Category: too much government

Unnatural Disaster

California, gig, economy, regulations, freelancing, labor, employment,

Just get rid of it.

The “it” is AB‑5, the absurd new law attacking California freelancers.

And those articulating the good riddance are the “151 Ph.D. Economists and Political Scientists in California” who have signed an open letter to California Governor Gavin Newsom and the state legislature.

The lawmakers who last year foisted the measure on Californians pretended that they were doing gig workers a big favor by making it impossible, in many cases, for companies to hire them for regular short-term jobs.

After the legislation passed, many independent contractors quickly lost work — lots of work. For example, Rev, which produces transcripts and captions, said goodbye to all of its freelancers based in California. Many other companies — reluctant to be prosecuted for the crime of engaging in voluntary economic relationships between consenting adults — also ended relationships with freelancers.

Apparently, the anti-gig lawmakers did not realize that losing one’s means of paying for food and rent is not that helpful.

Tornadoes, hurricanes, and pandemics have a way of highlighting the importance of the economic and other institutions that make human survival and civilization possible.

AB‑5 is like a natural disaster in its effects … but not natural.

“By prohibiting the use of independent contractor drivers, health care professionals, and workers in other critical areas,” the open letter explains, “AB‑5 is doing substantial, and avoidable, harm to the very people who now have the fewest resources and the worst alternatives available to them.”

The solution is “suspend AB‑5.”

It was always the solution, the obvious solution.

But now it is even more obvious.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags California, economy, employment, freelancing, gig, labor, regulations

free trade & free markets too much government

Viral Michigan

Gretchen Whitmer, pandemic, corona virus, covid, epidemic,

Michigan is a state divided.

While Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) has become a veritable dictator, in her stated desire to curb the contagion, the infection and death rate in the U.P. (which stands for “Upper Peninsula”) would look like a success story … were anyone to believe that her policies deserved credit.

But to some extent, “social distancing” is just society-as-usual for rural Yoopers.

Whitmer’s stay-at-home orders are the most restrictive of any of our states. All public gatherings are shut down, as are most stores and shops, though lottery sales are still allowed. And enforcement has not been slack, as Reason informs us: “Police stopped landscaper Brandon Hawley for carrying on with his business, although he lives in the northern city of Alpena, which confirmed its first COVID-19 case on Saturday.”

Not on board with every one of the governor’s executive orders are four sheriffs in westside counties of the main part of the state. They have proclaimed they will not be enforcing every single one of her edicts. “While we understand her desire to protect the public,” they wrote in a joint statement, “we question some restrictions that she has imposed as overstepping her executive authority.”

And Michiganders have started to rebel, with the state experiencing our nation’s largest protests.

So far.

Recognizing that the state has the third highest coronavirus death count, though most are in the southeastern part of the state, does this menace justify the governor’s restrictive measures?

Well, that will be an ongoing debate in Michigan — as elsewhere.*

The perception of costs will grow rapidly as negative results from the shut-down become more numerous and more obvious.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* The most startling report shows the virus forming the same pattern of contagion and lethality everywhere, regardless of “mitigation” measures (as Dr Anthony Fauci dubbed them), i.e. shut-down or no shut-down. Meanwhile, a few contrasts: the 2017 – 2018 flu season was quite bad, with 80,000 deaths, including “high severity across age groups”; the U.S. coronavirus death count hasn’t hit half that yet, which is worth keeping in mind as projections of the contagion’s extent and death rate plummet in most models.

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Tags corona virus, covid, epidemic, Gretchen Whitmer, pandemic

general freedom too much government

Tyranny Resurrected

Corona Virus, Covid, epidemic, pandemic, hysteria, panic, religion, freedom,

Right after 9/11, much overkill was directed at the unsuspecting.

Friends of the Dumb Joke Brigade told dumb jokes when everybody was On Edge. It soon became clear that tasteless jocularity had morphed into an actionable offense.

And should anyone on September 12 have had the temerity to sit in a theater studying credits when all others had filed out? Heaven forfend! What schemes might the nonconforming cinephile be plotting alone in the dark?

Twenty years later, we’re at it again.

We can argue (we do) about which social-distancing strictures are properly enforceable in our efforts to slow the pandemic.

But surely some lines inarguably should not be crossed.

I don’t refer to the lone paddle-boarder or to the man who played catch with his kid in a park. I refer to parishioners who attended worship services at King James Bible Baptist Church in Greenville, Mississippi in their cars. Listened to the sermon on the radio in their cars. If the metal-and-glass shells in which attendees were encased couldn’t block the corona-fumes, what the heck could?

Nonetheless, eight Greenville police officers showed up to distribute $500 fines.

The state’s governor discourages but has not banned drive-in church services. It was Greenville Mayor Errick Simmons who has banned them.

The church is suing. Its lawyer, Jeremy Dys, says, “Americans can tolerate a lot if it means demonstrating love for their fellow man, but they will not … tolerate churchgoers being ticketed by the police for following CDC guidelines at church. This has to stop now.”

Beyond violating fundamental human rights, the city’s position also makes no sense.

Unfortunately, nonsense is, in these days of panic, not uncommon.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Photo from Joel Bradshaw

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Tags corona virus, covid, epidemic, freedom, hysteria, pandemic, panic, religion

national politics & policies too much government

The Ratchet Racket

ratchet, coronavirus, Covid, pandemic, epidemic, law, regulations, government,

Various models and curves and soothsayers predict that the coronavirus will lay off as the summer sun waxes. And then rush back in the autumn.

