04 August 2012

Sally Satchelbottom, DC Bureaucrat

Sally Satchelbottom (not her real name) works as a data analyst and compiler in a cubicle at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  She is a product of a full 17 years of our self-esteem 'educational' system, graduated with a degree in economics from State U where her professors revered Marx and thought Keynes was a right-winger.  She couldn't wait to get to the DC area and go to work (?) for Uncle Sam where she could 'make a difference.'  She pays $2,000+/month for a 1,000 sq ft flat in a drab concrete high-rise built in the 60s.  She regards any place west of Hagerstown MD and south of Richmond VA as Terra Incognita full of rednecks wearing criss-cross cartridge belts, armed to the teeth, listening to David Allen Coe, driving their pickup trucks to the cleaners to drop off their Klan robes after the weekly cross burning rally.  Data she sees at work tells her these people have a wide variety of occupations but she believes it's all a front for a secret highly organized militia movement.

Sally proudly drives a Prius with its COEXIST bumper sticker.  She isn't a lesbian but has strongly considered adding a rainbow triangle sticker to show her solidarity with the gay movement.  Sally didn't date much in school (she's pleasantly plump) so a photo of her nephews (who live in Indiana, Ohio or one of those other flyover states) in a school-project yarn frame hangs from her rearview mirror along with her Federal ID security badge which keeps those icky citizens out of the halls of government by the people, for the people and of the people.

Sally is proud of the DC Metro and thinks that green public transport should be implemented everywhere especially in places she's never been like Texas and Montana.  But the Metro station is very crowded and noisy so she chooses to drive to work where she can listen to Tori Amos, doing an average of 15 mph on the Beltway along with thousands of kindred spirits who believe in reducing emissions at all costs.  She sees the empty HOV lane and swells with pride at 20% of the freeway lanes going unused.  She has contemplated stopping to get coffee and a bagel but the staff don't speak English at the places along her route.  Still, she believes that diversity is strength and that America would be better off if our borders were thrown open.  Needless to say, Sally voted for Obama.  She's contributed $100 to his campaign but hasn't yet received her 'O 2012' reelection sticker but plans to get one from the pile on her coworker's desk today.  Finally, Sally reaches the office.  She swipes her badge, sits at her desk and begins compiling Labor Statistics.

Now...what are the chances that Sally, her colleagues, and her like-minded bosses (appointed or elected) will produce numbers favorable to the Obama administration, no matter what manipulations of raw data and formulae are required?  Why is government trusted for one single second to evaluate its own performance?  It's akin to giving an NFL head coach the scoreboard controls and telling him to 'keep it close.'  Madness.

Texting & Driving: Another Government "Safety" Cash Grab

Anti-phone and anti-texting laws are more of the same smoke-and-mirrors that convince the gullible that government is "doing something" about a particular problem.  Results are rarely compiled and analyzed, motives are never discussed beyond vague notions of increased safety, etc.

However, in order for the cause to deliver the promised effect, let us examine the spots on all the dominos that must fall in the correct order:

1) The law must reduce or eliminate the deleterious behavior it claims to address
2) Police must not divert their attention from more pressing matters i.e. those which exist approximately 100% of the time spent on patrol.
3) If safety is our overriding concern, then police must also be prevented from the use of their phones, radios, and even in-car laptops while in motion, claims of superior driving skill and training notwithstanding (especially in light of their tendency to do 90 MPH on our highways).
4) Police must be able to discern the act taking place, often through dark tinted glass and often while traveling 70+ mph on the highway
5) Motorists can't claim to be adjusting the radio, their GPS, their mirrors, their air conditioning, their seat, their steering wheel, their iPod, or simply speaking on their phone as oppposed to using it to text.
6) Prosecutors must be able to prove conclusively that the prohibited activity was taking place.
7) The law's punishments should be directed towards cessation of the activity rather than monetary fines that are simply a stealth tax.

If the state fails to meet ANY ONE of these conditions (and many more not listed here) then that is prima facie evidence that the law is as flawed as the motivations behind it.  Worse, it is evidence of the state acting in bad faith when it claims to promote safety when its actual purpose is revenue generation (see also:  artificially low speed limits in direct conflict with traffic engineeers' recommendations).

The fact is that there are good and bad drivers with or without technological gadgets involved.  Licensing procedures and driving tests are an unfunny, undemanding joke especially when it comes to the inexperienced, the elderly and the infirm.  But keeping poor or flat-out incompetent drivers from getting behind the wheel would reduce license fee revenue, insurance premiums (which are partially converted to political donations), and the potential for revenue from moving violations and parking fines.

There are those drivers, despite claims by government and its enablers, that can and do rely on their own judgment, skill, experience and intelligence to use communications devices safely while in motion.  They complete thousands of safe trips every hour, every day - some of them lucky enough to still have jobs use their phones for business purposes.

One-size-fits-all clothing rarely is, and one-size-fits-all government "solutions" rarely, if ever, solve the problem they purport to address.  Indeed, they often make the problem worse.

We haven't even touched on the concepts of liberty, freedom, private property, etc. but they are potent trump cards in the fight against ever-encroaching statism sold under the rubric of safety.