-Caveat Lector- from - http://www.rationalreview.com/archive/rleewrights/rleewrights011602.html
I Am a Criminal by R. Lee Wrights Yes, that's right. I, R. Lee Wrights, being of sound mind and aging body, do solemnly acclaim and justly affirm that I am a criminal. And, if I do my job correctly, by the time you finish reading this you will realize that you are a criminal also; and, that something needs to be done about it. My premise is simply that government, not only at the federal level but in particular at the state and local level, has grown so gorged and bloated that it has become virtually impossible for any of us to remain "law-abiding citizens." In order to be law-abiding, one must first know and understand the law. Now I ask you, in today's society how many people really know, let alone understand, "the law?" Moreover, how many policemen really know or, more importantly, understand the law? Do the lawyers and judges, who are charged with the protection of America's most sacred document, even understand the law? Judging from the number of appealed judgments these days, it would appear that even these "protectors of justice" are unable to effectively untangle the thicket of jurisprudence created by the endless loads of fertilizer produced by the various legislatures. Just the number of laws one would have to familiarize themselves with in order to become adequately knowledgeable makes the task near to impossible. Why, we would all have to go to law school just to get to a proper starting point of understanding the law. Last year, in North Carolina alone, 519 new laws were passed by the General ASSembly. Sixty new laws took affect in the Old North State on January 1st of this year. Add these to the tens of thousands of laws already on the books and you begin to see the enormity of the endeavor to properly understand justice and how its principles are to be applied. And that is just in one state, folks. I wonder how many "new" laws have been instituted where you live this year? Still skeptical? Take an afternoon and go to the nearest law library. Even the name "law library" should send a chill down any thinking person's spine. I am not talking about a corner of your local public library where you'll find a shelf or two stocked with reference books about a particular subject. No, I mean a whole library devoted to cataloging all the things you and I are not allowed to do. Whole rooms filled wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling with a seemingly endless array of laws, statutes, and regulations. Shelf next to shelf, volume upon volume, and page after page, creating a twisting, turning maze of decisions, rulings and appeals. This is where you go when you seek comprehension of the chains that fetter your pursuit of happiness. Have a seat and look around at what you must learn if you really want to be an honest, up-standing, law-abiding citizen. Government has simply made it too easy to break the law for us not to be criminals. I mean, you are required to have a license or permit to do practically everything. That means that you must go to a bureaucrat somewhere and ask their permission before you proceed or you become a criminal. If you want to drive to work, you must first have a paper from the State that says you are allowed to operate a vehicle. If you want to improve your home, you are required to go downtown and stand before your elected rulers and beg their indulgence so that you can add that patio or finish your basement. If you want to get a job to support your family, you cannot do so without a number supplied by the benevolent nannies that soil the seats of CONgress. How long does this list have to be before you realize that if you have to ask permission to do everything, not only will you eventually slip up and become a criminal, but you have also ceased to be free? With every new law enacted another little piece of liberty dies. Perhaps nothing exemplifies my point more so than a personal experience I had about 6 or 7 years ago. I was invited by a friend to accompany him on a fishing expedition to one of the local lakes owned by the county where we both reside. Being the careful individual that I am, I researched the laws concerning wildlife management, as well as, the regulations adopted by the county. I found that if I only fished using live bait, the law did not require that I obtain a fishing license as long as I remained in the county of my residence. I was very pleased with myself that I had found a way to save a few bucks on what promised to be an enjoyable outing. However, the day was not to go unspoiled. Not long after we had launched our boat and found what we thought looked like a promising spot, we were approached by a game warden. I remained unconcerned as we chatted and I proudly showed him that I was only using live bait and therefore required no state sanction. He asked for proof of my residence, which I supplied via business cards and a recent tax bill that I was going to pay on my way home. It was then that he informed me that I was in violation of state law. I was beginning to protest that I was in full compliance of the wildlife management code when the warden told he was not referring to the wildlife code. It was then that I learned I was in violation of state law for appearing in public and not possessing a picture ID. At that moment, the veil was lifted from my eyes as my day of personal enlightenment dawned. I realized that every time I set foot off of my own property, I became a criminal. I violate the law each and every time I take a leisurely stroll around my neighborhood. In almost half a century on this earth, I have never been arrested, much less convicted of a crime; and yet, all I have to do to become a criminal in the eyes of the State is leave home! Why? Because I do not have a snapshot of myself, taken by a state-sanctioned bureaucrat, in my pocket when I go out in public. I must ask you, am I really free? Are you really free? Are your papers in order? Are you a criminal? There are laws regulating everything from what color you can and cannot paint your house to what kind of sex in which two consenting adults are allowed to engage. Why is it like this? Crime is big business, that's why. In fact, crime is government's biggest industry. Surprised to see me say that? It really isn't all that odd when you consider that the State derives revenue on both sides of the law. Remember, all those licenses and permits you are required to obtain are accompanied by fees. While on the flip side, every breech of the never-ending, self-perpetuating, always-growing bureaucracy carries a fine. You are forced to pay in order to abide by the law so you can avoid having to pay for breaking the law. Therefore, as the beast has grown, it has become the State's own self interest that drives legislators to constantly search for new sources of revenue. That's why 519 laws were passed in my home state last year. That is why 500 new laws will probably be passed this year, and again next year, and again the year after that. The only way a government can realize greater income than it does today is either by accelerating tax increases; or, by creating new ways for us to become criminals and providing the appropriately-priced bounties required to avoid becoming criminals. So you see, every new law not only nibbles away