Category: too much government

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free trade & free markets general freedom too much government

Supermarket Slavery

grocery store, police

How to sue supermarkets for shutting down:

One. Move to San Francisco.

Two. Support a proposed ordinance “amending the Police Code to require large supermarkets to provide six months notice to their customers and the City before permanently closing, and to explore ways to allow for the continued sale of groceries at the location.”

Three. If the ordinance passes, wait for a large supermarket to go out of business without having known six months in advance that it would need to do so.

Four. Sue.

That the proposed law would amend the police code is perversely apt. The idea is use the state’s police power to penalize ending an activity that as a free man, not a slave, you have no obligation to continue.

Ending any project may inconvenience people who benefit from what you’re doing. But unless you are bound by contract, these other people have no right to your further efforts. 

Not for six months, not for six seconds.

The San Francisco ordinance would exempt supermarkets that must close because of a natural disaster or other circumstance not “reasonable foreseeable.” These exemptions don’t solve the problems that the ordinance could cause for innocent businessmen. As Reason magazine notes, any stores that closes “without providing the proper notice” could still be sued for damages, supposedly exempted or not.

In the 1980s, when this notion was originally proposed (unsuccessfully), supermarket executives argued that making it harder for them to shut down would also discourage them from opening a store to begin with.

True. But that’s just common sense.

I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment ideological culture too much government

Fifteen Days to Flatten America

Fauci, Trump, Covid

The most important lesson of “Fifteen days to flatten the curve!” occurred on the 16th, when  governors kept lockdown measures going.

No state limited its lockdown measures to a mere 15 days.

The public rationale for the lockdowns had been to save hospitals from being swamped with COVID patients — though the Army Corps of Engineers had built emergency COVID care centers near pandemic hot spots around the country, which were unceremoniously dismantled, without having been used, even as governors continued their hysterics.

And tyrannies.

Out west in Washington, for example, Governor Inslee shut down the whole state with a March 24, 2020, order, and, on April 3, unilaterally extended it to May 4, despite the fact that most of the state had hardly experienced the virus yet. On May 29, the stay-at-home order was still in effect, with the governor dictating a county-by-county re-opening order that he fiddled with incoherently for the next year. 

Across the country, most hospitals suffered from under-use.

John Stossel just “celebrated” the four-year anniversary of the lockdowns with an article titled “‘15 Days To Slow the Spread’: On the Fourth Anniversary, a Reminder to Never Give Politicians That Power Again.” Mr. Stossel provides a concise litany of the idiocy of that brief, if far too long, epoch of . . . . what he calls “government incompetence.

But does incompetence exhaust the fault?

At the beginning I had expressed caution, even suggesting a little lenience for our leaders. Then came the enormity of the mass liberticide.

It was President Trump who put out the “guidelines” for shutting down the country; it was Trump who stuck to his guns on the efficacy of the lockdown “mitigations.” Trump did so because he was mesmerized, perhaps, by Drs. Fauci and Birx — whom he had promoted into the spotlight.

Little did Trump know, however, that Fauci had funded the very disease he was allegedly fighting, and that Birx, privately, had pushed lockdowns not in good faith for reasons stated, but with every intention of pushing “longer and more aggressive interventions.”

Trump? Played, yes; incompetent, sure. 

But Birx and Fauci? Malevolent. Evil. Pick the word.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment folly too much government

Ban These Energy Bans

Colorado, Climate, energy, oil, drilling

Several bills pending in the Colorado legislature target the state’s oil industry.

State Senator Kevin Priola, responsible for two of the bills, says he’s acting to stop climate change. To prevent the mass extinction of species, he claims.

One of his proposed statutes would outlaw new oil wells in Colorado after 2030. Another bill would, among other things, outlaw fracking from May through September unless drillers use special hard-to-get electric equipment. The same bill would also direct an agency to reduce the number of vehicle miles traveled.

Another lawmaker’s bill would make it harder to produce new wells.

Priola explains that since 50,000 wells already operate in Colorado, his legislation would not much impair production. But Dan Haley, president of Colorado Oil & Gas Association, observes that the highest production of oil wells comes in their first 18 months. Within two years of the 2030 ban, then, the state’s oil industry would sharply decline.

We’re seeing this more and more. Bans and plans to ban gas-powered lawn mowers, gas-powered cars, gas, coal, oil. Lawmakers working to shut down civilization. Not all at once, but via ever faster and bigger Interim Steps.

Don’t they see that they too will be harmed when things are no longer permitted to function? Do they imagine that if they achieve all their industry-killing dreams, all the food, clothing, shelter, transportation, communication will continue just as smoothly and abundantly as ever?

Don’t they think about the day after tomorrow?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom judiciary too much government

The Vaxxers’ War on Truckers

Justin Trudeau, Canada, truckers, vaccine, Covid

It’s always good when a federal court tells a federal government that it shouldn’t have done some horrible autocratic thing.

Much better had it never been done in the first place — but at least now there is official acknowledgement and, hope against hope, a chance that it won’t recur. 

