Anheuser-Busch Lobbies Against the "Stone Bill"

Big business once again attempts to use the levers of government to stifle competition.

Anheuser-Busch has begun a heavy push against the so-called Stone Bill, writing a letter to state senators and urging them to strike down the amendment aimed at creating more jobs and expanding the state’s craft beer industry.

This is why I'm always saying that there's a big difference between being in favor of big business and being in favor of free markets. Big business invariably attempts to use government to stifle the free market.

Once again, this is why a smaller government (one that interferes less in the free market) is better than a government that tries to manage the free market.

Colorado to Require Education Classes Prior to Marriage?

Per the Denver Post, I don't even know where to start with this.

Lumped onto the hours spent debating centerpieces, picking a photographer, finding the perfect dress and corralling future in-laws, the proposed Colorado Marriage Education Act calls for 10 hours of pre-wedding marriage education.

Yes, that's right, campers. State sponsored marriage school. There are people out there who think the State of Colorado should be involved in counseling you on your impending marriage. The mind boggles.

First (and let's get this straight right from the start) the government has absolutely no business trying to prescriptively tell people what does and does not constitute good marriage advice. Second, assuming they do this, what are they going to teach people?

I've been married for nine years, have a good matrimonial litigation practice, and I still don't consider myself qualified to give other people marital advice.

Here's the thing, though. The people pushing for this program are doing it with good intentions. Their stated goal is to: "better prepare individuals going into marriage to fulfill their new roles as spouse and potentially as parent, to furthermore protect children given that marriage is the foundation of a family unit."

That's an admirable goal. Who could be against protecting children, right? Is there anyone out there against protecting children? This group of people is probably a really "family values" group that has a foundation in historical Christian values, and they probably truly want to see children protected and marriages succeed. They're probably Republicans. Those are certainly admirable goals.

However, the manner in which they are going about achieving these goals is the problem -- they're using the legal force of the law and the arm of government to require people to sit through their education classes.

This strain of Republican really bothers me. Like their Democratic counterparts, they think they know better than the rest of us, and if only we would let them be in charge everything would be better. Democrats tend to think they can do this in almost every aspect of our lives, so they're usually in favor of using the government to force people to do things that they might not voluntarily do.

Can't people be just left alone to marry anymore without some scolds or nags telling us everything that we need to do? I mean, isn't that going to happen anyway once we get married?

Just kidding, ladies.

In all seriousness though, there's nothing wrong with attending classes prior to getting married. Heck, I did that through my church about nine years ago. But that was a voluntary choice. A voluntary choice is the polar opposite of the government requiring you to do something as a precondition.


C. S. Lewis had a quote about this: 

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

Indeed.

Can Government Solve the Stay-At-Home-Mom Debate?

This piece from The New Republic (via Althouse) explores the phenomenon of highly educated, high-powered women who opt to be stay-at-home-moms, rather than push ever higher in their professional lives. It also offers a solution.

To understand why female lawyers, doctors, bankers, academics, high-tech executives and other, often expensively pedigreed, professionals quit work to stay home, you need not search their souls for ambivalence or nostalgia....

I'm not sure I entirely agree with that. I think that many high-powered, professional women are somewhat conflicted or ambivalent about it. I know that they are at least afraid of being judged by women who are in the other camp.

Specifically, stay-at-home-moms are afraid of being judged as not ambitious by the women who pursue successful careers. On the flip side of the coin, I think that some professional women are afraid of being judged as not being as child oriented as they could be. It certainly takes long hours to climb the ladder in certain professions.

To reject a high-flying career, as this man did and so many women have done, is not to reject aspiration; it is to refuse to succumb to a kind of madness.

I certainly agree with this. The old feminist mantra was that as a woman, you could "have it all". That's just not possible, especially if you're in a profession where you have extreme demands on your time if you want to beat everyone else out for advancement.

Achieving professional success is admirable, but what's the point of making all that money if you don't have a life? I think it's a question of what each person finds to be most fulfilling. That will be different for everyone, and it doesn't mean that either choice is better in the abstract. The bottom line is that life is full of trade-offs. You can't have it all. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either a fool or is selling something.

The problem with this piece is the solution it proposes. The proposed solution is to have the government come in and mandate maximum working hours for professionals. Everyone will be barred from working long hours, so the folks who want to spend more time with their families don't have to compete with those who sacrifice family time to achieve professional success.

The main reason white-collar workers can be driven to work 80-hour-or-so weeks is that very few of them have government protections. Most of them are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act, which mandates the 40-hour-week and overtime pay. American managers aren’t allowed to join unions. Other countries have laws that protect against overwork even for professionals, such as standard or maximum number of hours anyone can work in a week.

This would never work here in America, and it's a horrible idea. Can you imagine a law that mandated the maximum hours lawyers could work in a week? The bell rings at 5:00PM and all the lawyers go home for the day? Oh, you had an issue that needed some extra attention on Friday? Sorry. We'll get to it on Monday.

Or for doctors? Oh, you went into labor at 6:30PM on a Friday? I guess we'll just keep you in a holding pattern until Monday morning. The doctor has already done her government mandated time. We could just let a nurse do the delivery for you, though.

