cases before Federal courts have shown us that it’s likely the Supreme Court will ultimately decide this issue, perhaps in the next term. The Supreme Court ordered the Court of Appeals to hear a religious freedom claim as part of Liberty University’s Obamacare challenge. Meanwhile a Federal Appeals panel has issued a temporary injunction against the enforcement of the contraception mandate as it applies to a privately held Missouri business. The Obama administration’s attack on religious freedom via Obamacare is almost certainly headed to the Supreme Court.

The Obama administration’s contraception mandate, which requires employers to provide free contraception via health insurance policies, is a direct attack on religious freedom. The Constitution prohibits the Federal government from restricting the free exercise of religion. One of the basic beliefs held by any number of Christians, from Roman Catholics to generic evangelicals, is that contraception is sin. As such requiring a church or other religious organization to pay for contraception via a health policy restricts the free exercise of their religion. The same could be said of a business, especially a sole proprietorship or closely held corporation.

To listen to the Obama administration any opposition to the contraception mandate is a “war on women.” (all other opposition to Obama policies are simply “racist”) The real war here isn’t against women, it’s against religious freedom. No one is suggesting a ban on contraception. There is no law on the books or even proposed which would prevent a woman from walking into Wal-Mart and purchasing a $5 month’s supply of birth control pills. The issue here is who is going to pay for those pills, because there’s nothing stopping a woman from getting them in the first place. Griswold v Connecticut enshrined that right, for better or worse, in the 60′s.

What is at stake here is religious freedom. Can the Federal government order a church to spend their money on that which they find evil and sinful? Can the Federal government require by law a church to violate the basic tenants of their faith? The issue here isn’t women and their ability to obtain birth control, the issue here is religious freedom. If the answer to those two questions is yes, then we have no religious freedom in this country. After all, if the Federal government can force a church to pay with its own funds for things it finds evil, what can’t the Federal government order a church to do?

This issue extends well beyond the issue of contraception and don’t think the Obama administration doesn’t know it. Contraception is the easy case for them because it’s generally popular. But if religious freedom is lost here what is to stop the Federal government from ordering churches to marry homosexuals or ordain women in violation of their beliefs? Make no mistake, that’s the real goal here. Obama lost at the Supreme Court concerning the application of Federal employment discrimination law to clergy during his first administration. If he wins the contraception mandate, the left will have precedent to attack religious freedom on other matters.

This is a monumentally important issue because it decides the fate of religious freedom for the next generation. We shouldn’t allow ourselves to get caught up over the specific issue of contraception, it’s only a means to an end for the left. Contraception doesn’t matter, it’s a non-issue. What matters here is religious freedom and whether or not we will have in the future a church free from government intrusion. How the Supreme Court rules on this matter is anyone’s guess, I wouldn’t trust Justice Roberts at this point. We can only pray that the Court protects the religious freedom we the people granted ourselves in the Constitution.

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In Defense of Black Friday

November 23, 2012 Leave a comment

Today is Black Friday, a day in which allegedly retail outlets move into the black for the year and the unofficial beginning of the Christmas season. Since my family and I are at heart old school Presbyterians, Black Friday is little more than an annoyance as we don’t celebrate Christmas. (click for a detailed explanation why) To listen to the left-wing media Black Friday might as well be the worst day of the year. All week we’ve been subjected to whining and complaining about Black Friday creeping into Thanksgiving. Yet the fact that the day is creeping into Thanksgiving should be cause for celebration among conservative, free market types. It’s a good example of people exercising their freedom.

Earlier in the week CNN, NBC and the other usual suspects whined about stores opening Thursday night with Black Friday deals. We’re suddenly concerned about the poor employees, as though they haven’t been working on Thanksgiving in preparation for Black Friday for the better part of three quarters of a century. Today we have endless reports of crazy people beating each other up over dolls and electronics. The message from the media is clear: Unrestrained capitalism is obnoxious and bad for the country.

We can all agree that those fighting over televisions are obnoxious and bad but the percentage of crazy people doing crazy things is no greater today than it is on any other day. It’s only more magnified because of media scrutiny. What we saw last night and today is a good example of free people making choices. No one forced anyone to stand in line at a store after their Thanksgiving dinner. These people choose to do this. That stores are meeting this demand shouldn’t be of any concern to any of us. We ought to be surprised when retail outlets don’t try to meet demand.

But you say that people are only in line because the stores offer door buster deals on Thanksgiving evening. To which we must say ‘so what?’ If people were really outraged over stores opening up on Thanksgiving then they wouldn’t go shopping. Obviously they don’t have a huge problem with it as people went out in droves last night to buy stuff. If other people choose not to participate on Thursday, what difference is it to them that other people do choose to participate?

The answer is control and the vanity of liberal egalitarianism. The left is forever trying to control what other people choose to do, especially when it comes to business. Look for the left, which controls all the major cities, to introduce ordinances prohibiting Thanksgiving shopping. All in a vain attempt to promote some sort of fantasy fairness wherein we all have a shot at discounted electronics on terms created by liberal busybodies. We all have a fair shot at the electronics now of course but the left wants to control business and individual freedom so that we have to stay at home at 10pm on Thanksgiving.
It’s liberal egalitarianism run amok, we can see it in the media reports and we’ll see it in the ordinances they’ll be proposing over the next few years.

This would all be so much simpler if we didn’t celebrate Christmas of course. While I and my fellow adherents to the Westminster Confession might be happy with that, the reality is that Christmas isn’t going anywhere in the near future. It’s no skin off my nose if people shop on Thanksgiving or on Black Friday. My family chooses not to participate. We’re free to make that choice, just like you’re free to go shopping. Control is what causes the media whining all week about Black Friday, they want to be the ones to limit your freedom and limit business to what they want it to be. Black Friday may be obnoxious, if you don’t like that then don’t participate.

