I've received more than one dose of gubmint bureaucratic bullspit in my life that had a profound impact on my life, person and property.
In the 90's, my rural TN lake home was next to my parent's home. Where we were, every property had a gully on the street for drainage, and all driveways were on a large concrete pipe covered with gravel or asphalt. I mean EVERY property.
Both our pipes were degrading and needed replacement. So we hired a local Bubba with a back hoe/front loader to dig them out and replace with a nice, new pipe, and they did an excellent job.
A couple of days later, a pencil-necked drone with a bad polyester tie shows up, a representative of the EPA, and red-tagged both our drives and mandated a $2000 fine. WHY? Because when it rains, water flows in the gully downhill into the lake, which was part of the Tennessee River, and therefore "navigable waters subject to EPA jurisdiction. He claimed the gully was navigable waters. Even when dry. Like a boat could float on a 6' wide gully.
It took $17,500 in lawyers fees, two years, and two "administrative hearings" in front of more bad polyester tied pencil-necked EPA bureaucrats to clear it all up in out favor, and to get a semblance of an apology from the EPA for overreaching. Even the County Building guys sided with us. THEY did not require a permit, but the EPA did? WTF? In the meantime we could not use the driveway, and when it rained, the water in the drainage gully flowed as normal.
I think the recent SCOTUS ruling against the EPA has a direct correlation with what we went through.
Back in The Day when my healthcare business was exploding, we added office space that included more restrooms. Keep in mind this industry is female dominate, and our office was 90+% female, that is nurses, LPN's, therapists, nurses aids, etc.
So the restrooms were installed, and suddenly in rolls a dude with an attitude in a wheelchair. He rolls to the restrooms with a frickin' tape measure, and announces the restroom doors are 5/8" too narrow, the stalls doors 1/2" too narrow, and sink 1/4" too tall. He blocks the doors, not allowing anyone to use the restroom, makes a call, and in 5 minutes an ADA "inspector" arrives, red tags the new restrooms, and files a complain for "discrimination" with the ONLY remedy full architectural plans from THEIR architect, full approvals from all manner of ADA boards, and complete tearing out and rebuilding of the restrooms. It cost me $30,000 to battle these ass#oles, six months, and then one construction laborer a day to make all the changes WITHOUT gutting the rest rooms.
In another of my businesses, we had a lease on a county GA airport property. We needed to least the empty land next to us for expansion, and that lease needed to be approved by the Airport Authority. Normally, this is a rubber stamp. But in this case, one of the Authority members was running for County Commission. This is a very large county in FL. This one member kept asking for more documentation before he'd approve the lease (which was really a nothingburger.) I was going to pave the area for more aircraft tie-downs, space the airport badly needed.
Suddenly, a campaign representative of the hold-out authority member showed up and pretty much implied approval would be a lot quicker if I made a substantial donation to his campaign. I refused, told a reporter friend at a large local news radio station, it caused a kerfuffle, the guy resigned his AA position, lost his election...and I finally got the lease approved.
I also has two encounters with the esteemed Anthony Fauci in this period, but that's an entirely different story.
These people can rot in hell as far as I'm concerned.
100%. The current "democracies" are no longer fit for purpose. The entire establishment needs tearing down and building back SMALLER. Much, much, smaller and much less autonomous. Politicians needs to act like the public servants they are, acting in accordance with instructions from the people, not in their own self interest.
The Fed is the lynchpin. Without the spigot, none of it can be funded or enforced.
That issue, unfortunately, does not capture people's imaginations. And the flesh-eating bacteria of micro-regulation is honed for GoF one cottage industry at a time, so that there is never a single mass at a single moment of people realizing that they are being stripped to the marrow.
I see this as a two-fronted project. One, re-arrange the deck chairs (voting if you do that sort of thing, public haranguing on the single issue either way - there is a reason that Donkey and Elephant are willing to put aside all differences to destroy team Porcupine, and to infiltrate it relentlessly with black- and yellow-striped wolves who are "cool with just THIS regulation because it's really pro-self-actualization, bro, and that's, like, the TRUE freedom.")
