So, You Wanted Your Government to Become Santa Claus?

In view of the shocking, scary revelations about invasions of privacy and abuses of power by the IRS, NSA, FBI, EPA, Department of Justice, and other government agencies: It occurs to me that this is exactly what people get when they want government to become Santa Claus:

"He sees you when you're sleeping. 
"He knows when you're awake. 
"He knows if you've been bad or good, 
"So be good for goodness sake. 
"You better watch out..."

Moral:

Be careful what you wish for, people.

Federal Snoopervisers on My Doorstep

The U.S. Census Bureau -- in the person of Virginia, a mild-mannered lady with an official government I.D. hanging around her neck -- showed up on my doorstep yesterday. Lucky me: I have been statistically selected to "participate" in an "interview" known as the American Community Survey.

"There is a great need for information about the types of homes in which people live and the characteristics of these homes," says the postcard that Virginia left with me. The interrogation...oops, "survey"...will eat up about 45 minutes of my ever-diminishing time on this planet, and I will be "asked" all sorts of questions about my house, my sources of income, where I shop, what I buy...you know, all the sorts of intrusive details that the Founding Fathers surely intended when, in the Constitution, they provided merely for "an enumeration" of the population every ten years.

"Your community is counting on you!" the postcard blares on its front, stamped in big black letters over a photo of the kind of house that Beaver Cleaver lived in during the 1950s. And just in case I disappoint the expectations of My Community, there's a little detail that the postcard doesn't state: I can be fined $5,000 for refusing to spill my guts to Virginia about all the personal aspects of my life and finances.

So, who wants all this info, and for what?

Well, the federales surely do: It provides statistical ammo for those "progressives" always looking for rationalizations to expand governmental programs and spending that are already wildly out of control. "The government makes investments and allocates tax dollars with guidance from a survey that costs $225 million this year, with the resulting shaping choices and projections made by the Energy Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, and Transportation Department among others," reports The Fiscal Times. That's why (according to a publication called Government Executive) "the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress" and "the Census Project, a coalition of 600 associations, think tanks, academics, local officials and civil rights groups" is fighting congressional efforts to restrict the Census to the "enumeration" intended by the Framers.

Also, private businesses mine the Census for free economic and demographic data that they otherwise might have to pay for by conducting surveys of voluntary  participants. That's why such crony-corporatist outfits as "The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Retail Federation, and the Mortgage Bankers Association have previously lobbied to protect the ACS," according to The Fiscal Times, "saying it’s vital for shaping business investment. As an example, the ACS contains 24 questions about housing. This includes the age of your home, its plumbing, its insurance costs, and the type of heating fuel used. For bankers and economists trying to evaluate the state of the real estate sector after the 2008 bust, it’s essential information."

How nice for them to get all that, by ordering me by law to be interrogated for 45 minutes under the threat of a $5,000 fine -- and, I assume, incarceration should I refuse to pay the fine.

Virginia is supposed to call me at 5:30 pm today. I will tell her, politely, to tell her bosses that Mr. Bidinotto refuses to participate other than affirming the number and identity of the people in his home; and that he looks forward to the opportunity to write high-profile articles about all of this, naming names, should the Census Bureau decide to prosecute him for non-compliance.

Oh, and have a nice day.

Margaret Thatcher, R.I.P.

 

I've been watching the news coverage about the life and legacy of the late Baroness Margaret Thatcher. And I am struck by how applicable her example is to our own situation here in the United States.

When she launched her political crusade, entrenched all-out socialism permeated and gripped every part of Great Britain's economy and political life. Unapologetic communists ran the trade unions, which held a stranglehold on many industries. The economy languished in deep recession. The public was demoralized, adjusted to the "new normal" of British decline. When she spoke, her message was reviled and ridiculed by all of her nation's "intellectuals," culturati, and media -- a hatred that was echoed here, across the Pond. And her own party was run by people who would make John McCain sound like Ludwig von Mises (look him up). She had no firm allies, no base of support.

But this one woman, the daughter of a grocer, armed with nothing but superb intelligence, a thorough grasp of free-market economics, and an unyielding commitment to moral principle, stood up courageously against them all...and she won. Not only did she eventually beat all of her opponents, including treacherous "allies" in her own party, but she turned around the entire British economy, government, and -- most importantly -- its Narrative about itself and its place in the world.

One woman. The Iron Lady. An instructive example of the power of a principled individual against the mindless mob.

If a single Republican politician grasped the message of her life, I have no doubt that he or she could turn our own nation's wretched course 180 degrees. For here, we have a legacy of individualism unknown to Europe.

Our "progressive" left, of course, wants to convince us that its ascendancy is inevitable. They want to paralyze all opposition, leaving us in despair and defeatism, to pave the way for their complete takeover of our lives. In fact, they believe this fantasy. Committed determinists, Marxists smugly declared that communism was "the wave of the future"...

...until the wave turned, and swept them away. The left would not grasp, still refuse to grasp, that "waves" of history are set in motion by the undeniable force of pivotal individuals unwilling to bend to the tides of stupidity.

Will we find our own Thatcher in coming years? Will a Marco Rubio, or Rand Paul, or some figure yet unknown step up to fill the moral vacuum of our age, and lead a rebirth of liberty?

I do not know. All I do know is that Margaret Thatcher showed how much is possible.

Now, we shall discover whether America still has men who can match this brave, towering woman in intelligence and unbending conviction.