The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Not Buying So Much Gloom

Posted on | August 12, 2011 | 9 Comments

by Smitty

Via Protein Wisdom, we have this Zero Hedge article that is a bolt of pure hairshirt. “Welcome to the Age of Instability”. Yes, it’s going to be turbulent for a decade-ish. Yes, the centralized world order is dead on its feet. Yes, some folks in the forty-to-sixty age bracket, like me, are getting a haircut of sizeable proportions.

Deal with it.

You can ‘go British’, and crap in your dinner plate, or you can man up and re-embrace that exceptional American commitment to liberty. All I want to see is political leadership that can go after the Code of Federal Regulations:

Title 1: General Provisions
Title 2: Grants and Agreements
Title 3: The President
Title 4: Accounts
Title 5: Administrative Personnel
Title 6: Homeland Security
Title 7: Agriculture
Title 8: Aliens and Nationality
Title 9: Animals and Animal Products
Title 10: Energy
Title 11: Federal Elections
Title 12: Banks and Banking
Title 13: Business Credit and Assistance
Title 14: Aeronautics and Space (also known as the Federal Aviation Regulations, administered by the Federal Aviation Administration)
Title 15: Commerce and Foreign Trade
Title 16: Commercial Practices
Title 17: Commodity and Securities Exchanges
Title 18: Conservation of Power and Water Resources
Title 19: Customs Duties
Title 20: Employees’ Benefits
Title 21: Food and Drugs (administered by the US Food and Drug Administration and the US Drug Enforcement Administration)
Title 22: Foreign Relations
Title 23: Highways
Title 24: Housing and Urban Development
Title 25: Indians
Title 26: Internal Revenue
Title 27: Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms
Title 28: Judicial Administration
Title 29: Labor
Title 30: Mineral Resources
Title 31: Money and Finance: Treasury
Title 32: National Defense
Title 33: Navigation and Navigable Waters
Title 34: Education
Title 35: Reserved (formerly Panama Canal)
Title 36: Parks, Forests, and Public Property
Title 37: Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights
Title 38: Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans’ Relief
Title 39: Postal Service
Title 40: Protection of Environment (administered by the United States Environmental Protection Agency)
Title 41: Public Contracts and Property Management
Title 42: Public Health
Title 43: Public Lands: Interior
Title 44: Emergency Management and Assistance
Title 45: Public Welfare
Title 46: Shipping
Title 47: Telecommunication (also known as the “FCC Rules”, administered by the Federal Communications Commission)
Title 48: Federal Acquisition Regulations System
Title 49: Transportation
Title 50: Wildlife and Fisheries

with pliers and a blowtorch. Keep the smallish subset that makes federal sense, and just snuff the rest.

Think of a bicycle. The pedals are connected to a crank, which sits on bearings in a tube at the low end of the frame. You need just enough tightness on the crankshaft bolt to hold things together, and keep large particles out of the bearings. The bearings require some liberty to roll. Held too tightly, the bearings are useless. Progressives increasingly tighten that bolt, claiming to make the system run ‘more gooder’. We’ve reached the point where nobody can pedal.

Exit question: why is Bush doing this to us?

Category: Uncategorized

Comments

9 Responses to “Not Buying So Much Gloom”

  1. cathy
    August 12th, 2011 @ 2:05 pm

    Love the analogy.

    Also the punch-line.  🙂

  2. keyboard jockey
    August 12th, 2011 @ 2:26 pm

    Excellent post Smitty.

  3. JeffS
    August 12th, 2011 @ 2:33 pm

    The CFR is a compilation of bureaucratic bumf designed to keep the bureaucrats warm, safe, and happy.  I speak from professional experience.

    Shaving it down to the minimum necessary means: the front cover, the title sheet, and the back cover, with but a single entry in between:

    “Title 1:  General Provisions

    “1.  The entire content of the United States Code of Federal Regulations is deleted as of 1 January 20##, and replaced with this section.

    “2.  Any additions, modifications, alterations, updates, corrections, or any changes whatsoever to these Regulations, published as of 1 January 20##, is absolutely prohibited for 100 years, or 1 January 21##. 

    “3.  After that date, changes to these Regulations will not take place without the express approval by super majority vote of 80% of the Legislatures in the various states, unanimous approval of Congress, a majority approval by the Supreme Court Of The United States, and signature of the President of the United States.  

    “4.  Applications to the States for consideration of changes to these Regulations shall not be made by any Federal agency, nor any organized group representing a Federal agency.  Only private individuals, not employed by any government agency through direct hire, contract, or any means of compensation, may apply to the State Legislature, and only through the legislative process contained with the Constitution of that State. 

    “5.  Federal Agencies are absolutely prohibited from spending any public funds on lobbying the States and the public for changes to these Regulations.  Individual employees may use their personal resources on their own time to lobby on behalf of their agency, but with absolutely no compensation for doing so.  “Compensation” includes, but is not limited to: administrative leave; reimbursement of travel expenses; use of government property (including computers and telephones); government facilities and support mechanisms (e.g., printing services); conducting lobbying operations during normal duty hours; or any sort of official recognition, such as performance awards, promotions, annual performance reviews, plaques, certifications, or coins.

    “6.  All changes to these Regulations, in effect, must be  approved by the people most affected by them, the citizens and tax payers of the United States, through the accepted legislative process of their respective states.  Federal agencies, and their employees, will not, in any way, shape, or form, be permitted to implement administrative law without the consent of the governed.”

    Yeah, it’ll probably never happen.  But this is a great place to start for discussions!

  4. Anonymous
    August 12th, 2011 @ 2:42 pm

    i prefer to see government as a bucket.  the bucket contains water and rocks. water is freedom and rocks are rules. unnecessary rules are constantly being enacted  and politicians are constantly putting holes in the bucket so it can hold more. somehow they can’t understand that you’ll die of thirst with a bucket full of rocks.

  5. mojo
    August 12th, 2011 @ 6:27 pm

    Oh, geeze – I thought they said BEAR shirt.

    No wonder I went berserk.

  6. Adjoran
    August 12th, 2011 @ 7:10 pm

    Now you’re talking.  We need wholesale re-vamping of the regulations, restrictions on the promulgation of new regulations, strict sunset rules for all regulations unless specifically reauthorized by Congress and signed by the President for another period (say a maximum of ten years).

    My own pet caveat probably won’t pass:  for every new regulation posted by an agency, two bureaucrats from that agency must be hanged and left to rot on the gallows.  Most people object to this, and prefer we just hang them all first and start anew.

  7. Daily scoreboard « Don Surber
    August 12th, 2011 @ 5:01 pm

    […] From Smitty: “You can ‘go British’, and crap in your dinner plate, or you can man up and re-embrace that […]

  8. Anonymous
    August 12th, 2011 @ 9:30 pm

    Abolish,abolish and then abolish some more.

  9. Cube
    August 13th, 2011 @ 3:10 am

    Government has way too much power when they can tell you what color ink to use when filling out their forms.  And no, I’m not kidding or exaggerating about the ink.