Tag: licensing

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general freedom ideological culture nannyism national politics & policies too much government

Marriage Savings

Paul Jacob on how governments can save money, and clean up the marriage business, too

We’ve all seen lawmakers yammer on and on about how they want to “streamline” government, or “save the taxpayers money.”

But they rarely show us much for all the talk.

Paul Woolverton, writing this weekend in the Fayetteville Observer, noted one such lapse after the North Carolina Senate voted to create a law to let magistrates “opt out of conducting any weddings if they have a religious objection.”

The problem? “No one in the debate,” Mr. Woolverton asserts, “questioned the underlying premise that a magistrate or clergy member is necessary to seal the marriage contract.”

The involvement of the state in the marriage contract biz is unnecessarily complicated, he explains. “As fiscal conservatives,” Woolverton insists, they could have taken the opportunity to ask something more fundamental: 

A man and a woman pay the government $60 to get a government-​approved marriage license. Why should they then have to visit another government office and pay the government another $20, or hire a government-​designated third party for a fee or “donation,” to finalize their marriage contract?

Woolverton suggests streamlining the process: “… [G]overnment should make its involvement the least intrusive it can be. It should record marriages when couples visit the Register of Deeds to buy their marriage licenses.”

And that’s it.

Betrothed couples can legally testify to meeting any and all state requirements — and officially inform the state of their pre-​marriage and married names. 

Those who want the services of a priest or rabbi or preacher or imam can hire one, or cajole one. Or two.

That’s just not state business.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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property rights too much government

Pitchfork Rebellion

What if they threw a rebellion and everybody came?

Anything you do these days can get you in trouble with regulators, from serving water without the proper liquor license to (I kid you not) throwing a birthday party without the proper happiness-​making license.

But being harassed for doing peaceful things with your own property isn’t about whether you’ve obtained the many licenses “required” to do them. It’s about whether you’ve caught the attention of some vindictive and cortex-​deficient bureaucrat.

When Martha Boneta hosted a birthday party for a friend’s daughter on her Virginia farm, she forgot to get a birthday-​party-​for-​little-​girls permit; the county noticed; the county threatened fines. Zoning Adminstrator Kimberly Johnson went further, though, ordering Boneta to stop selling produce grown on her land.

Boneta finds it “rather odd” she’s being singled out, when so many Virginia farmers do likewise. Actually, she’d obtained a permit to sell produce, but since then the county’s regulations have grown more complicated. (Bureaucrats can grow things too!)

Supportive local farmers conducted a “pitchfork protest” outside the Board of Zoning Appeals. Alas, Boneta lost her appeal, but will pursue the case with the farmers’ help and that of the Institute for Justice. The travesty has also caught the attention of a local Tea Party group. Indeed, several of the “pitchfork farmers” are also members of the Tea Party chapter in Northern Virginia.

I didn’t obtain a permit to wish them all Good Luck, but I wish it anyway.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
First Amendment rights free trade & free markets too much government

Practicing Competence Without a License

You just can’t win. Well, you can; but if you do win — or even just make a decent go of it — that only proves you’re cheating. 

Before you object, please take a breath. Note the sterling sentences, above, with subjects and predicates and everything. I must be practicing grammar without a license! At least, that’s what the charge would be if I were to dispute the syntax of pronouncement from the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

See, an official at NCDOT has accused David Cox, a member of a citizens group, of “practicing engineering without a license.” This was not just colorful rhetoric. The accuser filed a complaint with the state licensing bureau. 

Cox’s group wants city and state officials to authorize traffic lights at a couple intersections. The Department of Transportation hired an engineering consultant to demonstrate that the traffic lights are unnecessary. In response, Cox helped prepare a sophisticated counter-​analysis with diagrams and traffic projections. Cox, a computer scientist, did such a great job that he allegedly crossed the line from legal bumbling to illegal knows-what-he’s‑doing.

I shan’t tear this notion to bits myself. You’re no doubt doing so in your head, and without first obtaining governmental permission — you outlaw! I will say that in this case, “practicing engineering without a license” might as well mean “petitioning of government without a license.”

But we don’t need licenses for that. We have the right. A constitutionally recognized right.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
First Amendment rights media and media people too much government

Liberty and Licenses

Oh, no. We’re being drowned — in alternatives.

Remember the good old days, with three choices for national broadcast news, Walter Cronkite and whoever the other guys were? Plus the local paper and the New York Times? Sure, there were other avenues. But if the big boys happened to have a unitary government-​approved perspective on something, you could battle uphill for years with hardly anyone noticing your particular flag.

Then cable arrived. The Internet. Zillions of webzines and blogs. If you want an alternative to whatever the Official View is, you don’t have to look very far or for very long. It’s harder for the powers that be to burble baloney unchallenged.

Big, big problem, all this competition, right?

It is according to Michigan State Senator Bruce Patterson. He wants to license journalists the way Michigan licenses plumbers and hair dressers.

From what I can tell, the state can’t be trusted with protecting us from bad hair cuts, let alone tell us who’s best suited to toot out the news. But Patterson says we’re being overwhelmed by all the media outlets. Poor us! So we need guvmint — which always puts the truth first, of course — to tell us good reporting from bad. 

Think about this: The traditional job of journalism is to provide a check on lying politicians. Now politicians will vet those who get the privilege to criticize them?

Puh-​leeze.

Patterson, we’ll take a pass.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.