Feel like a bug caught within a web? cover art

Feel like a bug caught within a web?

Feel like a bug caught within a web?

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REGULATORY SATURATIONPart Two — One Rule Looks ReasonableIn Part One, we gave a name to something most Americans experience but rarely see as a whole:Regulatory Saturation.Today, I want to explain why it is so difficult to recognize.Because almost every regulation can be made to look reasonable when examined by itself.Your grass cannot exceed a certain height.Why?Community standards.Your house numbers must be a certain size.Why?Emergency services.You need a permit for a shed.Why?Safety.You cannot park a vehicle in a particular place.Why?Traffic and public access.You need a license to perform a particular occupation.Why?Consumer protection.You cannot use your property in a particular way.Why?Zoning.Taken individually, there is almost always an explanation.And that is the trap.Because the citizen experiences these rules collectively.Consider one ordinary person.He wakes up in a house regulated by building codes, zoning ordinances, property-maintenance requirements, fire codes, utility rules, and taxation.He gets into a vehicle that must be titled, registered, inspected where required, insured, and operated according to hundreds of traffic rules.He drives to a business operating under zoning requirements, occupational regulations, tax requirements, employment laws, safety rules, and licensing provisions.He earns money subject to another enormous body of law.He buys food regulated from production to packaging and sale.He returns home to property whose use may be restricted by still another collection of laws and ordinances.And tomorrow he does it again.Here is the important point:No single regulation creates Regulatory Saturation.Accumulation does.Imagine a room.Place one piece of string across that room.Nobody would call it a web.Add another.Still no web.Now add hundreds.Thousands.Crossing one another.Federal.State.County.Municipal.Administrative.Eventually the character of the room changes.And yet if I show you only one string at a time, you may never understand what has happened to the room.That is exactly how we usually discuss regulation.Someone complains about a zoning ordinance.We discuss zoning.Someone complains about a licensing requirement.We discuss licensing.Someone complains about a tax regulation.We discuss taxation.Someone complains about a building code.We discuss building codes.We divide the web back into individual strands and then ask whether each strand can be justified.But there is another question.What is the cumulative effect of all the strands together?That question matters because freedom is not experienced one regulation at a time.Neither is government.You experience the cumulative boundaries placed around your choices.And something subtle can happen when enough boundaries accumulate.The citizen begins asking:“Am I allowed to do this?”Think about that question.Not:“Does government possess lawful authority to prohibit this?”But:“Am I allowed?”That is a profound change in the relationship between the citizen and government.Because the traditional premise of American liberty is not that government grants us every freedom we possess.Government possesses enumerated or otherwise constitutionally recognized powers, depending upon the level of government, and those powers have boundaries.Yet Regulatory Saturation can psychologically reverse that relationship.When regulations surround virtually every activity, government begins to appear unlimited and liberty begins to appear exceptional.You may build this — if permitted.Operate this business — if licensed.Use your property this way — if approved.Place this structure here — if authorized.And after generations of living inside that system, we stop noticing the premise underneath it.We simply ask:“What do I need to do to get permission?”That does not mean permits are inherently unlawful.It does not mean zoning is inherently unconstitutional.It does not mean government cannot regulate conduct.Those would be conclusions.And the Liberty Dialogues teaches us not to begin with conclusions.We begin with questions.So here is the question Regulatory Saturation forces us to confront:At what point does the accumulation of individually justified restrictions fundamentally change the relationship between government and the governed?That is the question almost nobody asks.And there is another.When an official approaches you and says:“You are violating Section 12-47.”What happens next?Most people immediately argue Section 12-47.But the Liberty Dialogues approach begins earlier.What authority permitted Section 12-47 to exist?Who enacted it?What power was delegated?What are the jurisdictional limits of that power?What facts trigger its application?What status brings this person or property within its reach?What procedural protections are required?And have those things actually been demonstrated?Again:The existence of the rule is not the end of the inquiry.It is the beginning.That distinction becomes increasingly important as ...
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In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.