regulation

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  Minority Report

  06 Feb 2011 by Jessica Hughes / 3 Comments

  Some time ago I was obeying all traffic laws as I returned from work, when I was ordered to the side of the road by the insistent flashing lights of a police cruiser behind me.  The officer was a picture of professionalism and kindly gave me a warning that my inspection sticker was expired.  Silly me.

  My car was in compliance with the law in every way but one:  I had not paid someone to witness and attest via sticker, the virtue of my Chevy Malibu.  I can understand the dangers of driving an unsafe vehicle; certainly if you injure someone or damage their property, you should pay for it.  But I have a real problem with laws requiring me to sacrifice my cash and time in order to properly advertise my righteousness before said laws.

  In a preemptive strike against potentially crappy cars, the State commands that each year we must drive to an inspection station and pay a fee to have our auto approved as acceptable and road worthy.  Like a tribal bride being examined for purity, we display our vehicle to the authorities; flashing the brake lights, beeping the horn, and exhausting only the proper mix of waste.  Yes, sir!  We are in compliance!  We receive our badge of innocence and stick it on the windshield to show the world that on at least one day a year all of our necessities were functional and we committed no crime of driving without turn signals.

  The 2002 movie Minority Report, based on Philip K. Dick’s 1956 short story, posits a world where crime is punished before it is committed.  Led by the visions of three precogs, authorities burst into private homes and arrest people who, we are told, will commit a crime though as of yet they are innocent of wrongdoing.

  All hell breaks loose when one of these authorities finds out that the system may not be as foolproof as people are led to believe.  It turns out the precogs don’t always agree on what is going to happen, and in such a case, one of the visions is simply dismissed.  The ‘Minority Report’ (of one) is ignored since it deviates from the massive agreement of – um – the other two.

  This idea is disturbing enough before we introduce the concept of the fallibility of the precogs.  The fact is none of the people being punished has actually committed a crime, and to incarcerate someone for something they supposedly will do is problematic to say the least for anyone who respects liberty and the rule of law.  Once the fallibility angle also comes into play, we have a situation where a human being’s natural rights are violated by the state because two out of three people think it is likely this person will do something wrong.  And this situation far more closely resembles the status of a citizen in America today.

  All government regulation involves the violation of the liberty of individuals, and in almost every case also involves the confiscation of property; all in the name of protecting some people from the malice or negligence of other people. Only no malice or negligence has taken place and is being punished.  This liberty is violated and this property confiscated for some potential future crime that may be committed by the regulated individual.

  I say individual, because contrary to popular belief, industries are not regulated, individuals are.  Just as there is no mysterious entity called ‘Society’ which arises from the cooperation of individuals, there is no mysterious entity called ‘Automobile Manufacturing’ which pays permit fees, fills out compliance forms, or gets fined for not meeting the correct criteria.  Every industry no matter how big or small is made up of individual persons, all entitled to the same rights to Life, Liberty, and Property that we all expect to enjoy.

  When our leaders say they will regulate the Auto Repair Industry by requiring that mechanics be certified by a state-approved school, what they are really saying is they will take away the right of a man to labor for pay if that labor involves car repair.  That right, recognized in days gone by as a right granted by God that no government could take away, will be withheld unless he sacrifices a portion of his life to taking the state-approved classes, and sacrifices a portion of his property to pay for the privilege.  Once the appropriate hoops have been paid for and jumped through the denizens of the State will graciously restore the right to labor until such a time as they decide to take it away again.

  Their certificate is not different from my inspection sticker.  It is a testament that the powers that be approve of us; that we are innocent as yet of wrongdoing, for if we had committed some crime in our field we would not have this special piece of paper with the insignia of the government stamped upon it.  Only mark this: we have been forced to sacrifice some of our limited lifespan as well as our private property (in the form of money) in order to acquire this approval.  And the justification for this is the protection of ‘others’ from misdeeds that two out of three bureaucrats think we are likely to commit in the absence of such oversight and its resultant punitive confiscation and violation.

  “But,” you say, “If you really believed two out of three precogs were correct and a crime would be committed, wouldn’t it be your duty to do something to stop it?”  I suppose it would.  I am not a heartless person, only one who loves my liberty and balks at sacrificing it for light and transient reasons.  There is an alternative to arresting the potential criminal: Warn the potential victim.  Give them notice of possible danger so they can make an informed decision about their own life.

  In the same way, let consumers inform themselves of the potential rip-offs.  Let them network with one another.  Let professional guilds be resurrected in their original and untainted form, as groups voluntarily holding one another to certain standards and absent the forceful hand of the State.  Let the courts protect private property by holding frauds and cheats responsible to their victims when there actually are victims.  Let the State cease swelling our unemployment numbers with those who could make a living doing something like fixing cars, cutting hair, painting nails, arranging bouquets, opening a lunch truck, or landscaping lawns, if only they had the wherewithal to navigate the regulatory labyrinth.

  And finally, let the Minority Report be heeded:  Not everyone is a crook, not everyone is a criminal, and not everyone is looking to rip someone off.  People who defraud or harm others should be punished.

  But the rest of us should be free.

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  Restoring the Right to Work

  06 Feb 2011 by Jessica Hughes / 1 Comment

  My very favorite rags to riches story has always been that of Madame C.J. Walker. Here is a woman born to slaves on a plantation in Louisiana, who is both a widow and a mother by the age of twenty. In today’s society we would count her as one among many single black mothers struggling to make her way. But in 1887

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  Criminal Offense or Politics as Usual?

