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Big Government Archive

Tuesday

5

August 2014

0

COMMENTS

Government Accuses Gay Bar of Anti-Gay Discrimination for Enforcing Government ID Requirements

Written by , Posted in Big Government, Culture & Society, Identity Politics, Liberty & Limited Government

Government lovers and practitioners of identity politics are eating their own according to Scott Shackford at Reason:

What happened last summer is that a gay man named Vito Marzano, dressed in drag from a fundraiser elsewhere, wanted to enter the Wrangler. He was denied entry. The bar claims it wasn’t because he was cross-dressing but because his image didn’t match his driver’s license. The bar had been previously cited for serving somebody underage and were now being extra cautious. For those not in the know, gay bars have a history of being targets of scrutiny by authorities looking for excuses to raid them and shut them down.

This is an important point. Arbitrary and overzealous enforcement has been a common tactic for government agents to harass certain minority populations, like gay communities. Allowing in customers who do not match their ID is a sure fire way to invite such government harassment.

Equally disturbing is the logic used by the government to determine that there was “discrimination.” The bar, it seems, dares to cater to the interests of a particular subset of the gay community known as “bears,” or burly masculine men who prefer other burly masculine men.

The state’s report notes that the bar has a dress code forbidding high-heeled shoes, wigs or appearance-altering make-up or strong perfumes. While the report states there’s nothing wrong with the dress code itself, it has determined that the bar uses this code as an excuse to exclude overly feminine women or transgender people. The Wrangler is a “bear” bar, whose target demographic is the burlier of the gay men. What’s alarming about the ruling is that it seems to act as though catering to a particular demographic is in fact evidence of a likelihood of discriminating against others:

“[T]he Respondent caters to a gay subculture known as “Bears,” which are bisexual or gay males which tend to place importance on presenting a hypermasculine image andoften shun interaction with men who exhibit effeminacy. This is evident from the pictures and statements made by employees regarding the “Bear” culture of the club and several links on the Respondent’s webpage referencing “Bear” clubs … .”

Emphasis added by me because WT-bloody-F? You know what gay people love? Having the government tell them how their various subcultures work and think on the basis of talking to a bunch of people at a bar and looking at pictures. The preference for dating or friendship with certain types of people is not the same as “shunning” other types of people. And to the extent that there are social rifts between various parts of the gay demographic, nobody should want the state government policing how they should be interacting with each other.

In a truly free and diverse society, outlets meeting niche needs would be welcomed along side those serving a more general population. But in a world of degenerative Progressivism, words such as  “diversity” and “discrimination” have been twisted to the point of almost meaning their literal opposites. Diversity now requires universal sameness – all locations must serve the same clients in the same way. Discrimination now refers to any perceived negative action against a special identity group – such as the enforcement of ID requirements – even as the same action is routinely used against non-protected classes without fuss, making anti-discrimination efforts inherently discriminatory.

Shackford ends with the most important point:

This case is a good demonstration as to why it’s so important to hold a hard line on the right to freedom of association. The Wrangler should have the right to pursue whatever customer demographic it wants for its bar. And if the community finds it significantly discriminatory, they can use social pressures to push for change (as Marzano has apparently done with a call for a boycott).

Freedom, not central government control and more power for bureaucrats, is the answer.

Saturday

26

July 2014

0

COMMENTS

Sen. Paul Moves to Breathe Life Back Into Fifth Amendment

Written by , Posted in Big Government, The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort

Right now, it is possible and quite common for the government to seize personal assets without trial or any other form of due process. Under what’s known as civil asset forfeiture, police can take property they claim may be part of a crime, though they need not prove so, and put that money in their department’s pocket. This gives police departments incentive to steal. To make matters worse, it is then up to the victim to prove their innocence, often at significant cost, if they want any hope of getting their property back.

Rand Paul has introduced a bill that would end this despicable practice:

Sen. Rand Paul yesterday introduced S. 2644, the FAIR (Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration) Act, which would protect the rights of citizens and restore the Fifth Amendment’s role in seizing property without due process of law. Under current law, law enforcement agencies may take property suspected of involvement in crime without ever charging, let alone convicting, the property owner. In addition, state agencies routinely use federal asset forfeiture laws; ignoring state regulations to confiscate and receive financial proceeds from forfeited property.

