The 112th Congress is the Least Productive in Years – Thank Goodness!

Kathleen Hennessey, reporterette for the LA Times, penned this little piece over the weekend. She thinks that Congress is falling down on the job by not being “productive.”

She actually tries to makes it sound like a bad thing…

The 112th Congress is on pace to be one of the least productive in recent memory — as measured by votes taken, bills made into laws, nominees approved. By most of those metrics, this crowd is underperforming even the "do-nothing Congress" of 1948, as Harry Truman dubbed it. The hot-temper era of Clinton impeachment in the 1990s saw more bills become law.

She goes on to say this –

Experts cite the rise of a brand of conservatism that aims for a government that governs least.

Um, Katy, that’s not “a brand of conservatism,” that is conservatism in its purest form.

It’s clear from her article that Hennessey, like many others, doesn’t understand the very simple founding principle of our government: we are free unless there is a law that specifically prevents a certain action. This is what our current Commander-in-Chief meant when he called our Constitution a document of “negative liberties.”

From the American Thinker link,

…Government does some things which reduce our private rights and yet which increase the common good. Politics is all about where the boundary between broad notions of promoting the general welfare by state coercion and preserving liberty should be. Politicians on the Left have often argued that liberty should be reined in more tightly so that "the people" can live better. But implying that more state power somehow increases liberty is beyond mere Leftism. It is entry into that dead realm of [Orwellian] Newspeak in which language is pureed into nonsense, and then nonsense is presented as argument.

Now this may not seem very important on the surface, but it’s the main reason why we’re staggering under the weight of unprecedented intrusion into our daily lives from the federal government. Soon, we won’t be able to purchase 100-watt incandescent light bulbs. Traditional propellants used in aerosol cans have been outlawed, forcing much more expensive alternatives to be used. Asthma inhalers have more than doubled in price as a result, making formerly affordable relief difficult or even impossible for many. Gasoline is now blended with ethanol, which is less efficient and results in poorer gas mileage and damage to older fuel systems, again the product of legislation from Capitol Hill. Additionally, the seasonal formulations required for gas adds to the price we pay at the pump.

There are many more examples, but the trend is alarmingly clear: we are allowing those we send to Washington to legislate our freedom away at a frightening pace. Much of the reason for the increased price of consumer goods today is the direct result of misguided laws enacted by zealous representatives in Washington who think they are doing the people’s will by enacting as many laws as possible.

This is the primary reason why Obama and the Left received such a “shellacking” in the 2010 midterm elections. It signaled an awakening of we the people to the dangers of a far-too-large federal government and the desire to stop the rampant trampling of our freedom by Progressives in Congress.

So, what the Left sees as a failure, conservatives rightly see as a victory. Slowing the rate at which we’re losing our freedom should be cause for celebration, not derision.

Hennessey’s article reveals quite a bit about the Leftist mindset, that government should be the sole dispenser of the rights of a people in direct contradiction to the intent of our Founders, namely that our freedom is inherent in our existence, given from God at birth, intended to be preserved by representatives who refrain from enacting laws which, under our form of government, rob us of that freedom.

This is the revolution that our forebears fought and died for. A new way of living, a first for mankind, beginning with the idea that man was naturally free, that freedom was no longer the benevolent allowance of an all-powerful monarch, to be dispensed as a reward for fealty to the king.

In other words, less is indeed more when it comes to our form of government. Less laws equal more freedom.

Big Brother is Watching Me

While searching around this morning for a subject for today’s post, something interesting happened.

I got my picture taken by Google. Not by a satellite, but by one of its Street View cars.

And this was before I put on my makeup. I take no responsibility for any trauma that may occur as a result. Women, small children, and pets are equally at risk. You’ve been warned.

Coincidentally, (or maybe not, the powers of Google appear to be unlimited) I was going to write about all the news that has surfaced in the past weeks concerning the information that many electronic products are gathering, in many instances without the knowledge or approval of users. There is a lot of it, both the news and the information being gathered.

It started with this article about Michigan police and their very illegal searches of cell phones without probable cause or a warrant at traffic stops. That right there was enough for a whole post.

I wasn’t alone in noting that these searches were illegal, violating as they do our Constitutional 4th Amendment against illegal search and seizure. Some law professor named Glenn Reynolds agrees. A random traffic stop is insufficient cause to start pawing through your car’s glove box without a warrant, it’s even less cause to look at anything else, including your phone. It should go without saying that you should never consent to a search of yourself or your possessions for any reason. The fact that you think you have nothing to hide doesn’t prevent an overzealous prosecutor from finding something (anything) to justify his or her salary.

