Don't Steal! The government doesn't like the competition

While driving in a car the other day, I saw a bumper sticker on another car that said "Don't Steal. The government doesn't like competition." Everyone in the car had a good laugh at that. Unfortunately, it has become all too true, as pointed out by Daniel J. Mitchell at Townhall.com today in an article entitled Yes, you have something to fear even if you are a law abiding person. Michell:

Whether we’re talking about NSA spying, cross-border collection and sharing of private financial data by tax-hungry governments, pointlessly intrusive money-laundering laws, or other schemes to give the state more power and authority, we’re often told that “if you’re a law-abiding person, you have nothing to fear.”

But that assumes government is both competent and trustworthy.

The IRS scandal is just one recent example of politicians and bureaucrats behaving badly. Heck, this blog is basically just a collection of examples illustrating the incompetence and venality of the public sector, augmented by my snarky comments and economic evangelizing.

The problem, we soon find out is that governments at all levels have too much prosecutorial discretion. Mitchell cites an article by Glenn Reynolds in the Columbia Law Review Reynolds uses the David Gregory case, the television journalist who violated Washington D.C. law on television, by displaying a supposedly dangerous magazine while interviewing the NRA. Yet Gregory was not prosecuted, even though anyone else would have been. Then there is George Zimmerman.  George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin in what he claims was self defense.  The police who investigated could find no evidence against his story.  Yet egged on by racism on the part of the Martin family, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and it now appears, Attorney General Eric Holder, he is being prosecuted for second degree murder.  As the trial comes to an end, the evidence seems to show that Zimmerman was correct.  Yet he still faces a jury who, and its any body's guess how they will find him.

The fact is that our legal system continues to become more and more unjust, granting undeserved grace to those who know the right people, or who display the politically correct opinions, while grinding the wrong people, or the politically incorrect into dust.  Reynolds provides some food for thought as to how some of the injustices might be curbed.  I like the "loser pays" option, but then I always have.  For lawsuits, for example, this one provision will stop hundreds of nuisance lawsuits designed to simply harass a company some group doesn't like.  Toward the end of his article, Mitchell points to another post in which he has a list of horribles.  Go read some of the injustices done in our name.

The IRS persecution of an innocent man is particularly instructive.  The IRS agent, one Mr. Norlander, goes about looking for things seemingly out of place.  If a person drives a expensive car, for example, Norlander will look to see how much he makes, and if he can afford it.  But he goes to extremes, prying into their personal lives, dumpster diving their trash, and even sending in an attractive women wearing a wire to get them to say something incriminating. Then there's the woman who was arrested for child neglect because she allowed her kids to ride their bicycles in the cul-de-sac while she sat on in a chair on the front lawn and supervised them.  Or the case of the Sacketts, whose years long battle with the EPA was finally resolved in their favor.  The government though has given itself all the odds, brooking no appeal from its edicts.

I have long noted that our President and his Attorney General are increasing lawless.  In saying that the employer mandate in ObamaCare will, by executive order be delayed, he is making the case for the Republicans to do nothing on immigration.  After all, if he can simply nullify one law, what makes them think he couldn't do it to another duly enacted law?  But Congress let him get away with disobeying laws already on the books in Fast and Furious. Effectively, by not taking the proper actions when it occurred, they have given this President license to pretty much rule us, rather than execute our laws faithfully as required. And it is trickling down to the IRS, the NSA, the EPA, the DHS, and other agencies, whose scandals we probably simply haven't uncovered yet.

People, I hate to sound like a broken record, but we need to turn around, and go back to governing our nation according to the Constitution. True justice demands it.