Two - keep building, building, building, the better thing, no matter how hard the bastards try to get you down. Start companies that they destroy. Start homeschool groups that they attack. Start health practices that they ban. Show them that it is your children, and your children's children, that matter to you. And, as you do it, do the REAL thing: build the community. Trade in gold backs and BTC. Make the invisible markets. Give people a place to go when the system crumbles, so that they will not fear, so deeply, the disintegration.
Make sure there is something good on the other side of Chesterton's fence.
Great Post. But you offer only concepts. Great ones. but not a plan. R.Buckminster Fuller said: 'You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.' You suggest amending the existing system. I think it's too far gone for that. As you detail, the layer upon layer of corruption is total. So the real challenge is 'what's the new model ?' Certainly not 'Revolution's', as they are 'the complete turning of a wheel' (make a dot at the top off a wheel and revolve it one 'revolution'... and it's right back where it started from, isn't it ? AKA: the names change but the game remains the same. Out with the 'old boss', now meet 'the new boss') Maybe it's just everyday citizens choosing differently... creating a plan on the fly ? It would be great if there were Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton types to create a new road map. But they don't seem to be in evidence ? Certainly a quiet EVOLUTION with a nice roadmap would be most welcome. But to my most essential point: the US GOVERNMENT will not assist, lead or participate in such. They way it's all set up now, is that we are semi-slaves to it. And it doesn't want to see that change. So ? You have a great mind. Why not dedicate time to working with others to create the new model that makes the existing model obsolete ? Peace & Love...
Amazing essay! Now is the time to focus the people. Hopefully with the CDC voting for the shot to be on the child schedule, there will be a mass movement to home school. Bringing down the depth of ed would be a feat but imagine the unleased potential for the next generation if we can free their minds! Keep it up El Gato
I’ve been reading for over a year wondering what action could be taken for change. Thanks for spelling it out. You were right in a previous article that people are generally to busy/lazy/apathetic to engage in this stuff. It’s our culture— between work and the gym and family responsibilities, who has time to get involved in politics, or at the very least, gab with others to get them thinking about this stuff? I think this is how the nefarious folk have swooped in.
What I’ve gleaned from your writings has superseded my education at a once-good university. I want to know what you know and read what you’ve read because none of this was taught to me. I’m 36. My dad agrees with all these issues I’ve been bringing up from your substack, as if this is what decent hard-working people have always known. He didn’t know that my generation didn’t know it.
Indeed. But one example resides here: the Constitution provides no authorization for a Federal Police Force. None. Zero. Zilch. In fact, one can read the entire document, along with every word of the Federalist Papers, and every word of what was documented of the discussions among and between the Founders, and you will find nothing of a hint of the need or desire to have a Federal Police Force. And yet, that is what the FBI has become.
There is as much Constitutional authorization for the FBI as there is for a Constitutional ‘right’ to abortion. The FBI is a wholly unconstitutional body, a statuatory creation in full 100% violation of the Constitution. The same can be said of nearly every 3 letter agency that exists.
It's the best way to create effectively a market for things that traditionally we're hard to set up as a market - regulatory and police power.
It's why everyone is moving from NY and Calif. and Illinois to TX and Fla.
Rather than abruptly end all aspects of the regulatory state (maximum libertarianism), if you devolve as much as possible to the states then the competition between Newsom and DeSantis, between Hochul and Abbott, and between Pritzker and Kemp will perpetually prune back the tangle of regulation and leave us all with options we can live with.
The story about the kids clothes - onesies, same thing is happening to small farms. Ever read a farm bill? Loaded with stuff only corporate farms can comply with.
Farmers grow our food and small farms are being run out of business as well because of regulations.
Brilliant, one of your finest posts yet. All of the soy bugman and karen DEI/ESG commmissars must be fired from government and its labyrinth of 3 letter agencies. Here’s a voter guide for midterms: https://open.substack.com/pub/yuribezmenov/p/how-to-win-an-election?r=12n5dp&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
I agree philosophically, but you do not address two things:
1. there are no free and fair elections in this country
2. the other major party is just as bad and just as captured
I've received more than one dose of gubmint bureaucratic bullspit in my life that had a profound impact on my life, person and property.