  28 Nov 2010 by Jessica Hughes / 3 Comments

  Tom Delay was just convicted for money laundering based on his acceptance of about $190,000 in corporate donations which were then donated by Delay to Texas State candidates.  I have mixed feelings on this.  I don’t want to excuse politics as usual but it does seem that Delay has been convicted of basically doing exactly what we all know every well-heeled politician out there is doing.  Unfortunately for Lone Star Legislators, it seems the crack-down may continue in Texas.  Those supporting Joe Straus for Speaker may want to reconsider lest they wind up with front row seats to the spectacle of Federal Agents removing the gavel from his hand and cuffing him right there on the floor of the House.

  Straus and his family, heavily invested in gaming, stand to make hundreds of millions if gambling is expanded in the Lone Star State.  Republicans traditionally oppose this due to pressure from their socially conservative base, but word is trickling out that Straus donated literally hundreds of thousands of dollars directly to pro-gaming candidates.  These same candidates are now supporting Straus for Speaker in spite of the massive push for more conservative leadership.  In a handful of cases donations were made to candidates who were in no danger of being unseated, raising the question of why Straus would donate to them while neglecting more needful Republicans in contested battles (a fact of which I have first-hand knowledge).  Buying votes is illegal but how in the world are you supposed to prove quid pro quo?  How can you prove these people would not have voted this way in the absence of the money?  You can’t.

  None of this should be taken to mean that I want elected officials being bought off with corporate money and then proceeding to buy each other off with same.  My point is the campaign financing laws are impossible to enforce justly and do absolutely nothing but drive the bribes into evermore confusing circuits from one pocket to the next until the money is ‘clean.’  The only people kept from buying influence are the constituents who don’t have the time, money or power to cut a check for half a million to the national party then get on the phone with said party’s Chairman and inform him (wink, wink) where the cash should be funneled.  More rules about who can donate and to whom and how much are going to do nothing to stop the buying and selling of influence in Washington D.C. or in your State Capital.

  The only thing that will end influence peddling is to give the government less influence, which means abolishing the immoral IRS and income tax, and eradicating the power to regulate domestic trade.

  Consider this: your government at all levels controls the floor on the price of your labor, the ceiling on the hours you can work for a given rate of pay, the food, medicines or substances you are allowed to ingest, the money you must accept as payment and even the people you can contract with to warehouse your money, perform your wedding, tend your childbirth, cut your hair, file your nails, watch your children, cast their broken arms,  fix your car, mow your lawn, paint your walls, build your shed, install your windows, lay your driveway, sell your house, calculate your taxes, mend your clothes, represent you in court, write your will, bury you when you are dead, and then calculate the taxes on that.

  Those who decry the failure of the free market need to think about these restrictions.  There is no free market at all.  Every single good or service available is regulated and this is nothing more than forced cartelization.  Regulation says “You can be part of the group legally permitted to sell in this market, but not you.”  It is the foundation of choosing winners and losers in the market and it is the foundation of all of the influence peddling because when Congress builds a cartel they don’t just have mutual greed to keep it together.  They have Federal Marshalls and prisons and guns ready to enforce it.  Unlike price-fixing between big corporations, there is no chance of a competitor from outside the cartel showing up with a better price for the consumer.  The government decides who gets in and if you participate in that sector of the market you are either in the approved cartel or you are in for an arrest.

  So long as this is the model upon which our market functions, there will always be deep pockets willing to pay to be in the cartel and to keep others out.  All the convoluted finance laws in the world won’t stop it.  The only thing that will stop it is to free the market and end the power of government to control with whom you contract for goods and services.  There are hundreds of thousands of pages of legislation between the local, state, and national governments that are little more than rewards to cronies or punishments of their competitors.  It seems impossible that such legislation will ever recede, so maybe what we need is a simple Constitutional Amendment at both State and National levels.  Something along the lines of, “Notwithstanding any prior or subsequent legislation contrary to the spirit or letter of this Amendment, the natural and God-given right of a person to contract for the goods or services of his or her choice from whomever he or she shall choose and at whatever price is agreeable to both parties shall not be infringed.”

  Such a freedom was considered indispensible prior to the New Deal.  Our Founders established this Confederation of States in large part as a rejection of the Mercantilist policies of the Crown.  Now we have traded monopolies granted by King George for cartels granted by the Lords of Congress.  Say hello to the new boss, same as the old boss.  Overturn modern-day Mercantilism, Corporatism, Fascism (whatever label you like) and watch the unemployment lines empty of those who would be willing to work and fill with those who have made their living brokering influence among our leaders.  Watch the spirit of ingenuity and entrepreneurship that made America great flourish again and prosecutions of elected officials disappear as the competition for a share of the market is thrust out of the halls of our government and back into the hands of the consumers where it belongs.

  
  

  

  
  

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  Let’s Not Forget

  20 Nov 2010 by Jessica Hughes / 3 Comments

  As Republicans, many of whom presided over the devastating economic policies of the past two decades, celebrate their victory, let’s not forget that there were a few folks who were on the right side of this issue way back when.  Let’s compare incoming House Speaker John Boehner as he pleads for the $700 Billion bankster bailout:

  With Ron Paul who has spent thirty-odd years warning against these inevitabilities while our standard-issue Republicans ridiculed him as a lunatic.  Funny how many of them sound just like him now:

  The fact that Boehner is going to be House Speaker should be a warning to us all that the vast majority of the Republican leadership still doesn’t get it.

  
  

  
  

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