Posted on 11/20/2013 3:47:30 AM PST by Kaslin
Marty the Magician performed magic tricks for kids, including the traditional rabbit-out-of-a-hat. Then one day: "I was signing autographs and taking pictures with children and their parents," he told me. "Suddenly, a badge was thrown into the mix, and an inspector said, 'Let me see your license.'"
In "Harry Potter" books, a creepy Ministry of Magic controls young wizards. Now in the USA, government regulates stage magicians -- one of the countless ways it makes life harder for the little guy.
Marty's torment didn't end with a demand for his license. "She said, from now on, you cannot use your rabbit until you fill out paperwork, pay the $40 license fee. We'll have to inspect your home."
Ten times since, regulators showed up unannounced at Marty's house. At one point, an inspector he hadn't seen before appeared. He hoped things had changed for the better.
"I got a new inspector and I said, oh, did my first one retire? She said, 'No, good news! We've increased our budget and we have more inspectors now. So we'll be able to visit you more often.'"
Here are your tax dollars at work.
The inspectors told Marty that the Animal Welfare Act required him to file paperwork demonstrating that he had "a comprehensive written disaster plan detailing everything I would do with my rabbit in the event of a fire, a flood, a tornado, an ice storm."
The federal forms list "common emergencies likely to happen to your facility ... not necessarily limited to: structural fire, electrical outage, disruption in clean water or feed supply, disruption in access to facility (e.g., road closures), intentional attack on the facilities ... earthquake, landslide/mudslide/avalanche ... "
Sadly, this Kafkaesque enforcement of petty rules is not a bizarre exception.
Some regulation is useful. But when we passively accept government regulation of everything, thinking we're protecting people from evil corporations run amok, we're really making life harder for ordinary people. Every profession, from cab driving to floral arrangement, is now burdened with complex rules.
You can't even give tours of Washington, D.C., the city that produces most of these insane rules, without getting a special license. Tour guides must pay about $200 for criminal background checks, provide four personal references, show passport photos and pass a written test -- a difficult one.
People who reflexively defend government may feel no pity for businesses that face extra costs: Let businesses pay fees and take tests -- we don't want unlicensed tour guides describing famous statues incorrectly! But these costs add up. Often, they make a small, barely profitable business impossible to operate. These rules also violate Americans' right to free speech. They are unnecessary. If tour guides are no good, people can patronize others. The government doesn't need to be gatekeeper.
These rules generally prevail because existing businesses are politically connected. They capture licensing boards and use license rules to crush competition from businesses just getting started.
In some places, you can't open a business like a limo service or moving van company unless you can prove that your business is needed and won't undermine existing businesses in the same field.
But undermining competition is the whole idea. If Starbucks or Home Depot had to prove new coffee shops and hardware stores were "needed," we wouldn't have those companies. Apparently they were needed, since these companies thrived, but no one could have "proven" that beforehand.
Jeff Rowes, an attorney at the Institute for Justice, a civil liberties group that defends many people caught up in regulatory cases, says, "America was conceived as a sea of liberty with islands of government power. We're now a sea of government power with ever-shrinking islands of liberty."
The little guys don't have an army of lawyers to defend those islands of liberty one regulatory battle at a time. We should get rid of most of these regulations -- and sail back, together, to a free country.
Self-important government *ssholes with nothing valuable to do with their lives; they simply wander around sucking on the public teat and making life more difficult for others with all their bureaucratic drivel.
It’s just like the Great Ronaldus Magnus said, “Government is NOT the solution to problems, government IS the problem.”
“He” is sending hither swarms of agents to harass our people and eat out their substance.”
Exactly. And it looks more and more like the only way to deal with this oblivious despot is exactly the same way as we dealt with the previous one.
I like to make the cynical joke that, by the time I retire, you’ll need government permission, give up half your savings, and pay the government a fine for the rest of your life due to “not working for the common good”.
The cynicism is certainly still there, but from the looks of things, I don’t think it’ll be a joke for much longer. Government’s expanding its protection racket and it won’t be long before we’re paying them just to let us breath every hour.
All of these rules and regulations are why everything costs so much, and why so much of our manufacturing went overseas. They’re hidden, nearly impossible to account for in a conventional sense, but they are real and extremely harmful to American business. Because the costs are hidden, but still have to be covered, businesses pass them along to their customers (or go out of business), which makes everything more costly, and conveniently gives liberals another way to blame businesses for being “greedy”. What a convenient little world they’ve built themselves.
In case of emergency, EAT THE RABBIT!
If you go to almost any major metropolitan area in this country you'll find immigrants (many of them illegal)running their businesses (and their lives) completely off the books. These include undocumented workers, unlicensed contractors, gypsy cabs, unlicensed hair salons, etc.
Sure, this isn't always a good thing. But I suspect that is Marty the Magician changed his name to Manuel the Magician, and his first response to any government inspector was, "No hablo Ingles," he'd probably be left alone.
In his last election night victory speech, Obama did say he wanted to bring back more of FDR’s progressive ideas...National Recovery Administration (NRA)?
just like frogs in a pot...turn the heat up slowly...and they are..inch by inch they take our freedoms away..and we accept it..
I have a buddy that is an “illusionist / escape artist” and he was telling me about his “emergency procedures” for his stage animals, and I thought he was pulling my leg. Seriously.
Personally, I'm practicing the spelling of chow-chess-que...er, ah, I mean "Ceaușescu."
Good article bump.
ping
There isn’t one thing in this country, tangible or not, that the goverment doesn’t outright control and demand their “cut” of. Not ONE!!!
The air you breath, the ground you walk on. It’s all leveraged to control ALL of us.
bump
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