Budget-cutting as political drama

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Tue, 19 Jun 2001 08:22:52 GMT

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED JUNE 19, 2001
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
Budget-cutting as political drama

During Bill Clinton's first term, a budget impasse took Congress past the date by which new federal budgets were supposed to be OK'd. Though no federal paychecks actually bounced, the White House chose to make a dramatic gesture, announcing that "The federal government would be shut down."

Did the nation's nuclear fleets tie up at their docks, sending all the sailors home on unpaid furlough? Of course not. Nor would it have made any sense for the president to warn, "Watch out, or I'm going to cut off all aid to foreign kleptocrats. And if that doesn't convince you -- I'm not kidding now -- I'm going to shut down the IRS, which means I'm also going to have to order the nation's employers to stop withholding anything out of your paychecks until further notice"

Since such threats would lead to either puzzled head-scratching or outright dancing in the streets, they would be pointless as ploys in such staged political dramas. Instead, the president supposedly "shut down" a few high-profile national parks, museums, and monuments, knowing that hundreds of thousands of constituents with ruined vacation plans could then be counted on to burn up their respective congresscritters' phone lines with outrage and vituperation.

(Even then, the action was completely illogical. During the last "shutdown," a number of Nevadans were issued tickets for trespassing in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, proving that the various rangers and wardens remained on duty, even though the gates were technically closed. So how was any money saved? If the federal government were really out of money, the only logical answer would be for the president to declare the national parks and monuments permanently open, which is the condition in which they were found when the first federals arrived. "I'm sending the rangers home; you folks can come and go as you please, now, but you'd darned well better pick up your own trash.")

Likewise, when Clark County Schools Superintendent Carlos Garcia wanted to make a political point during the just-ended legislative debate over state school funding, did he warn, "If we don't get all the money we want, I'm going to have to lay off 10 assistant superintendents in charge of federal compliance paperwork. And if that doesn't work, I just may have to stop sending my staff to swanky national conferences where they learn how to run our schools just the way they're run in Los Angeles, Detroit, and New York City"?

Of course not. No one would have worried much about that kind of perfectly sensible budget-trimming. Instead, as ever, the superintendent just couldn't manage to think of anything to threaten but the things parents value the most -- art and music lessons, and varsity sports.

Now it's the turn of Police Chief Mike Mayberry in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson, who's shocked -- shocked! -- that local voters last week turned down the same tax hike for 200 new cops and "support personnel" that they'd previously rejected just last fall.

Chief Mayberry now gives every appearance of intending to punish voters when he announced last week he will have to consider an end to having uniformed officers respond to home burglar alarms, as well as "changing the way we handle" such "not as serious" matters as "larcenies and thefts and thefts from motor vehicles and thefts of motor vehicles and some of these other things."

Now, it may very well make sense to stop rolling patrol cars to respond to the average residential burglar alarm -- given that the chief says 98 percent of such calls are false alarms. Cops in the rest of the valley's jurisdictions had to give up responding to such automatic alarms long ago.

But the suspicion remains that the rest of Chief Mayberry's list is chosen more to punish and outrage residents than to focus his officers' limited hours on the most serious crimes.

Grand theft auto is a serious crime -- not only because it can strand a sick or disabled motorist out in the elements, but also because property does matter, and because this crime can mean underaged or drug-addled drivers are now joy-riding around town, facing none of the usual economic repercussions for recklessness which would apply if the vehicles in question were registered in their own names.

If the chief wishes to end busy work which ties up thousands of hours of officer time without noticeably enhancing anyone's safety, why doesn't he just announce his officers will no longer enforce any minor traffic or speeding laws -- excepting reckless driving and hit-and-run -- and will no longer bother to bust anyone for possessing small quantities of marijuana?

Perhaps because he knows the response to such sensible manpower-saving suggestions would be for most of Henderson's voters to shrug and say, "Sounds reasonable to us."

Which is not the reaction he's looking for, at all ... is it?

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Subscribe to his monthly newsletter by sending $72 to Privacy Alert, 1475 Terminal Way, Suite E, Reno, NV 89502 -- or dialing 775-348-8591. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at 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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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