Liberty: Death by A Thousand Cuts

MLLG usually focuses on issues of national scope; however, Americans are more directly affected by local and state government laws, taxes, regulations and actions. Throughout the USA, local governments assault our liberty in thousands of ways; this post describes some of the most egregious. Fortunately, the Institute for Justice (IJ), a public interest law group, ferociously defends liberty in many of the following cases.

Legal Marijuana: Pre-legalization, marijuana (1) enriched criminal cartels; (2) created powerful economic incentives for distributors; (3) spawned turf wars resulting in murder and mayhem; (4) corrupted police, judges and entire governments; and (5) made drug dealers into role models. The purpose of legalization was to end all these horrors as it did with alcohol. Instead, local governments, particularly in Colorado and California, imposed such high taxes and onerous regulations on legal growers and sellers that the illegal trade still is profitable. To top it off the craziness, the Biden Administration is proposing a 163-page bill imposing an added federal 25% tax and voluminous new federal regulations. Now we have the worst of both worlds.

Occupational licenses; barriers to entry: The impetus for licensing comes from industry groups with vested interests in preventing competition. California prohibits anyone without a high school diploma from attending vocational school unless they pass a government exam. Sale of home baked goods require commercial grade kitchens. A Texas town refused to issue a license to a one-man business without adding 28 parking spaces. To become a barber in 20 large cities requires over a year of training and compliance with costly regulations. Any barber who wants to open a shop must navigate a mind-numbing array of zoning, permits, taxes, inspections and licenses. All together, this costs over $3,000, requires 16 forms and over 55 steps before opening.

Asset forfeiture and policing for profit: Police in many states confiscate cash from citizens during routine traffic stops without charging them with a crime. They use this money for their own benefit, giving them a nefarious motive. In Philadelphia alone, there have been 30,000 such cases. In one Alabama town, police pull over residents for spurious reasons, handcuff the drivers, search the cars and have them towed and impounded. Owners are forced to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars to recover their cars. As always, most victims are from disadvantaged communities. Shakedowns just like this take place every day in cities and towns across America.

More Examples of Death by a Thousand Cuts

There are many other instances where state and local governments stifle liberty. Due to space constraints, we can only summarize the most egregious ones herein.

Guardianship laws: In many states older people often are declared incapacitated with little or no due process. They lose the right to drive, vote, marry, hire an attorney, travel, consent to treatment and even choose with whom to talk or visit. Young people are free to make poor life choices without consequence; why not older people?

Food trucks: Many locales enact restrictions that make it impossible to operate food trucks, denying owners the right to earn a living.

Pandemic issues: States and cities imposed unconstitutional, arbitrary and capricious emergency edicts. It was okay for liquor stores to be open but not churches. Children lost one or two years of learning. Many lives were needlessly uprooted or harmed.

Property rights: Local governments disrespect property rights. They prohibit small homes by mandating minimum size, ban working from home, outlaw front yard vegetable gardens and ban businesses from placing signage in their own windows.

Fourth Amendment: Unreasonable and illegal searches, seizures and surveillance take place routinely in many jurisdictions. In Tennessee they enter private property to install cameras to search for hunting violations. In Florida, police harass families because a computer algorithm predicted a family member may commit a crime in the future.

School choice: Governments beholding to teacher unions restrict charter schools, teach CRT, gender dysphoria, the 1619 project and indoctrinate students in a state religion that directly conflicts with parental values. They oppose choice in every way possible.

We conclude with the story of Jaime, who has been a model citizen his entire adult life. He was hired for his dream job of an ocean rescue lifeguard, which required EMT certification, 200 hours of coursework and an exam. After meeting all of the requirements and passing the exam (on his first attempt), Jaime was denied a license because of a youthful non-violent drug conviction 20 years ago. His appeal required mounds of documents and time-consuming bureaucracy. Jaime’s story has a happy ending only because IJ took his case and ultimately prevailed. However, there are thousands and thousands of other cases like Jaime’s out there that cry out for justice.

The state and local government abuses of power described herein are but the tip of the iceberg. There is one, and only one, way to remedy this government lust for more power and that is – you guessed it – more liberty and less government.

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“California Screaming” leads off our next post which covers multiple topics.

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