My Two Common Sense
Many of you by now have formed an opinion on what happened in last week’s debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
You’ve either watched that slow-motion train wreck, or you’ve been inundated with social media posts and phone/email spam on who won, who lost and who was or wasn’t coherent.
While on the surface, the performances left a lot to be desired (like an actual leader), underneath there was even less, unless you count golf game handicaps and the obvious dislike of each other.
There was one phrase, uttered off-hand by Biden, that was particularly telling and encapsulates the current mindset — and current problem — with government, and possibly the main one that has shaped my disappointment with our country’s leaders.
Biden, in talking about assisting people of color, said the quiet thing out loud when he said, “we need to do more.”
While he was talking in terms of race relations, this is exactly what the mindset is for everything and why the government has grown to its current behemoth size.
If somebody somewhere has a problem, they talk with legislators or their aides, which starts the ball rolling on legislation or regulation (more on that in a bit). Got issues with too many people dying in car crashes? Have the government make seat belt use mandatory, and arbitrarily create a point where a driver is considered impaired.
Have an issue with being denied health care procedures? The government can pass universal health care and dictate what can and can’t be done, and how much it will cost.
Climate change making you hot under the collar? Convince your leaders that climate change is the “greatest existential threat to the planet” and create rules to reverse it, or whatever.
Our fearless leaders have taken that attitude toward every aspect of our lives. Homes must be built to government standards, children must be educated to government standards, parks can be enjoyed by government standards, television and radio broadcasts must meet government standards, and so on and so on and scooby dooby dooby.
The useless sheeples do nothing but exclaim how the government cares, and the large media conglomerates toe the line and spin everything to make it palatable. It doesn’t make a difference what brand of politician is in charge, since these days there’s no real difference.
Several things occur to me about this, not the least of which is underscored by the word “more.” It tells me that all of the efforts into control “for the good of the country” and “our democracy” have not been effective. This has been the fed modus operandi — patch after patch, law after law that have been applied to fix something fails till the government takes over completely.
Problem 1 is that has yet to work, and problem 2 is that many of these things — education, energy, banking, the marketplace, etc. — are not under the scope of government responsibility, at least not constitutionally.
There are remedies, such as trying to vote out the swamp dwellers and the courts, but that takes time and perseverance, such as actually getting people out to vote or having the funds and actual time to run things through the gauntlet of government-appointed judges.
Recently, though, there was a bright spot: The Supreme Court last week gutted a “government doctrine” that allowed federal agencies to regulate business and industry into the ground. Seems the judges felt that actual laws need to be passed by Congress before a federal agency can issue regulations, instead of what was being followed for the last 40 years.
The Chevron deference doctrine allowed that in cases where law wasn’t specific enough, a federal agency can interpret the law and courts were bound to uphold it. The new ruling puts the question of interpretation back in the hands of the courts.
Will it help? Probably, in the long run. But ultimately, unless the inexorable appetite of the government for control is ended, pretty soon there will be no freedom except what is granted to us by government, not endowed to us by the creator.
Tony Farkas is editor of the Trinity County News-Standard and the San Jacinto News-Times. He can be reached at tony@polkcountypublishing. com.
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