Six words that should be banned.

George Carlin had an old routine called "Seven Dirty Words." I'm not going to recreate that famous bit, but I do have six words that I believe should be banned as a unit. Individually the words are innocuous, perhaps even useful, but when phrased together, are quite damaging. These words can lead to a gradual erosion of our freedom. In fact, they already have. They are critical for the transferring of power from the people to the government. The six evil words are "there ought to be a law."

Back in my day as a state legislator more than a quarter century ago, those six words provided the basis of my "stump" speech. Every piece of legislation that is passed, whether locally, statewide or nationally, negatively affects the liberty of someone. In many respects, legislating resembles a zero-sum game. In order to "enhance" the lives of one group of citizens, the rights of another group must be restricted. Meanwhile, the state's power grows with each regulatory bauble that's added to the tree. We're getting close to the stage where we observe that the state tree is all aglow and beautifully adorned, while the individual citizen's liberty tree is being torn up by the roots.

When I hear someone utter "there ought to be a law," it generally follows that the person wants the government to coerce others so that their behavior conforms to his. The speaker is either too lazy or too inarticulate to convince others to adhere to the desired practice, therefore he seeks the strong arm of the law to enforce his preferences. As the laws on the various governmental books increase, they invariably begin to contradict one another (the lawyers' full employment provision) or become so picayune as to become laughable...unless you're cited for violating one.

The nature of law-making assumes that one size fits all. If you are fortunate to have a good lobbyist, then you may get an exemption for your group written into the final product. Even without considering how foolish it is to write laws that are fair and just for some three hundred million citizens (and who knows how many illegal...whoops, undocumented), the task  is just as difficult at the city, village or township level. To illustrate the absurdity..consider any family with at least two children. There are (ideally) a set of basic rules to which both kids must adhere. Any parent with a modicum of intelligence and awareness knows that beyond the basics each child is unique...and must be engaged in a manner that differs from her/his sibling. So, do we write laws for individuals? It has happened, but no.

My copy of the "Constitution of the United States" is nineteen pages. The House and Senate "Health Care Reform" bills totalled four thousand pages. Hmmm. The Constitution is the basic. The others are the absurd. The Constitution establishes principles and parameters. The healthcare monstrosities establish winners and losers. The Constitution limits the government's power. The healthcare bills expand it.

Recently while reading a John Lescroart novel (The Oath), I came upon a statement that could summarize this blog entry (paraphrase): Facism consists of making laws forbidding everything and then selectively enforcing them against your enemies. That observation seems so painfully close to where we are today, and the healthcare debacle could (would) make it even worse. Nearly every facet of our lives will be subject to government oversight. For those who lust for security it might provide a comfortable cocoon. For those of us who cherish freedom and liberty the suffocating presence of Big Brother will be unacceptably oppressive. Something's gotta give.

We must halt the inexorable march toward benign big government. We must have the courage and personal responsibility to say "STOP!" We must use every device at our disposal to defeat the coming tyranny. In fact, there ought to be a law.....