Dear Friends,
It seems to me, regulations only apply to the poor and politically disfavored. The rich and politically favored, on the other hand, find regulations to be no burden. In fact, regulations pave the way for their projects. How do I know this? Because regulations are not evenly applied. Moreover, the rich can afford lawyers to get around regulations while the poor can’t. Regulations and law then are simply means to transfer wealth from the bottom to the top. The really elegant part, is that the people who are being stolen from, are told the mechanism that steals from them, is “just.” Whenever a small business is driven to bankruptcy, a poor person railroaded into jail by his “free” council, or the favored steal land from farmers to build a green plant, wealth has been transferred from the poor to the wealthy.
Regulations are a real burden on small businesses. Not so much on the corporations that write them. The attorneys on staff are a real help to the multinationals. Regulations are a maze that a good lawyer can turn into a superhighway. Meanwhile, the small business trying to compete with the corporation, that hasn’t the largess to hire top lawyers and keep them on staff, is disadvantaged. That small business is stymied by the myriad of regulations, that only someone trained and expert in that area of law… can understand them. There is a fantastic documentary by Milton Friedman called “Free To Choose.” In it, he explains the problem of regulations and their exponential growth. Regulations then are a way that corporations limit competition from small firms. Moving wealth from the bottom up.
The poor don’t break the law more often than the rich but go to jail for it much more often. Because the rich have access to the best attorneys while the poor get “free” lawyers. Why else would the rich spend so much an hour for a lawyer? It is true however, that the most violently disposed will be poor, because their lack of self control forbids their holding down a job. Therefore they will be better represented in prison than any other segment of society… other than the railroaded. Since those most violently disposed, only make up a small segment of the population, most of the violent crime would be controlled by locking them up. Allowing the violent to roam free, while locking up non violent political prisoners however, is a solution to the problem of crime free streets.
It is truly deceitful to use law and regulations to outright steal land from poor people, but that is perhaps the most lucrative way to use regulations. What good is having the power of law, unless you use it to take the most valuable thing a family has, their heritage. In fact, that is where the term, “railroaded” came from. In the 1800’s the railroads controlled US courts. The courts switched masters. They had a new master that would alleviate them of the burden of having to decide law, justice or constitutionality… the railroads. Today is no different. The courts are shamelessly political. Judges use pathetic excuses like, “standing and latches,” to get around having to do their job. Not because they are lazy, although their penchant to distraction is legendary, but because they are corrupt.
Law and regulations are the rich and powerful’s ace in the hole. They use it to steal from us, oppress us and hold us down, and call it just. Exactly like the pervasive idea, that the only way to protect the weak from the strong, is to give the strong more power to oppress the weak. The only question is what strong men to shore up? The bourgeoisie, the communists or the corporatists. The post modernists have a point there. Politics really is all about power and the rhetoric about protecting this or that group is all BS. The US Founding Fathers had it closest to correct. Power needs to be lowered as much as possible, and held there by a transparent, accountable and fair court system. Government, and therefore law and regulation, must be limited as much as possible. Else the transfer will continue.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
