The Guild of Regulators is alarmed

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 28 May 2001 10:03:10 GMT

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED DEC. 31, 2000
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
The Guild of Regulators is alarmed

Predictably, those who distrust the discipline of the market (consumers simply stop patronizing shoddy products and unreliable firms), and instead demand massive government control of how businesses operate, are shocked -- shocked! -- to learn that president-elect Bush actually intends to move forward with a review of excessive or counterproductive federal rules.

Never mind that Mr. Bush forthrightly campaigned on a platform which called for a review of such regulations, and the often absurd costs they impose on American businesses in relation to the consumer benefits (if any) derived.

"We intend to submit regulations imposed during the previous administration to a strict and thorough review," says Juleanna Glover Weiss, a spokeswoman for Vice President-elect Dick Cheney, who's in charge of transition planning.

"They will probably take a really harsh look at anything that happened in the last three months of the Clinton administration," predicts Joan Claybrook, who headed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration under President Carter and now works for Ralph Nader's Public Citizen.

Well, good. The Constitution invests the law-making power solely in Congress. Yet President Clinton and his regulatory henchmen have followed -- in many cases even outdone -- their predecessors in spinning vast entangling webs of new regulation (here in the West, even ruling huge swathes of land off limits for public use with a wave of the magic pen) without so much as telling Congress in advance, let alone submitting these ideas for their legislative debate and approval.

In Texas, Gov. Bush managed to simplify regulations on industry, reform the practice of tort law, trim taxes, and generally treat businesses as if they were innocent till proven guilty. ... Surely nothing there we'd want to import to the nation's capital!

These cries of alarm are largely cynical attempts to embolden the reactionary shock troops of the regulatory state, of course. By starting their ululations loud and shrill and early -- like geese rising up to their full height and flapping their wings and hissing aggressively -- they hope to frighten Mr. Bush's most timid or casual supporters from acting too boldly.

In fact, Gov. Bush is far from the kind of radical anarchist or libertarian who's likely to shut down so many Washington bureaucracies that the trains will be running overtime, carrying newly unemployed bureaucrats and their steamer trunks home from Washington City (more's the pity.)

But if the new administration takes a skeptical look at the costs and benefits of proposed workplace "ergonomics" regulations; so-called "affirmative action" racial hiring quotas for federal contractors; proposals to effectively ban popular new sport utility vehicles through Draconian new corporate average fuel-economy standards -- even the question of whether Americans should be "allowed" to install full-sized home toilet tanks -- such an application of common sense is long past due.

Most significantly, it appears the Bush administration hopes to maintain the hands-off posture toward electronic commerce which was one of the best things Bill Clinton never did. Indications are that Mr. Bush hopes to refrain from attempting to tax this newest and fastest-growing new economic sector (it would be nearly impossible, anyway) -- and even to allow Americans to encrypt their private electronic correspondence as they see fit, without demanding that the FBI be given the electronic equivalent of the power to steam open every letter in the U.S. mail.

Mr. Bush and his appointees should resist the screeching of this tiny special-interest chorus, and get on with the common-sense agenda endorsed last month by the residents of 30 states.

It's a modest enough agenda -- actually, hosing out every bureaucratic ant farm not authorized by the Constitution would be more in keeping with the oath of office Mr. Bush proposes to take on Jan. 20. And wouldn't it be a shame if these protesters -- having driven themselves hoarse shouting their objections to the very modest plans of Messrs. Bush and Cheney -- were to find themselves beset with laryngitis by the time someone finally gets around to proposing that?

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and editor of Financial Privacy Report (952-895-8757.) His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available by dialing 1-800-244-2224; or via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.

Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken

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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair