Forces of bureaucratic tyranny seek to purge Bush nominees

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 28 May 2001 10:03:12 GMT

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED JAN. 16, 2001
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
Forces of bureaucratic tyranny seek to purge Bush nominees

Strike one Bush cabinet nominee; if Bill Clinton finally had to turn to an unmarried troll to serve as his attorney general and chief whitewasher -- one nominee after another having bitten the dust for failure to "withhold wage taxes from their nannies" (no one in Washington daring to admit all wage taxes are voluntary, by statute) -- it was a foregone conclusion Linda Chavez wasn't going to withstand scrutiny after it turned out she'd allowed an illegal alien to find refuge in her house, occasionally pitching in with the chores.

Too bad President-elect Bush didn't go with my proposal for a replacement nominee at Labor: Reed Larsen of the National Right to Work Foundation.

But meantime, score one in the ongoing campaign to deprive Mr. Bush of any advisers or administrators who actively promote even remotely free-market Republican ideals. Next on the intended hit list, obviously, is attorney general nominee John Ashcroft, already subject to prominent "balanced" personality profiles in America's Pravda and Izvestia, the New York Times and The Washington Post, stressing his links to "the Christian Right" in language so thinly veiled one could almost see the red light flashing above the page: "Danger, Will Robinson, Danger: Out-of-Touch Right-Wing Wacko."

When Democrats win the White House, no one pretends to be "shocked, shocked" to see radical left-wing socialists line up cheek to jowl to be put in charge of each respective bureaucratic chow line. But the general consensus seems to be that it's bad enough Republicans get elected, they surely can't mean to then pour salt in our wounds by actually governing according to the kind of dangerous, less-government agenda they advanced on the campaign trail.

After all, it's not as though forced collectivism has failed. It's just ... a work still in progress.

So, even as the focus now shifts to the purportedly absurd beliefs of Mr. Ashcroft (America supposedly still governed by some kind of "written Constitution"; the sovereign states perhaps retaining a right to secede, after all), don't miss the fact that the forces of Political Correctness have also identified a third target of opportunity: Interior Secretary Nominee Gale Norton.

Wedged between its carefully balanced profiles on Ms. Chavez ("The Chavez Nomination Stokes the Partisan Fires") and Mr. Ashcroft ("You Can't Be a Moderate and Pick Ashcroft for Justice"), the redoubtable Los Angeles Times on Jan. 9 managed to sandwich in an additional analysis by leftist lawyer Doug Kendall: "Gale Norton is No James Watt; She's Even Worse."

Nominee Norton "promotes a radical interpretation, advanced by University of Chicago law professor Richard A. Epstein, of the U.S. Constitution's 'takings clause,' which bars government confiscation of private property without compensation." attorney Kendall warns.

That "radical interpretation," it turns out, is the straightforward notion that when a government regulation promulgated "for the public good" substantially reduces a property owner's ability to make profitable use of his land, he or she should be compensated ... just like it says in the Constitution.

But the Green Extreme squeals like stuck pigs when thus confronted with our Constitution's devout concern for property rights. Obviously, if the federal government had to pay compensation to every land owner who was inconvenienced by being forbidden to manage his or her own property based on some sweeping and baseless theory that this or that obscure weed or bug might be inconvenienced in its "struggle to survive," the bill could quickly grow astronomical.

"If the government must pay compensation when its actions interfere with property rights, then its regulatory actions must be limited," Ms. Norton rightly observes.

As in ... "limited government." Get it?

The watermelon wackos -- pink extremists who disguise their hatred of private property beneath a thin green skin -- certainly "get it."

Such a "chilling effect on regulation" would be "something positive," Ms. Norton suggests.

The nerve! We should have known! After all, Ms. Norton "began her career litigating on behalf of cattlemen, miners and oil companies," attorney Kendall breathlessly reveals.

Speaking of which, what does Mr. Kendall, founder and director of the Community Rights Counsel (we're pretty sure the Declaration of Independence proclaimed "community rights" -- wait a minute, it's got to be here somewhere ...) think of the long-established property rights which form the backbone of multiple use management for public lands in the West?

The nearly 500 million acres now in the "public domain" are now "beset by pollution, eroded by a maintenance backlog and under encroachment from development," he shrills. (That must be quite a view out his Washington window. I drove through almost a thousand miles of that "public domain" on New Year's weekend, north through Nevada to the Ruby Mountains. I spotted 80 deer, a good-sized elk, and a Whole Lot of Empty -- not enough "encroachment" to fill your gas tank.)

"They already are encumbered with stale, frivolous or otherwise defective claims of property interests asserted by timber, oil and gas, and grazing lobbyists," attorney Kendall goes on.

Read it again: "Otherwise defective."

This, then is the "moderate, reasonable" opposition to the "extreme" notion advanced by former Colorado Attorney General Gale Norton, that Americans still retain some kind of "property rights," which protect them from government bureaucrats barging in unannounced at the front door, telling them whether and when they can cut their own grass.

It's going to be an interesting battle.

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers" is available by dialing 1-800-244-2224.

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

End the War on Freedom

Forces of bureaucratic tyranny seek to purge Bush nominees