A fundamental part of the American ethos is hard work. Hard work separates the great achievers from the slackers or those who choose not to work. Everyone isn't equal, and you can't just tell the folks who want to sacrifice their home life for their careers that they have to go home now. Different people have different priorities.

Wow, talk about a restriction on choice, too. This sounds like a prohibition on ambition. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not taking sides in the stay-at-home vs. career mom debate, but the government can't simply solve this problem by requiring that people only work 40 hours a week.

Hey! You can't work so hard and go the extra mile because there are others out there who choose other priorities, and it wouldn't be fair to make them have to compete with you.

Life is full of choices. Be a grown-up. Make your choices and live with them. The government isn't here to make everyone the same.

 

Being Anti-Big Government Isn't Anti-Community

I didn't want to totally ignore the "You didn't build that..." line from Obama a few days ago. If you've been living in a cave for the last week or so, check the link.

The thing about that line (and the thought behind it) is that it totally discounts two important ideas.

1. It discounts the idea of risk in starting your own business venture and risk is pretty much the name of the game. If you're thinking about leaving a big company to go out on your own and start your own business, it's risky. If you're successful, you stand to make more money, and maybe you can employ a few folks down the line. However, if you fail (and most businesses fail) you lose everything. If you sign any loans personally, you're on the hook for that. If you put your house up for collateral for a business loan (hey, the banks don't just give money away anymore) you stand to lose your house. The bottom line is that it's risky to start your own business.

2. It discounts the fact that firefighters, road builders, police, and teachers are paid for by you, the individual. The government didn't just show up with magic money and provide all the road, fire service, and police protection for you free of charge. The individual people voted for their elected officials who levied taxes, and then paid for all that. It's already been paid for by the citizens who pay taxes - small business owners. So don't expect me to say "THANKS!" to a firefighter, teacher, road builder, or teacher for simply doing their job. I'm paying them for it.

Also, trying to shrink the behemoth federal government and all of it's problems is not the same thing as being against working together as a community. That's also what is insidious about this line. Obama is conflating the idea of working together as a community to do things, and owing your federal government some kind of extra credit for your business success. It's not the same thing. Katrina Trinko has an excellent column about this. Read the whole thing here, but this is the salient point, and it's my personal strain of thought. As usual, someone else puts my own line of thinking more eloquently than I can.

The conservative argument is for freedom, not for all-around individualism. In fact, there’s a case to be made that communities are stronger under smaller government, when voluntary associations and cooperation are especially crucial for getting projects done and ensuring that all in the community (such as the poor and sick) are taken care of.

Exactly bang on. Related thoughts from Ann Althouse.

#TSAFail

Good article on the TSA from a former FBI special agent.

The Federal Government Would Like to Inspect Your Child's Lunch-Box

This is simply amazing. It sounds like something out of The Onion. But it's not.

RAEFORD — A preschooler at West Hoke Elementary School ate three chicken nuggets for lunch Jan. 30 because the school told her the lunch her mother packed was not nutritious. 

The girl’s turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, according to the interpretation of the person who was inspecting all lunch boxes in the More at Four classroom that day. 

The Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs - including in-home day care centers - to meet USDA guidelines. That means lunches must consist of one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home. 

Ok, so let's address a few things. First, what the hell is the Federal Government doing by inspecting children's lunch-boxes anyway? In the debate about where we can cut some of the Federal Government, these people need to be the first to be given the pink slip. The Federal Government has absolutely no business in inspecting and deciding what is and what is not an acceptable lunch that a parent packs for their child. None.

Also, did the Federal Government solve all of the more important problems, leaving the food in children's lunch-boxes as the important issue of the day?

On the substance of the issue: the Federal Government (in their infinite wisdom of what constitutes a healthy meal) gave the pre-schooler "three chicken nuggets"? On what planet are chicken nuggets a healthy alternative to anything? That's moronic. Chicken nuggets? Really? It sounds like this isn't really about nutrition.

This is getting out of hand. If I was a parent of a child in that school, I would be furious. Teach my children to read, write, and do math. Stop looking in my child's lunchbox. This sounds like something that would take place in Soviet Russia. The insidious nature of this problem is that it's so well-intentioned...but we all know there that goes.

You can have my lunch-box when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

Government Confiscates Tuna

What should this guy have done differently? It seems like he did everything right, and the Government still took the fish away. Doesn't NOAA have anything better to do?

[H/T Uncle]

The Christmas Tree Tax is Here UPDATE: Tax Delayed

The President has decided to implement a $0.15 tax on all Christmas Trees. 

President Obama’s Agriculture Department today announced that it will impose a new 15-cent charge on all fresh Christmas trees—the Christmas Tree Tax—to support a new Federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees.

What in the world is going on here? This is insane. I haven't seen any polling on this, but my guess is that Christmas Trees have a higher favorability rating than the Federal government. Christmas Trees don't need a marketing campaign - their image is fine. Also, a new Federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas Trees is a prime example of things our government does not need to do.

Stop. The. Insanity.

UPDATE: The tax is now being delayed. (Because they realized how much people hated it.) The government will either try to re-implement it after time passes, or they'll just let it die.

[H/T: Insty]