Land of the Formerly Free

The 2011 Heritage Freedom Index is out, and the United States is barely in the top ten.

Read it and weep.

The Right to Make A Living

7 Year Old Julie Murphy Freed!

"What freedom is there left?" That is the big question, asked by an interested bystander in the video below. Unfortunately, the answer is that there not much freedom is left in the land of the formerly free.

The Multnomah County Supervisor interviewed fails to take responsibility for the licensing law in whose ugly web little Julie Myers was ensnared. The best you can say about the Supervisor is that he, unlike his health department inspectors, understand how dumb the enforcement action was. It is not enough for any government say that it won't enforce the law when enforcement is dumb. There are plenty of dumb enforcers, who can't or won't or don't have the capacity to exercise good judgment. The law needs to be eliminated or fixed, so it does not permit overpaid minimum-wage-mentality enforcers to do the dumb thing.

Notice that in the interview, the Supervisor NEVER says anything like, "Gee, now we know there is a problem with the law, we should fix it." Nooooo. That is not the way statists think. Statists say, in effect, trust us, we will only enforce the law in the right way.

Stop statism now. Join a tea party near you!

Gov't Run Amok, Shuts Down Lemonade Stand - Updated

Seven year old Julie Murphy is getting a painful lesson in just how great government regulation can be. Multnomah County, Oregon, shut down her lemonade stand because she did not have a $250 restaurant license.

This is just a microcosm of what businesses run by adults have to contend with in these days of excessive and oppressive regulation.

I represent a business that imports motorcycles and other products from China. In the last six months, I have become appalled at the ridiculous and excessive regulatory requirements and the incompetence and venality with which they are enforced. The stories are too many and long to recount simply. Suffice it to say that if I told the story, the reader's reaction is likely to be, "Oh no, that couldn't happen in America."

But, oh yes, when it comes to our regulatory state terrible things do happen in America and the Government grants immunity to the people who inflict themselves in struggling businesses.

Take the experience of poor Julie Murphy and magnify it a million times. Our regulatory government is like that ... and worse.

According to a 2005 Heritage Foundation study, we dropped out of the top ten freest economies. I believe it.

Update: From an Article on the Ruling Class by Jeffery Folks at the American Thinker:

Congress and the president have shown an appalling lack of restraint in their own use of power and in the power they have invested in new bureaucracies and regulatory czars. The liberty of every American is not just at risk -- it has already been stolen by elitists within government and the courts. Americans must drive the new elite out of government, out of academe, and out of the media. They should begin by defeating liberals in the fall elections, and by electing a conservative president in 2012.