The FAIR Act would change federal law and protect the rights of property owners by requiring that the government prove its case with clear and convincing evidence before forfeiting seized property. State law enforcement agencies will have to abide by state law when forfeiting seized property. Finally, the legislation would remove the profit incentive for forfeiture by redirecting forfeitures assets from the Attorney General’s Asset Forfeiture Fund to the Treasury’s General Fund.

Radley Balko has more on how the law will also stop state and local officials from skirting state law by conspiring, for a kickback, with the feds.

The bill would also require states “to abide by state law when forfeiting seized property.” This is important. Currently, a number of state legislatures across the country have passed reform bills to rein in forfeiture abuses. The problem is that the federal government has a program known as “adoption” or “equitable sharing.” Under the program, a local police agency need only call up the Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives or similar federal agency. That agency then “federalizes” the investigation, making it subject to federal law. The federal agency then initiates forfeiture proceedings under the laxer federal guidelines for forfeiture. The feds take a cut and then return the rest — as much as 80 percent — back to the local agency. This trick thwarts the intent of state legislature that have attempted to make civil forfeiture more fair when it comes to burden of proof, protections for innocent property owners and eliminating the perverse incentive of allowing forfeiture proceeds to go to the same police agency that made the seizure.

Which brings us to a final important provision in the bill: It would “would remove the profit incentive for forfeiture by redirecting forfeitures assets from the Attorney General’s Asset Forfeiture Fund to the Treasury’s General Fund.

To put it simply, agencies of the federal government have engaged in a criminal conspiracy with state police departments to loot and rob the American people. It’s about time that someone take the obvious position of ending their abuses.

Friday

18

July 2014

0

COMMENTS

Government Moves to Shake Down FedEx Because They Don’t Spy on Packages

Written by , Posted in Big Government, The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort

You would think that enforcement of terrible US drug laws would be the responsibility of the myriad government agencies lavishly funded to harass American citizens based solely on what they put in their own bodies. But according to the government, enforcement is apparently actually the responsibility of FedEx.

FedEx Corp. was indicted for delivering prescription pain pills, sedatives, anti-anxiety drugs and other controlled substances for illegal Internet pharmacies.

The operator of the world’s largest cargo airline was charged by the U.S. with 15 counts of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and misbranded drugs and drug trafficking that carry a potential fine of twice the gains from the conduct, alleged to be at least $820 million for it and co-conspirators. The company, while denying the allegations, said today in a regulatory filing that conviction could be “material.”

…The criminal case is an unprecedented escalation of a federal crackdown on organizations and individuals to combat prescription drug abuse, said Larry Cote, an attorney and ex-associate chief counsel at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

“Targeting a company that’s two, three steps removed from the actual doctor-patient, pharmacy-patient relationship is unprecedented,” said Cote, who advises companies in the drug supply chain on compliance matters.

Note that we’re not talking about delivering cocaine for the cartel here, but rather medicines that government artificially restricts and keeps from patients and those who need them. Nevertheless, the government insists not only that selling medicine is a no good, horrible bad thing, but that it furthermore is the responsibility of FedEx to know what is in every package they deliver to ensure that that no one is daring to deliver cheap medicine.

The whole thing is, in other words, typical government thuggery at its ugliest:

As it turns out, the feds say that “as early as 2004, DEA, FDA and members of Congress” told the delivery company that willing buyers and sellers were engaging in transactions that make politicians very, very sad. FedEx apparently established internal systems for tracking online pharmacies, but shipments still got through. This makes the feds even sadder, and they insist FedEx has been “conspiring” to let the packages through.

FedEx says this is all bullshit. The company insists that, in response to the government’s crusade to keep Uncle Bob from buying his little blue pills at a discount, it’s asked the feds for a list of suppliers it shouldn’t service. The feds haven’t gone beyond the bitching phase to offer anything helpful.

…So, what do the feds want FedEx to do? The indictment isn’t specific, but FedEx hints that the government wants the company to paw through everything it ships and block the stuff that officials don’t think people should be allowed to send from place to place.

 

Sunday

8

June 2014

0

COMMENTS

The Artifacts of Big Government

Written by , Posted in Big Government, Culture & Society, Liberty & Limited Government

Last month, the Washington Post provided an exposé on the proliferation of wasteful government reports. As the headline example, the author cites the 15 employees across at least six different offices that prepare an annual Report to Congress on Dog and Cat Fur Protection. The requirement was created as part of a 2000 law written by legislators no longer in office. It is, in other words, perfectly emblematic of Washington DC dysfunction. The question is: what exactly does this tell us about why and how our government is failing?