So we should not look at just near-term threats, but also look at cycles of contagion month-to-month, year-to-year.

Yet, it is not just the dreaded coronavirus that must be seen over time. “Crisis measures are often ineffective,” writes Matthew Feeney, at Cato Institute, “and can survive the crisis they are implemented to counter.”

Because government power and interference tend to ratchet up with each crisis, there is a whole lot of reason to suspect that we will not go back to normal. Indeed, “the new normal” is now a catchphrase.

The quarantine shutdown has been, if not total, totalistic. Feeney acknowledges such extremist (he didn’t use that word) measures may sometimes be justifiable. But warns of that ratchet, of new powers given to government not devolving after the crisis.

Ted Galen Carpenter, also at Cato.org, draws a “fundamental lesson” from the panic: “Americans need to resist the casual expansion of arbitrary governmental power in response to the current coronavirus crisis.”

The extreme measures of the shutdown — called by economist Gene Epstein “The Great Suppression” — should have been widely discussed before the contagion hit. Instead, they were discussed in meetings behind closed doors.

But most of us were already up to our necks in the political muck fighting off the everyday kludge of the old normal level of too-much-government.

You know, from the previous turn of the ratchet.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags coronavirus, covid, epidemic, government, law, pandemic, ratchet, regulations

national politics & policies too much government

Name Your FDA Poison

We’re dealing with a pandemic, here, and the Food and Drug Administration insists upon poisoning us.

Or, more accurately, the FDA sticks to Prohibition-Era poisoning schemes, no matter how unreasonable or counter-productive.

Private enterprise is stepping up to the plate. “Local distilleries like Restorative Republic and rum-maker Cotton & Reed are making artisanal hand cleaner, the primary ingredient in which is high-proof alcohol,” writes Peter Suderman at Reason. “And anyone who buys a bottle of their booze also gets a small bottle of what you might call hipster Purell.”

This should be a feel-good story. But government regulators are not in the feel-good biz.

What is the FDA saying to the 500 or so distilleries across the country who want to pitch in, making up for the supply crunch?

The regulatory agency insists that they denature the alcohol in the sanitizer.

Denatured alcohol is, Wikipedia succinctly states, “ethanol that has additives to make it poisonous, bad-tasting, foul-smelling, or nauseating to discourage recreational consumption.”

The feds thus carry on the old prohibitionists’ tradition of poisoning products to discourage drinking.

It’s an idiotic practice: Preventing children from destroying themselves with alcohol by making the easiest-to-access alcohol unpalatable. But kids have been known to sneak drinks even those they find disgusting and vile, just to get the alcohol buzz. So: let’s kill the kids! That’ll teach ’em.

And insisting that distilleries denature their alcohol means that distilleries would ruin their equipment for making drinkable alcohol.

Though some liquor distillers are trying to up hand sanitizer production, ten times more could be produced were the FDA to change its rules, Suderman explains.

Get out of the way, government.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags coronavirus, covid, FDA, prohibition, regulation, virus

Accountability national politics & policies too much government

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to a Quorum

Post author By Redactor
Post date March 30, 2020
8 Comments on A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to a Quorum

Thomas Massie, Coronavirus, pandemic, virus, House of Representatives, Congress,

On Friday, the talking heads and Twitterati excoriating Rep. Thomas Massie (R‑Kent.) were so scandalized that they couldn’t quite get to telling us what terrible thing he had done.

“GOP’s Massie outrages House,” screamed The Washington Post headline. The paper informed that “the Republican from northern Kentucky has frequently voted no on issues large and small, even against the wishes of GOP leaders.”

Wow, is that allowed?

With Congress poised to shovel $2.2 trillion to citizens and businesses by unanimous consent, i.e., without a recorded roll call vote, Mr. Massie balked, thereby requiring a quorum to physically come to the capitol to vote on the relief package.

“I came here to make sure our Republic doesn’t die by unanimous consent in an empty chamber,” Massie declared on the House floor, “and I request a recorded vote.”

President Trump urged the “third rate Grandstander” be tossed out of the Grand Old Party. And former U.S. Senator and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry noted — of all things — his complete agreement with Trump, tweeting that “Massie has tested positive for being an a**hole. He must be quarantined to prevent the spread of his massive stupidity.”

Rep. Max Rose (D‑N.Y.) offered that Massie was “disgusting” and “inhumane,” and that if the vote was pushed “back 24 hours there will be blood on [his] hands.”

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D‑Calif.) boasted of having asked the congressman, “Why don’t you just back off?”

Facing the biggest spending bill of all time, Massie’s notion of Congresspeople voting on the record? Hardly radical. But in the face of the COVID-19 threat, bringing legislators back to the capitol entailed real risk.

Yet come back they did. And just to show Massie how wrong he was in alleging a cover-up, they agreed to a roll-call vote so that there was full accountability.

Take THAT, Massie!

Wait … Congress didn’t go on the record?!

They came back and yet, as Massie pointed out, “they still refused to have a recorded vote.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Note: One spending item, which Massie had specifically complained about, was $25 million for the Kennedy Center. Then, mere hours after President Trump signed the legislation, the Kennedy Center honchos fired the National Symphony Orchestra, informing them “that paychecks would end this week.”

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