In the 90's, my rural TN lake home was next to my parent's home. Where we were, every property had a gully on the street for drainage, and all driveways were on a large concrete pipe covered with gravel or asphalt. I mean EVERY property.
Both our pipes were degrading and needed replacement. So we hired a local Bubba with a back hoe/front loader to dig them out and replace with a nice, new pipe, and they did an excellent job.
A couple of days later, a pencil-necked drone with a bad polyester tie shows up, a representative of the EPA, and red-tagged both our drives and mandated a $2000 fine. WHY? Because when it rains, water flows in the gully downhill into the lake, which was part of the Tennessee River, and therefore "navigable waters subject to EPA jurisdiction. He claimed the gully was navigable waters. Even when dry. Like a boat could float on a 6' wide gully.
It took $17,500 in lawyers fees, two years, and two "administrative hearings" in front of more bad polyester tied pencil-necked EPA bureaucrats to clear it all up in out favor, and to get a semblance of an apology from the EPA for overreaching. Even the County Building guys sided with us. THEY did not require a permit, but the EPA did? WTF? In the meantime we could not use the driveway, and when it rained, the water in the drainage gully flowed as normal.
I think the recent SCOTUS ruling against the EPA has a direct correlation with what we went through.
Back in The Day when my healthcare business was exploding, we added office space that included more restrooms. Keep in mind this industry is female dominate, and our office was 90+% female, that is nurses, LPN's, therapists, nurses aids, etc.
So the restrooms were installed, and suddenly in rolls a dude with an attitude in a wheelchair. He rolls to the restrooms with a frickin' tape measure, and announces the restroom doors are 5/8" too narrow, the stalls doors 1/2" too narrow, and sink 1/4" too tall. He blocks the doors, not allowing anyone to use the restroom, makes a call, and in 5 minutes an ADA "inspector" arrives, red tags the new restrooms, and files a complain for "discrimination" with the ONLY remedy full architectural plans from THEIR architect, full approvals from all manner of ADA boards, and complete tearing out and rebuilding of the restrooms. It cost me $30,000 to battle these ass#oles, six months, and then one construction laborer a day to make all the changes WITHOUT gutting the rest rooms.
In another of my businesses, we had a lease on a county GA airport property. We needed to least the empty land next to us for expansion, and that lease needed to be approved by the Airport Authority. Normally, this is a rubber stamp. But in this case, one of the Authority members was running for County Commission. This is a very large county in FL. This one member kept asking for more documentation before he'd approve the lease (which was really a nothingburger.) I was going to pave the area for more aircraft tie-downs, space the airport badly needed.
Suddenly, a campaign representative of the hold-out authority member showed up and pretty much implied approval would be a lot quicker if I made a substantial donation to his campaign. I refused, told a reporter friend at a large local news radio station, it caused a kerfuffle, the guy resigned his AA position, lost his election...and I finally got the lease approved.
I also has two encounters with the esteemed Anthony Fauci in this period, but that's an entirely different story.
These people can rot in hell as far as I'm concerned.
100%. The current "democracies" are no longer fit for purpose. The entire establishment needs tearing down and building back SMALLER. Much, much, smaller and much less autonomous. Politicians needs to act like the public servants they are, acting in accordance with instructions from the people, not in their own self interest.
The Fed is the lynchpin. Without the spigot, none of it can be funded or enforced.
That issue, unfortunately, does not capture people's imaginations. And the flesh-eating bacteria of micro-regulation is honed for GoF one cottage industry at a time, so that there is never a single mass at a single moment of people realizing that they are being stripped to the marrow.
I see this as a two-fronted project. One, re-arrange the deck chairs (voting if you do that sort of thing, public haranguing on the single issue either way - there is a reason that Donkey and Elephant are willing to put aside all differences to destroy team Porcupine, and to infiltrate it relentlessly with black- and yellow-striped wolves who are "cool with just THIS regulation because it's really pro-self-actualization, bro, and that's, like, the TRUE freedom.")