The Dog and Cat Fur Protection report is just one of many. The story claims that the current Congress expects 4,291 different reports from 466 federal agencies (aside: there should not even exist anywhere near this many federal agencies, and wouldn’t if the government stuck to its Constitutional duties).

It would be easy for some to blame all this on bad legislators. Certainly it would be possible for Congress to collectively decide to solve the problem by going through and eliminating unnecessary reports, just the same as they could close down duplicative and unneeded agencies. But that’s misleading. If the institutions of government, along with the incentives they create, and the political culture both remain constant, it’s not going to matter who is elected. The results will continue to be the same.

We have now a system that has grown out of control, and a populace enamored with magical thinking. We expect every problem in life to have a political solution, and we demand that someone – the more centralized their role, the better – be answerable for every setback or inconvenience. The result is that government not only must try to involve itself in far too many aspects of daily existence, but that politicians must constantly demonstrate that they are in firm control of the apparatus of government, even as such control becomes increasingly impossible.

Thursday

10

April 2014

0

COMMENTS

Statists Getting Heartburn Over Free Internet?

Written by , Posted in Big Government, Free Markets

The latest digital scare to captivate the media is the so-called Heartbleed bug, which constitutes a major vulnerability in OpenSSL, a common encryption program. In light of the find, the Washington Post’s Craig Timberg penned an article less about the bug itself and more about his discomfort at the idea that there are systems which operate outside the heavy hand of government or other centralized control. Wringing his hands over the “chaotic nature of the Internet,” Timberg finds it “terrifying” that the internet is “inherently chaotic,” and that there’s “nobody in charge of it all.” Give me a break.

Keep in mind that the Heartbleed bug was discovered by security experts and the news at this stage is just a proof of concept. No major infiltration has yet been attributed to the vulnerability, though it’s apparent lack of a footprint means they may still have occurred. But even if there were, it would hardly justify concern over the internet’s free nature, nor the prevalence of open source programs, which Timberg spends an inordinate amount of time dissecting. Despite his fretting that “volunteers and nonprofit groups that often create [open source software] lack the time and expertise to continually update their work,” such programs nevertheless are found in many ways to outperform enterprise or closed-source developments, or do just as well across a range of metrics. It’s the power of emergent order on display.

Likewise, there is little reason to be great central control would make vulnerability like Heartbleed less likely to occur. If you want an idea of what the internet would be like with “someone in charge of it all,” just look to any of the number of failed Obamacare exchange launches for guidance.

Bugs and vulnerabilities in code are a fact of life. There is nothing that will ever prevent them entirely. But a robust, innovative system unencumbered by centralized, bureaucratic control is far more likely to possess the nimble responsiveness necessary to react quickly and minimize the damage.

Sunday

30

March 2014

0

COMMENTS

Weiner Reveals Progressivism’s Anti-Progress Economic Agenda

Written by , Posted in Big Government, Government Meddling, The Nanny State & A Regulated Society

I promised myself I wouldn’t give any attention to Anthony Weiner in his new capacity as Business Insider columnist after the increasingly awful outlet’s decision to give the indelibly awful Weiner yet another public forum. But his inaugural column provides so perfect an illustration of the regressive positions of ironically so-called progressives on matters economic that I cannot resist.

Dipping his toe, and gratefully not other parts of his over documented anatomy, into the recent debate over whether Tesla motors has the right to sell their own product without first going through a government enforced middle man, Weiner comes down firmly against the interests of consumers, but not only that, against the very idea of economic progress. He says:

In Tesla’s case, some might consider bans on direct auto sales to be part of a protectionist regime set up by a powerful lobby—neighborhood car dealers—and unchallenged by a lazy industry that didn’t want to antagonize its sales force. Still, dismissing all existing regulations out of hand without recognizing them as the product of reasoning and careful consideration isn’t the answer.

Tesla and these other tech disruptors might want to put more of their energy into finding ways to fit their innovations into existing regulations.

…In situations where that’s not possible, why don’t these founders and tech executives focus on getting wider public support or convincing lawmakers their causes are just? Instead, they seem to show up expecting the world to be wowed by their shiny new companies and losing it when people don’t get out of the way. Gnashing of teeth via press release doesn’t make the case where it counts. If you want to be in the business of selling great cars, there may be more productive ways to spend your time than bitching about the laws that the majority have passed and reaffirmed from the time of the Model T.

