Created4
07-02-2015, 07:21 PM
From The Atlantic (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/the-solution-i-propose-is-massive-civil-disobedience/397217/):
Scholar Charles Murray wants “to make large chunks of the regulatory code unenforceable.” How? “I want to put sugar in the government's gas tank.”
Scholar Charles Murray traces his latest book back to a story he heard from a family friend: a small business owner who found himself targeted by a federal regulatory agency. “Like most businesses of his sort, he employs Latino workers, non-citizens,” he said during a session Monday at the Aspen Ideas Festival. “Unlike almost all employers of such labor, they're all documented. He spends $20K or $30K a year on visas to bring the same people back year after year. He pays good wages. And he made himself a soft target by documenting his workers.”
As Murray tells it, this perversely led to more federal scrutiny, a fine for technically violating a niggling regulation, and the businessman’s vow to fight that fine.
Then a federal regulator vowed to put him out of business if he dared to fight. And this so infuriated Murray that he nearly stopped listening––that is, until a vision came to him.
“I had this image in my mind of a guy in a pin stripe suit appearing out of nowhere,” he recalled, “tapping the bureaucrat on the shoulder, and saying, ‘We are taking this man's case. He won't pay a dime for it. We will pursue this case until you are sick of us. We will use all of the legal procedures we can to drag it out. And when at the end you finally fine him for violating this stupid, pointless regulation that he did in fact violate, we will reimburse his fine.’” That made him feel better.
And now, at book length, he is arguing for something like that approach to fighting a regulatory state he regards as far more powerful than the Constitution permits.
Full Article (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/the-solution-i-propose-is-massive-civil-disobedience/397217/).
Scholar Charles Murray wants “to make large chunks of the regulatory code unenforceable.” How? “I want to put sugar in the government's gas tank.”
Scholar Charles Murray traces his latest book back to a story he heard from a family friend: a small business owner who found himself targeted by a federal regulatory agency. “Like most businesses of his sort, he employs Latino workers, non-citizens,” he said during a session Monday at the Aspen Ideas Festival. “Unlike almost all employers of such labor, they're all documented. He spends $20K or $30K a year on visas to bring the same people back year after year. He pays good wages. And he made himself a soft target by documenting his workers.”
As Murray tells it, this perversely led to more federal scrutiny, a fine for technically violating a niggling regulation, and the businessman’s vow to fight that fine.
Then a federal regulator vowed to put him out of business if he dared to fight. And this so infuriated Murray that he nearly stopped listening––that is, until a vision came to him.
“I had this image in my mind of a guy in a pin stripe suit appearing out of nowhere,” he recalled, “tapping the bureaucrat on the shoulder, and saying, ‘We are taking this man's case. He won't pay a dime for it. We will pursue this case until you are sick of us. We will use all of the legal procedures we can to drag it out. And when at the end you finally fine him for violating this stupid, pointless regulation that he did in fact violate, we will reimburse his fine.’” That made him feel better.
And now, at book length, he is arguing for something like that approach to fighting a regulatory state he regards as far more powerful than the Constitution permits.
Full Article (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/the-solution-i-propose-is-massive-civil-disobedience/397217/).