Thursday, July 12, 2012

Cato Disgraces Itself AGAIN

There is something to be said for tying government up in its own red tape (See Gary North: "How To Gum Up Any Institution." ) But it is idiotic to take the Cato position that the bureaucratic red tape is a positive for better government. Becky Akers writes:
Those statists at Cato…
“As director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute,” the tag on an article at Ars Technica tells us, “Jim Harper works to adapt law and policy to the unique problems of the information age…” Far easier and more palatable to the moronic mainstream than working to eliminate law [sic for “regulation”] and policy, that’s for sure.
Jim’s exercised that the TSA is breaking the law – though not those against sexual assault, theft, or pedophilia. No, Jim’s upset that the TSA refuses to comply with the Administrative Procedures Act. APA is extremely important to imbeciles like those at Cato, who believe the State – particularly its bureaucracies that slaughter liberty -- is good, even beneficial, especially when rules guide it (a fallacy the Nazis manipulated to their advantage). APA is the body of law that “legalizes” plainly illegal bureaucracies; it does away with the Constitution, replacing your inalienable rights with “civil” ones that bureaucrats bestow – or deny, as the mood takes them; Franklin Roosevelt codified APA, which tells you all you need to know about this abomination. And APA requires an agency to solicit “public comment” before it imposes a new procedure, such as pushing victims into porno-scanners. 
Alas, TSA was too eager to ogle us to bother with such niceties, so it never asked whether we'd enjoy posing for its carcinogenic strip-tease. No matter: seeking our opinion is as much a sham as the TSA’s “security” because nothing in the APA compels an agency to heed our advice. It can dang well do as it pleases so long as it allows the serfs to air their grievances against its proposal.
Nonetheless, Jim has posted “a petition on Whitehouse.gov. It says the president should ‘Require the Transportation Security Administration to Follow the Law!’” His op-ed at Ars Technica begs readers to sign his plea – but he somehow neglects to mention another, far more meaningful petition that appeared on Whitehouse.gov within hours of the site’s going live. It garnered over 30,000 signatures in a few weeks and demanded the abolition of the TSA, not its adherence to every dictator’s dream, the APA. And, unless you count the insulting and irrelevant non-response that John “The Pervert” Pistole made to that petition, Our Rulers ignored it. Yet Jim wastes our time and the Kochs’ money with an appeal to the APA.
Ah, Cato, where “adapting law and policy to the unique problems of the information age” replaces liberty’s timeless principles. Let’s hope Cato's next director sabotages this nest of nincompoops as ruthlessly but more successfully than Ed Crane did: with “friends” like these, Liberty needs none of her millions of enemies.

5 comments:

  1. Yeah, Cato, what a worthless bunch of statists. We should all just listen to Rockwell, Wenzel, and the rest bitch and moan about the state without trying to actually do anything about it. Libertopia is right around the corner if we just complain a little longer.

    And Rand Paul sucks too...

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    1. Yes, and what has been accomplished in the political area? Very little, if anything.

      He is right to complain. Libertarians are not (or at least should not be) vying to be efficiency experts for the state. It would be like trying help create more 'efficient' slavery. Real libertarians are abolitionists, not reformists. These guys are polluting the brand by comprising principle in order to gain recognition from the D.C. criminals.

      And yes, Rand is no libertarian (nor do I think he ever claimed to be). Whatever claim he had to such a title was obliterated the moment he voted for sanctions on Iran, to say nothing of his endorsement of fascist Mitt Romney.

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    2. Fortunately, CATO actually is trying to do "something", right Anonymous? Hooray for CATO serving the cause of liberty by demanding that the TSA obey the leviathan's bureaucracy as they intimidate and sexually harass civilians.

      What a joke you are to be sarcastic about criticism at CATO even after reading the above article. You probably think anyone who merely calls himself libertarian by definition is, regardless of what he or she does to completely destroy any validity of that claim. You look like a buffoon coming to their defense.

      And as an extension of that argument: YES, Rand Paul sucks.

      Delete
  2. Bobby, bobby, bobby. Jim Harper has a smirk on his face for try as he might, he laughs willingly at racist jokes about Arabs and Muslims. But he reads legislation, so you don't have to,

    Here is the Freedom Fest Fat update: Big mystery solved. What became of manorexic Tom Woods? Tom Palmer ate him.

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  3. Why isn't it appropriate to chip away at the state's power bit by tiny bit? It is unrealistic to expect the state to come tumbling down all in one fell swoop. Life rarely presents us with choices that include the perfect - most are choices between two or more imperfect people or positions. Is it not 'better to light one candle than curse the darkness?'

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