If I didn’t know better and naively thought that political words still had meaning, I might be surprised to hear such conservative rhetoric from someone who proudly and loudly claims a progressive label. But modern progressivism is no longer about tearing down the existing order standing in the way of human progressive (well, they never truly were, but that’s another matter) because they are that order, and it is they who are standing in the way of progress. Innovations do not occur through the careful consideration of government bureaucrats and empowered regulators as Weiner fantasizes, but rather at the hands of “tech disruptors” who see the faults in the current order and move decisively to excise them.  Anthony Weiner wants Telsa to properly prostrate itself before the political elites, grease some wheels, and help keep Anthony Weiner and his friends in the social driver’s seat by working within a dysfunctional system for no other reason than that it is run by his compatriots and benefits the same.

Modern progressivism is about power and control, and modern progressives like Anthony Weiner will defend the political power to control your lives in every instance where it is threatened, because what progressives revealed once they finally had the power they long lusted for was that it was never simply sought as a means, but always as an end unto itself.

Wednesday

26

March 2014

1

COMMENTS

Government’s Top Thug Preet Bharara Shakes Down Toyota

Written by , Posted in Big Government, The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort

Preet Bharara is a rogue U.S. Attorney and government thug. The latest victim of one of his shakedown scams is Toyota:

The original uproar was set off when a Lexus crashed in San Diego on Aug. 28, 2009. In later investigations, both Nhtsa and the San Diego County sheriff’s office concluded that the car had been fitted out with too-long floor mats belonging to another model, trapping a floored accelerator.

Horrifying as mat-entrapment accidents may be, they are rare: The feds have identified only one fatal Toyota crash with this pattern other than the one in San Diego. There also is nothing unusual about sudden-acceleration claims—they’ve been lodged against Audi, NSU.XE +0.02% Honda, Ford, Mercedes, GM, GM -0.84% Subaru, basically every auto maker.

Toyota had recognized the mat concern as early as 2007 on a Lexus model, and now, out of caution, it also recalled millions of cars to have gas pedals altered so oversize, stacked, or otherwise errant mats would be less likely to overtake and smother them.

Nevertheless, the Justice Department on March 19 announced a one-count wire fraud indictment of the Japanese company, simultaneously settled by Toyota’s agreement to pay $1.2 billion. Why the huge sum? Supposedly, the company had made that much in extra sales by inappropriately reassuring the public, Congress and regulators that it was adequately handling the (almost entirely bogus) furor.

…Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s statement of agreed facts fulminates about a second supposed coverup, that of “sticky pedal” syndrome: unwanted friction might make some gas pedals stick on the way back up. Toyota informed Nhtsa about sticky-pedal in October 2009, but the feds complain that the company should have come clean a few weeks earlier than that.

Left out of all this is the conclusion reached in the Nhtsa’s 2011 report: There was no evidence sticky pedals played a role in any of the accidents. The agency also acknowledges that sticky or otherwise, a gas pedal can be overridden by properly functioning brakes.

Providing an addendum to his op-ed at the Cato Institute blog, Walter Olson highlights some of the draconian terms in the “agreement” offer that Toyota no doubt understood it could not refuse:

A couple of other points I didn’t have room for in the WSJ piece: Toyota is settling the government’s trumped-up single charge of mail fraud by way of a so-called Deferred Prosecution Agreement, or DPA, and its terms really must be seen to be believed. “Toyota understands and agrees that the exercise of the Office’s discretion under this Agreement is unreviewable by any court,” appears on clause 14 on page 6, with “Office” referring to the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, currently Preet Bharara. And if you are expecting even the tiniest squeak from anyone at Toyota in contradiction to the government line, even around the coffee machine at the local dealership, consider clause 13, which states: that Toyota “agrees that it shall not, through its attorneys, agents, or employees, make any statement, in litigation or otherwise, contradicting the Statement of Facts or its representations in this Agreement.” If DoJ catches wind of any such statement it can revoke the agreement not to prosecute, without of course having to give back the billion dollars. “The decision as to whether any such contradictory statement shall be imputed to Toyota for the purpose of determining whether Toyota has violated this agreement shall be within the sole discretion of the Office.”

When people talk about federal prosecutors having become a law unto themselves, this is the sort of thing they mean.

Appalling stuff, but this is really just par for the course for Bharara, whose unquenchable quest for power has turned him into one of the government’s more vile goons. He touched off an international incident last December when he arrested and subjected to a strip search an Indian diplomat over a petty minimum wage issue. He later added fuel to the fire he created with one of America’s strongest Asian allies by going off half-cocked and lashing out at critics with a “defense” of his action that was thoroughly unprofessional in tenor and tone, which further antagonized India and undermined efforts of the State Department to calm the matter. Investigative reporter Gary Weiss correctly observed that, “there is something seriously wrong with [Preet Bharara’s] judgment and temperament.”

