We're Being Regulated to Death

Somewhere out there is a postulate that states, "More government equals less freedom." And if there isn't one there should be, because that's one of the unwritten rules of life.

Here's another one: the way our form of government is constructed, we're free to do as we please unless and until there's a law against something. This is why no one needs a busy Congress, for if they're busy writing laws, they're busy making sure we're all less free.

Now that I've established The Backwards Political Postulate, here's a story you won't like if you love your freedom, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal: Regulator Without Peer.

Congress may be mired in gridlock, but the federal bureaucracy is busier than ever. In 2013 the Federal Register contained 3,659 "final" rules, which means they now must be obeyed, and 2,594 proposed rules on their way to becoming orders from political headquarters.

 If you wonder why our economy is in the shitter, wonder no more. We'll never see a robust economy again until we start electing people who will dedicate their lives to reducing the size, expense, and intrusiveness of the federal government.

Making Sense of the Bundy/BLM Standoff

I paid close attention to the standoff at the Nevada ranch of Cliven Bundy. I listened to both sides and tried my best to figure out the chain of events that led to thousands of ordinary Americans standing up to the armed paramilitary BLM agents.

I may have found someone who has a balanced view of the issue, over at Powerline blog. John Hinderaker has this most excellent post: Why You Should Be Sympathetic Toward Cliven Bundy.

A sample...

Over the last two or three decades, the Bureau has squeezed the ranchers in southern Nevada by limiting the acres on which their cattle can graze, reducing the number of cattle that can be on federal land, and charging grazing fees for the ever-diminishing privilege. The effect of these restrictions has been to drive the ranchers out of business. Formerly, there were dozens of ranches in the area where Bundy operates. Now, his ranch is the only one. When Bundy refused to pay grazing fees beginning in around 1993, he said something to the effect of, they are supposed to be charging me a fee for managing the land and all they are doing is trying to manage me out of business. Why should I pay them for that?

It gets better. As Instapundit says, read the whole thing.

At the time of this writing, there are rumors that the heavily armed BLM agents will attempt a raid on the Bundy Ranch.

$1000 Worth of Digital Fascism from Mozilla

Mozilla, the company that makes the web browser Firefox, committed the only unforgivable sin progressives have – it hired someone who didn’t toe the progressive line to be its CEO. Uniformity of thought is the new black, and a straying from that plantation lands you on the new blacklist. That’s where Brendan Eich finds himself now for daring to stray from the progressives’ plantation on gay marriage.

 

How did Eich stray? Did he take to the streets, shout from the mountaintop, or even take an active role in a campaign? No, he wrote a check, for all of $1,000, to support the campaign in favor of California’s Proposition 8 – the gay marriage ban which was supported overwhelmingly by voters. Not to have gays rounded up and killed or put in camps (those are progressive traits), or even to have homosexuality outlawed, but simply to not change the definition of marriage to fit the political flavor of the moment.

*sigh* I miss the old days when we didn't have to explain sex to children...

Or Progressivism.

Eich’s donation in support of Prop 8 was confidential, by law. The only reason it is known, why any of the donations are known, is the Internal Revenue Service illegally leaked the donor list to a gay rights group who posted it online. Someone in government broke the law and gave what amounts to a “hit list” to progressive foot soldiers who have been targeting donors for their personal beliefs.

 

In this case it was gay groups, but these tactics are a favorite of progressives. Under communism people who didn’t embrace their agenda were purged, under fascism the nonconformists were sent to re-education/work camps, or killed. Progressives can’t simply murder or imprison people who flee their thought plantation, though they’d like to, so they try to ruin them in the meantime.

As we can see from the despicable actions against Eich, Progressives have no love of freedom. Seriously, if you don't like it here, just fucking leave. It's a big wide world out there with plenty of restrictions placed on everybody. Some of us enjoy our country the way it was and don't want it changed.

Charles Koch Explains Charles Koch

Charles Koch (whom Harry Reid checks under his bed for every night) has a message about the natural progression of big government...

More than 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson warned that this could happen. "The natural progress of things," Jefferson wrote, "is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." He knew that no government could possibly run citizens' lives for the better. The more government tries to control, the greater the disaster, as shown by the current health-care debacle. Collectivists (those who stand for government control of the means of production and how people live their lives) promise heaven but deliver hell. For them, the promised end justifies the means.

I really wish someone would ask Harry Reid about George Soros and his support of various radical, far-left organizations here in America.