Get out the sandbags

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sun, 22 Jul 2001 12:29:00 GMT

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED JULY 18, 2001
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
Get out the sandbags

Turns out Nevada state lawmakers had in hand a September, 2000 study done by the Sega Company, warning them there was no way to tell what Assembly Bill 555 might cost, before they decided to enact the ill-considered measure, authorizing double-dipping by any retirement-age state worker who manages to convince his fellow bureaucrats he labors in an area of "critical shortage."

(Hint: Did that state job exist in 1865? In 1895? If it's so critical, how did Nevadans survive for so many decades without it?)

Last week, Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn, Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa, and Secretary of State Dean Heller -- all paid in taxpayer dollars, not a single one of which will be shifted into their lucky beneficiary's paycheck -- ruled it's OK for former Reno Police Chief and current DMV Gauleiter Richard Kirkland to draw his $70,000 "retirement pension" at the same time he continues to collect his current, $103,000 paycheck.

Why? Because the state faces a "critical shortage" of people willing to run the arrogant, exasperatingly inefficient, totally unnecessary Department of Motor Vehicles at the modest rate of $103,000 per year, of course.

State and local governments can't find help -- the Clark County School System has suddenly found it has a "critical" shortage of school psychologists, of all things -- because of a "national labor shortage," alleges George Pyne, executive director of the state retirement system.

"I hate to seem to agree with a collectivist like this, but I suppose in a broad sense there is a national labor shortage," replies Lew Rockwell, head of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Ala.

"Obviously there are many things that the government does at the state or federal level to retard employment," economist Rockwell continues. "The whole Social Security system retards employment; a lot of people who should be employed aren't because they're getting this pension from the government. ...

"This whole idea of retirement is evil, we get it from Bismarck and then from Roosevelt," based on the long-debunked socialist notion that there are a limited number of jobs and that older people should therefore graciously step aside, "making way for younger workers," Rockwell adds.

"People who are mentally and physically able should work as long as they can," the free-market economist advises. "It's better for them medically and physically and psychically. Never retire; retirement is evil. It's not good socially or individually.

"It's the same thing with welfare, that's another whole group of people taken out of the work force. Then the minimum wage outlaws employment below a certain rate of pay. ... So it's true that there's a labor shortage. One of the reasons the whole labor market is distorted is because the government is taking these vast sums of money out of the economy and spending it on themselves, 'Whoopee.' But they certainly can find someone at $103,000 to serve as a bureaucrat in Nevada.

"It would be the DMV," mused Rockwell, current publisher of the Journal of Libertarian studies, founded by the late Murray N. Rothbard. "Why is it the DMV is always the worst bureaucracy, the most arrogant, the most nasty to you and inefficient even by government standards?"

School psychologists? Rockwell finds it intriguing that the School District's George Ann Rice would first target that job specialty to authorize more double-dipping, rather than classroom teachers. "It's mind control, of course, making sure students never have a thought that would bother the feds. ... And watch, this will set a bad example now, everyone else is going to be campaigning to be able to double-dip, as well. ..."

Mr. Pyne now says his state retirement system staff will watch the financial effect of the new law over the course of the next year. But a lot of cash could flow over the dam before this "emergency measure" is due to expire on June 30 of the year 2005.

The state Legislature might be well advised to go back and take a much quicker look at the unintended consequences of this measure, plugging the loopholes before this breach in the state budget dam becomes a financial deluge.

Nevada state law already requires that proposed statutes bear a staff analysis of the measure's "likely fiscal impact." But that doesn't do much good if lawmakers ignore a warning that reads "Financial cost impossible to measure" ... for all the world like so many Homer Simpsons ignoring the flashing red lights on the control panel of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant because they've dropped their donut.

D'oh.

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Subscribe to his monthly newsletter by sending $72 to Privacy Alert, 561 Keystone Ave., Suite 684, Reno, NV 89503 -- 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, or via web site 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