He’s not the only one tired of Bharara’s antics. U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan criticized the “tabloid tone” of Bharara’s typical pretrial grandstanding.

But it’s still business as usual for Manhattan’s U.S. Attorney, whose aggressive tactics are typically celebrated thanks to the heavy dose of economic populism that accompanies his agenda. So long as he targets unpopular segments of society, his overreaches will be tolerated  by the cocktail crowd. In fact, they generally criticize him for doing too little on Wall Street. In that regard, Bharara resembles much more a demagogic politician than an agent and enforcer of the law. The law is simply a tool that he is perfectly comfortable perverting to his nakedly self-interested ends. Given the significant and largely unchecked power he wields, that makes him one of America’s most dangerous thugs.

Tuesday

25

February 2014

1

COMMENTS

Let Them Eat (Someone Else’s) Cake

Written by , Posted in Big Government, Culture & Society, Free Markets, Liberty & Limited Government

At RedState Erick Erickson weighs in on the debate over whether or not bakers should be required to supply wedding cakes for gay couples if they don’t want to. He looks at the issue through the prism of Christianity (which is not unreasonable given that most of those refusing to do so are Christian). But I’m not particularly interested in the theological aspects or what a good Christian ought to do. I’m interested in policy.

Erickson states:

If a Christian owns a bakery or a florist shop or a photography shop or a diner, a Christian should no more be allowed to deny service to a gay person than to a black person. It is against the tenets of 2000 years of orthodox Christian faith, no matter how poorly some Christians have practiced their faith over two millennia.

And honestly, I don’t know that I know anyone who disagrees with any of this.

I don’t know Erickson, so his statement remains true, but I emphatically disagree that “a Christian should no more be allowed to deny service to a gay person than to a black person.” In fact, I’d take that in the exact opposite direction than he intended and say that both should be allowed.  In a free society, anyone should be free to choose not to engage in commerce with anyone else, for any reason.

Erickson chooses to approach the issue from the angle of religious freedom:

The disagreement comes on one issue only — should a Christian provide goods and services to a gay wedding. That’s it. We’re not talking about serving a meal at a restaurant. We’re not talking about baking a cake for a birthday party. We’re talking about a wedding, which millions of Christians view as a sacrament of the faith and other, mostly Protestant Christians, view as a relationship ordained by God to reflect a holy relationship.

I think he’s attempting to cut too fine a line. Moreover, I think the religious freedom argument is weaker than the property rights and freedom of association arguments. These rights are simple to digest: I own my labor and that which it produces, and I therefore own the right to choose with whom I shall trade my goods. The government has suppressed this right by asserting that stores are “public” if they allow people to enter freely, and by being “public” they must serve everyone. This is and always has been hogwash, and the requirement that a business serve everyone has no basis in any authority granted to government.

Similarly, the freedom to associate necessitates an implied freedom of disassociation. Without the right to refuse association, the right to associate with those whom we choose is meaningless. And if the right to disassociate with a person or entity does not encompass the ability to refuse an economic transaction with that person or entity, then it is a hollow right.

Matt K. Lewis similarly addressed the issue at the Daily Caller, in the context of a proposed Arizona law to allow Christian businesses to refuse work for same-sex weddings. I don’t care for the specific law, which is parochial and targeted in a way that suggests animus and bigotry as its intent rather than true preservation of rights. But that aside, Lewis doesn’t tackle the right question:

The truth is, this is a tough issue that pits things we value as a society against things we value as a society.

We have reached a point in the gay rights debate where all the low-hanging fruit has been picked. We are now entering into the zero-sum game phase of the debate, where gay rights and religious liberty must collide. (In other words, the cake is only so big. If you take a piece, you are guaranteeing the other guy has less cake.)

So who’s right? My guess is one could guarantee public opinion is on either side of the issue, depending on how you frame the question. If, for example, you were to ask someone whether or not “businesses should be allowed to deny services to same-sex couples,” the answer would, of course, be “no.”

On the other hand, ask Americans if “government should have the right to forcefully coerce Christians to violate their convictions,” and the answer would also be “no.”

