AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS ADDICT

If the rule of law is defined as “general rules, known in advance, and applying to the rulers as well as the ruled”, than the breakdown of the rule of law is caused by government making laws that are micro managing, so numerous we can’t possibly know them in advance, and not applying to the rulers, only to the ruled. The expansion of Government regulations and mandates into every aspect of our lives has led to a push back. This video shows how a truck driver deals with Government agents at a check point twenty miles inside the border of the state of Texas. You can watch videos like this all day. Citizens are starting to assert their fourth and fifth amendment rights when they are stopped by police or other Government agents.

Citizens are not complying with what seem like simple and reasonable requests by police and Government agents. Go to youtube and type in “police abuse of power”, and watch videos of police and Government agents bullying, intimidating, and abusing the very citizens they are supposed to protect. This escalation of force is going to be met with an equal escalation of resistance.

The recent example of Mark Basseley Youssef, the maker of the video that supposedly sparked the events in Benghazi, comes to mind. Hillary Clinton told Charles Woods, the father of former SEAL Ty Woods who was killed in Benghazi, we will make sure the person who made this film is convicted and prosecuted . Read here. Do you think the fact the administration trumpeted the story that the film was the cause of the attacks, and promised to arrest and prosecute the film maker, put Youssef in the Government’s cross hairs. He was arrested on probation violations, but  would have been arrested even if they had to make up charges. He was sentenced to one year in jail last week. Read here. He didn’t have a chance.

Here are some examples of our rulers being above the law. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner who had to pay back taxes he owed because he didn’t know what a 1099 form was. Read here. The administration broke bankruptcy laws in managing GM’s restructuring. Read here. They disregarded a judge’s order when they shut down drilling in the Gulf after the BP oil spill. Read here. They decided to retroactively line item veto provisions of the welfare reform bill passed during the Clinton administration, wait a minute, the President doesn’t have the power of a line item veto and even if he did it’s illegal to make ex post facto law. Read here. Congress can insider trade in the stock market with no real repercussions. Read here. Did you get the health care waiver that many politically connected businesses and unions received? Read here. We could fill pages with examples like these from over the last twenty years. We are at a point where you can’t go through a day without breaking some law, and because there are so many, you can’t possibly know them in advance. As Government continues to expand into every aspect of our lives, the individual shrinks.

People have put up with this for a long time because fighting back was more costly than complying. It has changed, now compliance is more costly than resisting. As we have discussed before, human action is purposeful behavior, not simply verbal preference. It is the individual, choosing and acting to reach a particular end. Action is a tangible thing and cannot be confused with wishes or hopes. Men act to substitute what they think will be a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory state. We wouldn’t want to change our existing state of affairs if we didn’t think the result would be better. People used to think that compliance would bring about a better state of affairs, many of these people are starting to think that resisting will now bring about a better state of affairs. Unintended consequences are always the result of Government intervention. Just wait until Obama Care starts to be implemented. The people’s creative ability’s will be used to find ways to avoid what they perceive as an immoral law.

This entry was posted on November 15, 2012 at 3:54 am and is filed under Government and Politics. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: BP Oil Spill, GM Restructuring, Government Agents, Health Care Waivers, Police Abuse, The Rule of Law, Tim Geithner