 

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EPA’s Kiddie Informers, Court Threatens Resale Freedom

October 8, 2012 2 Comments

Stepping away from the Presidential race, at least on some level, there are a couple of stories out there that ought to be cause for alarm. The first involves a coordinated nationwide attack on school children seeking to turn them into little social justice, environmentalist wacko robots. The second involves your freedom to sell things that you own. In both cases we see the potential dangers of big, overpowering government can have on individuals. The Presidential race is a macro, worldview event. But we must never forget that worldview politics is a collection of micro issues. In this entry we’ll take a look at two of these micro issues.

The EPA is celebrating (the term celebration has really been watered down in recent years) something called Children’s Health Month. Rather than throwing a party the EPA is instead encouraging schools to create student energy patrols. The EPA believes kids need to learn “social action” and in order to learn this they’re to report on teachers and students who “waste” energy. What the EPA is essentially doing is teaching kids how to be informers and mini-community organizers. They’re training the next generation of liberal busy bodies, the next generation of adults who do things like ban incandescent light bulbs and three gallon toilets.

There is of course a better way to save energy than creating a patrol of Hitler Youth or a youth Stasi. It’s interesting that the government always goes the socialist route with informers and patrols when there is a capitalist solution. Wasting energy wastes money. Nothing ring true more with Americans than the pocketbook. Rather than teaching kids to be community organizers, social engineers or outright snitches, it seems far better to teach kids the financial cost of wasting energy. Not on the nation as a whole but on mom and dad’s pocketbook. It’s interesting that the EPA doesn’t go that route, perhaps because the liberals working there abhor the idea of talking money with kids.

Meanwhile the Supreme Court is set to hear a case which may limit your ability to sell your own junk.  The Court is reviewing the case of Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons. In that case the Court of Appeals ruled that people cannot sell their junk if it was made outside of the United States because copyright holder still owns the copyright. Historically the copyright holder owns the first sale, once that sale has made people are free to sell a second or third time without permission from the copyright holder. The Court ruled that this only applies to products which were made in the United States.

If the Supreme Court upholds the lower Court you could be prevented by copyright holders from selling electronics, movies, books or furniture made outside of the United States even after you’ve already purchased it. Manufacturing jobs would move overseas because no business would anyone make something here in the US and be limited to only a first sale copyright. Used book stores would likely be shut down. Craig’s List would be shut down, after all you wouldn’t be able to sell your DVD’s 0r other junk if it was made outside the US. You can see how this case could dramatically alter free trade here in the US.

These two cases may be small when compared to the larger issues of the Presidential election. Nevertheless, if we ignore smaller issues like these two we could eventually lose the larger worldview. The government has no business creating energy snitch patrols which do little more than train the next generation of community organizers and insufferable busy bodies. Likewise, the Court would be creating a disaster for capitalism if it bars the resale of foreign made goods. The Court might create a victory for corporatists and other assorted socialists but it would be a disaster for individuals.

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Safety Fascism Infects Both Major Parties

July 25, 2012 2 Comments

Eric Peters at American Daily Herald wrote a good piece on safety fascism. Governments use business to force “safety” on citizens and in turn businesses use government to force citizens to buy safety products from them. Peters uses the example of rear view back up cameras, which the Feds threatened to mandate in 2014. That date has been pushed out but nearly every new car available today has a rear view back up camera, at a cost to the consumer. In the 70′s air bags were optional and at $800 very few bought the option. Then government came along, at the behest of the auto industry and mandated it.

That these safety regulations don’t actually provide any safety is beside the point. They make government look like they’re “doing something” for an imaginary, trumped up “crisis.” At the same time they add profits to politically connected industry and at times their unionized labor force. That air bags don’t do much for drivers in most crashes and are in fact dangerous for some drivers is beside the point. That they unnecessarily added $800 to the price of a car matters not to government so long as their business and union benefactors benefit.

In the last decade government has declared that children need to sit in a special car seat until they’re practically teenagers. The various manufacturers of these seats lobbied government, trumped up a “crisis” of injured children and convinced the state to take action. Better still they pushed through regulations that declared these seats were only to be used by one child and “expired” after 5 years. Thus they largely prevented a secondary market of used car seats from opening up. Go to a kids consignment store, odds are you won’t find any of these booster seats. That there isn’t a safety issue with a used car seat isn’t the point. This is all about making money for various businesses at the expense of consumers. All in the name of safety of course so anyone who questions must hate kids or want to see them injured in car crashes.

This of course isn’t limited to safety issues. Regulations that benefit politically connected businesses at the expense of consumers and businesses not politically connected happen all the time. Whether we’re talking about low flush toilets, light bulbs or pharmaceuticals, the Federal government consistently favors the politically connected over consumers. Have you ever noticed how when a drug patent is about to expire the FDA suddenly declares the drug ineffective and removes it from the market? Magically politically connected pharmaceutical companies come up with a new patented drug that does the same thing thus preventing generic drug companies from profiting from the original drug no longer protected by a patent.

What we’re talking about here is essentially fascism. It is a top down economic philosophy that is only slightly more free than the fascism of Europe. Here business can dictate to government, a slight difference from Europe where government took orders from the state alone. It has the same result for consumers though. We pay more in taxes to fund the big government safety apparatus and we pay more for consumer goods that government mandates we buy. In this regard Obama and Romney aren’t much different. Obama has greatly expanded the state and its control over us. Romney might dismantle some of Obama’s expanded state but he isn’t going to dismantle all the safety regulations and other nonsense created by administrations of both parties over the last half century. There are other reasons of course to support Romney over Obama but this issue isn’t one of them.

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