at your freedom while further gorging an already bloated beast Bureaucracy, it also becomes a new source of revenue for the State. So, we are left with the question, "What can been done about it?" Take my advice, do yourself a favor and educate yourself. Do a little digging and find out all the different options made available to you, by your friends in government, for becoming a criminal. Then perhaps we will see the emergence of what is needed to reverse the encroachment of the law - Reform. You have to get fed up with the foolishness of endless legislation and do something. Speak against further regulation at every opportunity in any venue that opportunity provides. Run for public office as a truly reform-minded candidate, or support such candidates wherever they can be found. One thing is for certain; there will never be reform without reformers willing to make a fight if necessary. Or at least a group of decent, honest people that are just sick and tired of being criminals. Come on folks, enough is enough! ===== from - http://www.rationalreview.com/archive/tlknapp/tlknapp011602.html Deus ex (Goldberg) Machina by Thomas L. Knapp A visitor from another planet, dropped into the typical American living room, in front of the typical American television, would surely leave convinced that public policy is contrived, debated, adopted and implemented by a gaggle of talking heads who spend 24 hours a day in rotation between shopping for the most stylish double-breasted suits, commuting by limousine from one talk show studio to the next, and hobnobbing at White House receptions. The truth, of course, is both more prosaic and more horrifying. The typical American politician, at the federal level, is a harried hack, jetting back and forth between Washington and his fiefdom ... er, constituency ... to raise funds, whip recalcitrant allies into line, raise funds, shake hands, kiss babies and, of course, raise funds. This typical politican, when in Washington, is too busy paying off favors to those donors and recalcitrant allies to accomplish much relating to the ideas that probably inspired his entry into politics in the first place. Yes, he was a young idealist once. He had priorities. He wanted to help people. He wanted to make his country a better place, restore a sense of honor to its highest institutions, work with the statesmen he saw nightly on CNN to guide the great ship of state safely over the waves of the uncertain sea of policy. Now, he scurries. He scurries to the House chamber to cast a vote on a bill he's never read, because his party's leadership wants it. And those who don't "work with" the party leadership end up with the last office in the Rayburn building: the one behind the door marked "Custodian." He scurries to the studio for a talk show appearance, prepared to mouth some lines whipped up by his staff, because the media demands it. And those who don't "work with" the media find themselves the targets of investigative reports, coverage custom made to benefit their next opponent for election or, worst of all, simply ignored. He scurries to dinner with a major donor who happens to be in Washington, because money is the mother's milk of politics. He can't afford to lose that donation. Moreover, he can't afford to lose that donor's support. At the end of the day, he scurries off to the White House in bow tie and cummerbund, works his way through the reception line, and stands around drinking weak cocktails and being ignored. If he's lucky. If he spills his martini on the envoy from Sierra Leone, there'll be hell to pay. If he doesn't show up at all, well, the president may not have time to campaign in his district this fall. If he scurries adroitly enough -- zigging across the floor of House America to avoid the great boots of media oppobrium, political desertion and financial insolvency, zagging to catch the crumbs that fall from the randomly piled plates of power -- he can one day look forward to similarly corrupting his nemesis: the next young idealist to take a tentative step into the corridors of power. This is the life of one cog -- the typical U.S. Representative -- in the machine called "hyperpluralism," that American governance has become. The surprising thing about hyperpluralism isn't that it creates a divide between legitimate public purpose and actual public policy. It isn't that it chews up, digests and assimilates even the most honest public servant, making him just another extension on a conveyor belt moving toward the incinerator of totalitarianism . It isn't even that it can produce only centralization of power and deliver that power only to those least likely to either eschew it or exercise it with extreme caution. The surprising thing about hyperpluralism is that it works at all. When I began to write this piece it was, surprisingly enough, intended as a rebuttal to Jonah Goldberg's critiques of libertarianism - http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldarchive.shtml . That's still my intent, but I've found another Goldberg in the woodpile. His name is Rube - http://www.rube-goldberg.com/ , and his presence shines some light on my discomfiture with Brother Jonah's ponderings. Jonah Goldberg is the current golden boy at National Review - http://www.nationalreview.com/ , journal of record for "conservatism" in the Day of Dubya. Rube, of course, is the cartoonist whose wonderful images of complex machines designed to accomplish simple tasks engaged and delighted an audience of millions. "Conservatism" in the Day of Dubya is Jonah's application of Rube's ideas to politics. That, of course, is the nut of the matter. Goldberg's problem with libertarians isn't that we're thin-skinned. It isn't that we're simplistic or that our ideas aren't relevant to the debate at its root. It's that a polity based on libertarian ideas would not need an army of "liberal" Rubes to design it or a horde of "conservative" Jonahs to crawl over its superstructure, continually tightening bolts, checking welds and adding kitchen sinks, mousetraps and bathtubs to its bewildering assortment of features. Or to explain what the hell it is that they've built. National Review prides itself for "standing athwart history yelling stop." That pride is misplaced. All too often, the "conservatism" of Goldberg and Company is more reminiscent of the prayer of Augustine: "Give me chastity and continence -- but not just yet." History, thus far, is the record of continuing state encroachment on individual liberty -- with occasional interruption due to technical difficulties. The piercing "STOP!" of the modern American "conservative" movement is invariably followed by a throaty, whispered "but not just yet" as "conservatives" rush to assimilate the latest development, make it their own and defend it to the death. Contra Goldberg (Jonah, not Rube), libertarians don't suffer from "accumulated resentment at being in the backseat of the right-wing coalition." No such coalition exists, nor can it exist except on libertarian terms. The backseat of American politics is already occupied by the "conservatives," busily engaged in making babies with the "liberals." The libertarian malady is more physiological and less petty than resentment. It's called nausea. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. 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