Hey, a guy can dream.

According to a ruling by Canadian Federal Court Justic Richard Mosley, although truckers’ protests a few years ago against insane pandemic mandates “reflected an unacceptable breakdown of public order” (he seems to be forgetting that the government unacceptably broke things first), invoking of an Emergencies Act “does not bear the hallmarks of reasonableness — justification, transparency and intelligibility.”

No, it doesn’t bear those hallmarks. There “was no national emergency justifying invocation of the Emergencies Act.”

The truckers were clogging traffic to bring attention to a plight caused by the government. That’s it. The truckers weren’t nuking cities or anything. But in reply, the government nuked the rights of truckers by, among other things, freezing their bank accounts and even penalizing people who had donated five bucks to help the truckers out.

Truckers were protesting the fact that they were not being allowed to decide for themselves whether to risk an experimental vaccine. The government banned them from crossing the Canada–U.S. border unless they got the shot.

Luckily, Canada’s federal government has announced that it has seen the error of its ways and — ah, who am I kidding? It is appealing the decision.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability crime and punishment too much government

Stop Causing the Next Pandemic

Covid, virus, research

A lab in Wuhan, China was fiddling with the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 when that virus was accidentally or intentionally released into the world.

I would like such a thing not to happen again. I adhere to the radical political doctrine that the world should not be repeatedly ravaged by avoidable pandemics. I especially don’t want to see a pandemic considerably worse than the COVID-19 pandemic.

But politicians and scientists continue to make pandemics more likely by permitting, paying for (with our money), and even defending the gain-of-function research that weaponizes viruses. 

Why, oh why? I hear you ask. The reason, they say, is so they can learn how to better combat these more virulent forms.

And if somebody happens to unleash a lab-enhanced virus capable of killing a third of the human race, will words like “sorry” and “oops” and “now we know how to stop it better the next time” undo the damage?

This danger is one theme of a talk given by U.S. Senator Rand Paul last November. As Paul, author of Deception: The Great Covid Cover-Up, puts it, “To think that we can prevent future pandemics even as we continue to seek, catalog, and manipulate dangerous viruses is the height of hubris. . . . We must reform government and rein in out-of-control scientists and their enablers.”

Senator Paul echoes MIT biochemist Kevin Esvelt, who says “Please stop.” 

Let us have no more experiments “likely to disseminate blueprints for plagues.”

Policymakers and investigators have no inalienable right to threaten the well-being of us all.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets regulation too much government

The AB5 Agenda

nanny state, freelancers, independent contractor, licensing, labor unions, regulations, general freedom

AB5 is the code name for legislation passed in California a few years ago to kill freelance work. 

Ex-freelancers hate AB5; employers who can’t afford to convert contractors into regular employees hate AB5. 

Unions, on the other hand, love AB5; lawmakers also love AB5.

A California citizen initiative partly reversed it. Then the Ninth Circuit at least temporarily reversed the reversal.

Though Democrats have made several attempts to bring it to the federal level, Congress has not passed a federal version of AB5. But now the Department of Labor is acting to impose a rule to challenge the status of many independent contractors, scheduled to take effect March 11. This AB5-like rule enunciates six criteria determining whether contract work may still be called contract work.

This affects what I do. One of my dozen jobs is citizen-initiative work. Various state governments have done all they can apart from comprehensive AB5-like rules to impede my ability to collaborate with petitioners to get citizen initiatives on the ballot. It is most efficient to pay these contractors per thing they do instead of earning a fixed salary or getting paid an hourly wage. 

Politicians and bureaucrats know this.

If the Labor Department’s new rule takes effect, will contractors working with me pass the test? Or will we all be thrown into chaos and confusion?

It is being challenged in court. 

Many voters — who are, after all, wage-earners or salaried employees — may not care very much; it may seem irrelevant to them. But it is time for them to inquire why some politicians and union bosses want to destroy the ability of freelancers to freely work for outfits short of becoming full-time employees.

For the ramifications will reach far beyond my niche “industry.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom regulation too much government

Unlimited Limits

nanny state

Do politicians understand limits? 

They seem to have this notion that they may limit us every which way . . . with no natural or civilized limit set upon the limits they may impose.

Take California lawmaker Scott Wiener.

This state senator (District 11-D.) has introduced a bill to force carmakers to install a gadget limiting vehicle speed to a maximum of ten miles per hour above the speed limit. The murderous gadget would be installed starting with 2027 car models.

I foresee problems. Hence that word “murderous.” Wouldn’t it be kind of dumb to have to go slower than the traffic all around you if that other traffic consists of pre-2027 vehicles going markedly faster than the speed limit?

Also, mightn’t emergency vehicles often have good reason to zip along faster than this gadget-imposed maximum?

Not to worry. The Hill reports that emergency vehicles would be exempt, “and the California Highway Patrol could authorize the system’s disabling in certain other cases.”