But that little obstacle doesn’t dissuade a few ill-informed and uneducated police officers from violating your rights, as that article shows. Random searches are fishing expeditions and are expressly forbidden unless and until there is a good reason for it, such as the investigation of a crime. I’m all for giving police the proper tools to do their job to keep us safe, but random searches aren’t the way to do it. The method of proper evidence gathering is clearly laid out in our Constitution, along with the proper reason for it; so citizens can be secure from an overreaching government that thinks it has the right to know everything it wants to know about you and your goings-on.

The next thing I ran across was the revelation that many Apple products contain the wherewithal to gather all kinds of information on you. They say they must have it. Granted, some of that information has legitimate uses, for instance, supplying you with driving directions. That’s a great thing for consumers, but I have to ask why any information should be retained and sent to any third party after the use for that information is no longer is needed by the user. The verbal parry and thrust over this issue is getting interesting, as Apple’s Steve Jobs says those reports are “false.”

Hmm, really, Steve? Those allegations just sprang forth all on their own? You say one thing, your very own company says something completely different. Which is it?

I’m not comforted by that. Nor am I relived that Google’s Android operating system does the same thing.

Which brings up another question. Why can’t I control the information gathered about me? Since the information that is being amassed is About Me, shouldn’t I have some control over it? Shouldn’t I, as the subject of all this curiosity about my patterns and behavior, be the one who controls it? What if I happen to think that what I do, where I go and what I search for online is my business and no one else’s?

Whose life is this, anyway?

The icing on the digital cake came in this article in the WSJ Online, The Really Smart Phone. You will be amazed at the amount of effort that some people are expending to find out all kinds of things about you. Imagine someone who’s not your mother being able to predict with a certainty of 93.6% where you will be at any given moment. Imagine someone who’s not your doctor or pharmacist knowing whether you are sick or well. That you’re talking to someone about politics. How about being able to accurately predict movements of the stock market six days ahead of time with an 87.6% rate of accuracy?

Do you feel secure yet?

Information, like fire, has many uses. It can be used for good things or not-so-good things. It’s not the information itself, it’s how it’s used and who has access to it. As you may have already guessed, the potential for abuse is rather great. A little too great for my liking.

Already, there are too many in the legal community who are of the opinion that we have no right to privacy, and as a result, all manner of things can be done in regards to gathering information about you without your knowledge or consent.

Isn’t it about time we put this issue to rest and recognize that we do have a right to privacy?

And that it is legally sacred like the rest of our rights and shall not be abridged?

Oh, and I smiled at the Google camera car. Hi, Mom.

Toaster Plooking and Vague Laws

Frank Zappa was a visionary. While I don't count myself as an ardent fan of his music (I have to be in just the right mood to enjoy him), his forays into philosophy were prescient at times.

This is one of those times.

Joe's Garage was a magnum opus of a work. Centered around the idea that music was outlawed and the central character of Joe having been arrested for plooking a toaster (don't ask), somewhere there is a passage that referred to a government that eventually hoped to make everything illegal.

Well, boys and girls, we aren't that far away from fulfilling Frank's dark dream. Here's the crux of the biscuit'

A conservative think tank and criminal defense lawyers are forming an unusual alliance to try to get Congress to quit writing criminal laws so loosely that they subject innocent people to unjust prosecution and prison.

Now, let's say we're in business. We want to make money. We identify a sector of society where we find a need for our services. We decide, "Hey, we can fill that need and make some money". This is how it works for the vast majority of businesses in America.

However, the rules are different when it comes to the legal industry. Since the creation of laws is the backbone of our government, the more laws we have, the greater the need for lawyers. And when one factors in the multiplication of rules and regulations to support a law, the need rises exponentially.

Voila! You can now forcibly increase the market for your services, something that an average business cannot do. Even better, you can design a law that is so convoluted, no one can comprehend it and thus increase your market share (and billable hours) through the appeals process.

I'll use another musical reference: One song on Don Henley's album Building the Perfect Beast notes that when you cross a lawyer with a godfather, you get an offer you can't understand.

*rimshot* I'll be here all week.

Our Founding Fathers valued clarity, openess, and honesty in government. For if the citizenry is to hold power, the rules must be clear and easily understood. Legal principles should be based on concepts of right and wrong that the average person knows already in his or her heart. Our legal system need not be complicated. It shouldn't require an oracle to decipher (for an hourly fee).

However, in what appears to be an effort to increase market share, our legal system is awash in unecessary and obtuse laws, so many that just counting them would take a lifetime. All this is great if you're a lawyer. If you're an average citzen, not so much. Eventually, you could become frozen with fear that you might be violating a law that you were not aware of. Even if you were to read a law and think that you were in compliance with it, there's no certainty that it couldn't be interpreted in a different way by a different judge. Then what do you do?

This situation need not be. It presents the perfect argument in favor of citizen legislators who will write clearly worded laws, ones who understand the potential impact of their actions in the everyday life of the average American, and will strive to minimize their legal footprint upon society.

Until we reach that point, do what Evelyn does. Don't plook a toaster.