He is probably right that people would answer the question of whether a business has the right to deny services to same-sex couple in the negative, but that’s in part because it’s the wrong question. We might find it utterly distasteful when someone refuses to serve another for bigoted reasons, but we also find it distasteful when others express bigoted opinions. The right to free speech is nevertheless widely acknowledged as protecting their rights to do so. Why are economic rights taken less seriously? So contra Lewis, what we should be asking is whether “business should be allowed to deny services to anyone,” or even whether “exchange should ever be compulsory, instead of voluntary.” These are the questions at the heart of the matter, and these are the questions which too long have been answered incorrectly by government, the courts and even voters.

Wednesday

29

January 2014

0

COMMENTS

Notable Quotations

Written by , Posted in Big Government, Culture & Society, The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort

I gave my reasons why I don’t care about the State of the Union Address. But Kevin Williamson did it better:

Kevin D. Williamson, “Great Caesar’s Ghost:”

The national self-debasement begins well before the speech is under way. Members of Congress — supposedly free men and women serving as the elected representatives of the citizens of a self-governing republic — arrive hours early, camping out like spotty-faced adolescents waiting for Justin Bieber tickets, in the hope of staking out some prime center-aisle real estate that they might be seen on television, if only for a second or two, being greeted by the national pontifex maximus as he makes his stately procession into the chamber.

…But they will listen, rapt, and the media mandarins afterward will evaluate each promise with great sobriety, ignoring entirely that the central promise made during the same charlatan’s first State of the Union address was subsequently labeled “Lie of the Year” by the great man’s own frustrated admirers. That an entire class of people should be so enthusiastic about being lied to, serially, is perplexing.

Gene Healy, “Most Americans shrug at State of the Union spectacle:”

In its modern form, the SOTU is a meaningless ritual that rarely even does the president — let alone the public — any good.

That’s bad news for a chief executive whose chief talent is speechifying. “I have a gift, Harry,” then-Sen. Obama unhumblebragged to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., some years ago, in the afterglow of a well-received speech. But according to the polling data and the political science research, it’s a gift that won’t keep on giving.

Matt K. Lewis, “How ‘overcriminalization’ makes it easier to target political enemies:”

Regardless of whether the Obama administration is targeting conservatives, or whether its political enemies just happen to be particularly corrupt and incompetent, we should be equally concerned about a growing trend that would aid any vengeful political regime: The rise of onerous laws and arbitrary regulations that criminalize the routine function of politics and business.

After all, overt political paybacks are far easier to spot (and punish) than a pervasive system whereby one must break the law in order to get ahead — and where punishment of the guilty can then be selectively enforced.

Russ Roberts, “Real prosperity:”

I don’t really like the word “market.” Too much shorthand for a rich concept of exchange that allows for the possibility of specialization that allows for more investment in capital (human or physical) that leads to higher productivity that leads to prosperity and growth. Adam Smith understood this a long time ago and his insights have somehow been lost to much of the economics profession. At the heart of Smith’s insights into exchange and specialization and the division of labor is that we get wealthy by figuring out ways to create products and services that have value to other people.  That is what is missing in the parts of Africa that Sachs was trying to help. If you don’t have ways to help other people though exchange, you can’t have prosperity or even take steps toward prosperity.

Tuesday

14

January 2014

0

COMMENTS

To Cry or Not to Cry

Written by , Posted in Big Government, Culture & Society, Economics & the Economy

The Huffington Post has a story about a chef at a high-end restaurant who apparently ran into a bit of social media controversy when she questioned whether or not crying babies should be tolerated at the restaurant.

At the end of the story, a poll asks, “Should upscale restaurants like Alinea ban babies?” None of the available answers were satisfactory to me.

The great thing about a free market system is that it accommodates all answers! It shouldn’t ultimately matter to the folks at Alinea what people who don’t or never will patron Alinea prefer. They should serve their customers or people they want to be their customers by catering to their preferences. And the types of people that do patronize Alinea, moreover, might have a different preference than people that prefer other restaurants.

Because we live in a somewhat free society that still has at least a somewhat free economy, people who want to eat without crying babies and people who want to take their children to nice restaurants can all get their wish without needing to fight about it. This is not the case for other questions where one-size-fits-all answers are imposed on everyone, such as how to best educate children or provide healthcare, which is why those decisions tend to be much more contentious and the cause of social acrimony.

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About Me

profileI serve as Vice President of the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a non-profit think tank dedicated to preserving tax competition and free markets. This site features my personal views, which are not reflective of CF&P.

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