Touble is, any vehicle can, at any time, become an “emergency vehicle” — if an emergency requires it to move faster than the Wiener-imposed limit. Do you then call up the California Highway Patrol and ask that the gadget be disabled? What if you have five seconds to act? That’s not much time to beg the California Highway Patrol to give you control over your own property.

I detect hazards in letting government control every aspect of our lives and every movement we make. Can we put on the brakes, please?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets regulation too much government

SAD Regulators

nanny state, regulations, food, safety, health

Americans are getting sicker and fatter on government-approved, corporate-made foodstuffs, yet government continues to crack down on the sale of natural and home-made foods.

The classic case is raw, whole milk. I’ve talked about this before. The most recent case is from Amish country, where the State of Pennsylvania raided a farm “on suspicion of selling ‘illegal milk,’ among other products,” explains The Epoch Times, and the farm “is being sued by the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General and Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.” 

The Amish farm “has been ordered to halt all sales of its dairy products, inspiring widespread anger over what critics have called a blatant example of government overreach.”

At issue is government interference in farmers and customers freely choosing to skip the major grocery outlets multinational companies and dealing with each other on a local, free-market basis. “Capitalist acts between consenting adults,” as Robert Nozick put it.

But it’s especially galling when placed in the wider context of the FDA’s and USDA’s obvious failure to produce a healthier populace. Though the state’s attorney general insists that “we cannot ignore the illnesses and further potential harm posed by [the] distribution of these unregulated products,” the illnesses caused by what many call the Standard America Diet (SAD) go unnoticed and unregistered as such. 

One standard for “the market,” another for the regulators.

Meanwhile, the State of Wisconsin is pushing a new bill to impose a $20,000 annual sales cap on participants in the state’s cottage food industry, “one of the most restrictive in the nation,” explains Suranjan Sen, an attorney at the Institute for Justice — a legal aid outfit often mentioned in these pages.

The very point of the law is to protect brick-and-mortar grocery and baked-goods stores — not the health of consumers. It has the backing of powerful lobbyists.

Looking for healthier foods and healthier economies? Don’t look to government.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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free trade & free markets regulation too much government

The Crime of Mowing the Lawn

gas powered lawn mower

As war rages in the Middle East, Ukraine, and elsewhere, some U.S. politicians struggle to devastate the American landscape. One of their targets is American landscaping equipment.

In Washington state, lawmakers hope to put an end to gas-powered landscaping. If they succeed, the ordinary activities of humble homeowners and businessmen — humble but determined to keep using Yardmax lawn mowers and Echo leaf blowers — would be criminalized.

Regulations instead of bombs will be the way. If you don’t follow the regulations, then you’ll be “bombed” with fines. Or jail time.

State Representative Amy Walen is pushing legislation, HB 1868, that would “prohibit engine exhaust and evaporative emissions from new outdoor power equipment,” a prohibition to take effect as early as January 1, 2026.

Persons using gas-powered equipment bought before the ban takes effect would presumably not be subject to fines or jail time. They might still be subject to investigation, though, if one of their grandfathered gas-powered tools looks too shiny.

And they might be at risk if they ignore the prohibition and buy post-January-2026-produced gas-powered mowers from out of state.

Exactly how the legislation would play out is hard to predict. But it does not look good for the average guy who just wants to keep his plot in shape.

Government agencies dealing with “natural or human-caused emergency events” would be exempt, at least initially. They wouldn’t have to worry about spending a year in jail for efficiently cutting the lawn. 

Just everybody else.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom international affairs national politics & policies too much government

To End the Great Declension

Argentina, Javier Milei, money, inflation, government

“Today begins a new era in Argentina,” said Javier Milei in his inaugural address as the new president of Argentina. “Today we end a long and sad history of decadence and decline and begin the road to the reconstruction of our country.”

President Milei has focused on a problem — the decadence of mass poverty — and identified it with a basic view of government: interventionism in markets, central control and bureaucratic proliferation. These, once established, start a cycle that must end in decay, decline. “The outgoing government has left us with hyperinflation, and it is our top priority to make every effort to avoid a catastrophe that would push poverty above 90 percent and indigence above 50 percent,” he explained.

Milei is not hesitant; gradualism’s not his bag, for the country does not “have margin for sterile discussions. Our country demands action and immediate action.”

At some point, the argument runs, you have to boldly cut government. Not just cut the rate of government growth, which is about all American Republicans have achieved — often allowing others to take the credit, as with Bill “The Era of Big Government Is Over” Clinton.

Milei’s first act as president was an executive order reducing the number of government ministries from 21 to nine. If this move actually succeeds in paring down the size of Argentina’s state apparatus and workforce, it will be something of a miracle.

In a country that needs miracles. 

Here in these United States, we may not have hyperinflation, as such, but we do face a crisis. The deficits are persistent, and majorities in both parties seem utterly unconcerned about the $34 trillion debt, rushing at us fast. Costing more to service than we spend on defense.

Only Vivek Ramaswamy has pushed specific ways to cut government.

But, unlike Milei in South America, here in North America Vivek’s just not that popular.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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