Here’s the latest reader question, along with my reply!
John writes: Sadly, there’s one thing on the planet that enjoys eternal life, and that’s any US feddle gummint bureaucracy. It’s only propensity is to grow, without limit, until it devours all in its path. The ever-tightening emission standards are but one example. For some time now motor vehicles have been net air purifiers; i.e., what comes out of the exhaust pipe is cleaner then the ambient air. The once time-honored means of committing suicide by locking the garage door, starting the engine, and breathing the exhaust fumes is now hopelessly passe – if you tried it you’d still sitting in the car, perhaps with a mild headache, when the fuel tank ran out. And with ever more strident gun control it’s getting harder to even blow your brains out. Always enjoy your columns!
My reply: Government, in its modern form especially, does not exist to solve problems; it exists to confect and expand them. It has the same disease process as cancer, which consumes and grows, eventually killing the host organism.
By any sane (rational, cost-benefit) standard, the “problem” of vehicle exhaust emissions hasn’t been once since the mid-’90s, which was a quarter-century ago. But the federal regulatory apparat has doubled down, if anything, because it knows it must create the impression of a problem in order to perpetuate itself.
The apparat’s greatest coup has been the characterization of carbon dioxide as an “emission” – which was absolutely necessary because all the real emissions were no longer a problem and because of this fact, further regs had no sane/rationally defensible basis other than the gratuitous – regulation for its own sake, the same as digging holes and them filling them.
Acceptance of the idea that carbon dioxide is an “emission” – in the sense that it is pollution and thus, a problem – recreates the regulatory justification which existed in the late 1960s, which resulted in the creation of the apparat.
If this idea that C02 is an “emission” – i.e., a harmful pollutant – is generally accepted, it will cement the apparat in place for the next 50 years and perhaps forever.
. . .
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Two analogies come to mind. The Matrix, and Agent Smith telling Morpheus of his theory that humans (government bureacracies in this case) were in fact a virus…and the old Mob statement “Nice little shop you’ve got there, shame if something happened to it”. Central government is a virus, which exhibits behavior characteristic of the Mob.
eric, listening to a TED talk recently the person giving it said the amount of bureaucrats,1.7M grew by ONLY 300,000 under BO, not a small amount she said as was mentioned by the BO supporters and deep state. But in fact, bureaucrats are the deep state. There were so many agencies she named I’d never heard of it was mind-boggling…..and they have power but no expressed power, just the power of no oversight. There was one agency(always 3 letter acronyms)that would pick out a bidness, then go through everything it did with a fine tooth comb, not because they were suspected of doing anything wrong, just because they looked like a good target, like finding a place you think might be a good honeyhole and spend a lot of time fishing it…..just to see what’s there. Except they’re looking for anything that could be construed…..or miscontrued as “illegal”.
The country is being destroyed by bureaucrats and the Russiangate bs is floundering in them with no end to the agencies involved.
The reason the economy is tanking is these people make high salaries and have huge budgets that only grow. We, the people(sic), are being taxed into slaves. I see more similarities of the US to Stalin’s Russia every day. He taxed people for everything they had and when they finally balked and quit producing, he starved millions just to teach those uppity farmers a lesson.
Now I hear the subsidy farmers, who’ve ridden the taxpayers back for decades complaining about not making enough money(well, not enough in their minds since you can drive around and see their houses as compared to the rest of the people and their myriad new vehicles.
But don’t worry about the bankers. I’ve yet to hear one of them complain, esp. the banks that have become owned by the subsidy farmers.