Two - keep building, building, building, the better thing, no matter how hard the bastards try to get you down. Start companies that they destroy. Start homeschool groups that they attack. Start health practices that they ban. Show them that it is your children, and your children's children, that matter to you. And, as you do it, do the REAL thing: build the community. Trade in gold backs and BTC. Make the invisible markets. Give people a place to go when the system crumbles, so that they will not fear, so deeply, the disintegration.
Make sure there is something good on the other side of Chesterton's fence.
Absolutely the best piece you've done.
Even as a one issue voter I have no-one to vote for as our two parties represent distinction without a difference.
Great Post. But you offer only concepts. Great ones. but not a plan. R.Buckminster Fuller said: 'You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.' You suggest amending the existing system. I think it's too far gone for that. As you detail, the layer upon layer of corruption is total. So the real challenge is 'what's the new model ?' Certainly not 'Revolution's', as they are 'the complete turning of a wheel' (make a dot at the top off a wheel and revolve it one 'revolution'... and it's right back where it started from, isn't it ? AKA: the names change but the game remains the same. Out with the 'old boss', now meet 'the new boss') Maybe it's just everyday citizens choosing differently... creating a plan on the fly ? It would be great if there were Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton types to create a new road map. But they don't seem to be in evidence ? Certainly a quiet EVOLUTION with a nice roadmap would be most welcome. But to my most essential point: the US GOVERNMENT will not assist, lead or participate in such. They way it's all set up now, is that we are semi-slaves to it. And it doesn't want to see that change. So ? You have a great mind. Why not dedicate time to working with others to create the new model that makes the existing model obsolete ? Peace & Love...
Amazing essay! Now is the time to focus the people. Hopefully with the CDC voting for the shot to be on the child schedule, there will be a mass movement to home school. Bringing down the depth of ed would be a feat but imagine the unleased potential for the next generation if we can free their minds! Keep it up El Gato
I’ve been reading for over a year wondering what action could be taken for change. Thanks for spelling it out. You were right in a previous article that people are generally to busy/lazy/apathetic to engage in this stuff. It’s our culture— between work and the gym and family responsibilities, who has time to get involved in politics, or at the very least, gab with others to get them thinking about this stuff? I think this is how the nefarious folk have swooped in.
What I’ve gleaned from your writings has superseded my education at a once-good university. I want to know what you know and read what you’ve read because none of this was taught to me. I’m 36. My dad agrees with all these issues I’ve been bringing up from your substack, as if this is what decent hard-working people have always known. He didn’t know that my generation didn’t know it.
Indeed. But one example resides here: the Constitution provides no authorization for a Federal Police Force. None. Zero. Zilch. In fact, one can read the entire document, along with every word of the Federalist Papers, and every word of what was documented of the discussions among and between the Founders, and you will find nothing of a hint of the need or desire to have a Federal Police Force. And yet, that is what the FBI has become.
There is as much Constitutional authorization for the FBI as there is for a Constitutional ‘right’ to abortion. The FBI is a wholly unconstitutional body, a statuatory creation in full 100% violation of the Constitution. The same can be said of nearly every 3 letter agency that exists.
Can't heart this post enough, but here is my question: where are all the one-issue politicians?
Right problem, wrong conclusion.
If you think voting can fix this, you're not paying attention.
Big believer in Federalism, personally.
It's the best way to create effectively a market for things that traditionally we're hard to set up as a market - regulatory and police power.
It's why everyone is moving from NY and Calif. and Illinois to TX and Fla.
Rather than abruptly end all aspects of the regulatory state (maximum libertarianism), if you devolve as much as possible to the states then the competition between Newsom and DeSantis, between Hochul and Abbott, and between Pritzker and Kemp will perpetually prune back the tangle of regulation and leave us all with options we can live with.
We’re working on dissident solutions, ways outside the system.
The Amish are on track to overtake the US population if rates continue.
They did it with horses and bad haircuts.
You can resist.
The story about the kids clothes - onesies, same thing is happening to small farms. Ever read a farm bill? Loaded with stuff only corporate farms can comply with.
Farmers grow our food and small farms are being run out of business as well because of regulations.