Trading freedom for safety’s illusion

By on December 1, 2010 in Congress, Featured, Founding Fathers, Limited Government
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by Michael Maharrey

Modern American’s seem to have lost sight of essential truths clear to the country’s founders more than 200 years ago.

Today, everybody from mega agribusinesses executives to consumer advocates are lauding the Senate for passing a massive overhaul of the “food-safety” system. The legislation would grant broader inspection power to the F.D.A., allow the government to mandate product recalls, oversee farming and regulate the food production industry to an even greater degree.

“Everyone who eats will benefit,” said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group. “F.D.A. will have new tools to help ensure that we have a safer food supply that causes fewer outbreaks and illnesses.”

Benjamin Franklin would have likely taken a different view.

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

In fact, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act represents yet another massive expansion of federal power, much of it unconstitutional. (And before you send me emails justifying this monstrosity based on the commerce clause, please do us both a favor and do a little research on the meaning of commerce as understood by the framers. Click here.)

Sadly, if history provides any insight at all, and it usually does, this act will do nothing to actually protect the American people. It will instead serve as a tool for big corporations to gain a competitive advantage over small, local farms and food producers. Don’t believe me? Ask yourself this – why else would big companies support legislation that on its face will exact huge costs in time, money and resources?

And it will also give politicians and bureaucrats yet another lever to maneuver and manipulate for their own purposes.

True to form, power hungry politicians and progressive thinkers have churned up the American public with scare tactics to gin up support for another expansion of government power –  as always, at the expense of liberty.

Proponents say the act will protect Americans from foodborne illnesses. But does the problem justify such a massive, expensive, intrusive cure?

Not really.

According the the Centers For Disease Control, only about 1,500 people per year die from salmonella and other known foodborne pathogens. Another 3,500 people die  from illnesses stemming from unknown foodborne pathogens. Many of those deaths result from improper food handling and cooking after purchase.

Certainly, 5,000 deaths is 5,000 deaths too many. Nobody wants to see fellow Americans die. Nobody wants tainted food on grocery shelves. But protecting citizens from every danger, risk and threat is not the role of the federal government – or any government for that matter.

But nanny state politicians continue taking us for a spin on a never ending carousel. Several thousand deaths under a heavily regulated system creates the panic necessary to enact even more expansive, overreaching regulation.

The Original Constitution

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To live life invites the risk of death. No law, act or government edict can mitigate that reality. Franklin was right. When we begin looking to others for protection from every eventuality, we necessarily give up our freedom, and in the end enjoy no greater safety.

Alexander Hamilton wrote of the threat to liberty posed by war. His reasoning applies equally to government’s other attempts to “protect” its citizens.

“Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.”

Note: the legislation passed 73-25. Click here to see how your Senators voted.

About Mike Maharrey

Michael Maharrey [send him email] is the Communications Director for the Tenth Amendment Center. He proudly resides in the original home of the Principles of '98 - Kentucky. See his blog archive here and his article archive here. He also maintains the blog, Tenther Gleanings.
View all posts by Mike Maharrey →

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Frank DeMartini
Frank DeMartini

The Commerce Clause is the universal excuse for everything the Federal Government does. Hopefully, the current Supreme Court will not have the balls to do what the Depression Era Supreme Court could not do. Granted Roosevelt was planning to increase the Court size to get whatever he wanted, but I don't think Obama has got the guts to even threaten that. Food and Marijuana are not Interstate Commerce. They should be left alone. The Government is way too big!

Michael Frisbee
Michael Frisbee

Actually - it was the Depression Era USSC that killed 7 of the 8 social change programs, all unconstitutional, that FDR was trying to push. The Chief Justice then only allowed the 8th to pass through, Social Security, because he learned of FDR's plan to push to expand the USSC to 15 Justices, and stack the court with his people. A deal was made.

If the Supreme Court today had the balls it did then, they would be demanding a birth certificate, simply to end the whole controversy one way or the other.

If the Supreme Court today had the balls it did then, it would have filed to bring AZ vs Justice Department straight to them, bypassing the Federal Courts that have no Constitutional jurisdiction, and ruled directly on the AZ Immigration Law (and found in favor of AZ).

If the Supreme Court today had the balls it did then, it would have overrode the Justice's decision to not prosecute the New Black Panther's case and brought it under their wing and brought down a decision strictly along the letter of the law.

Jeff Matthews
Jeff Matthews

"It will instead serve as a tool for big corporations to gain a competitive advantage over small, local farms and food producers. Don’t believe me? Ask yourself this – why else would big companies support legislation that on its face will exact huge costs in time, money and resources?"

Bravo! Very few people get this - especially, the conservative ilk. The cons tend to oppose regulation because it is bad for business. Well, that depends on WHICH business. The big and powerful ones who write these regulations benefit greatly, to the detriment of all of us little ones who hope to maybe start or grow our small businesses. But, despite the obviousness of this, the cons still want to do everything in their power to grant more and more tax relief to our monopolizers. For what? So they can afford more lobbyists, more campaign contributions, more anti-competition?

One day, when something clicks, the cons will realize how duped they've been. On that day, they will find some way to hold their noses and align with the progs, and the real class battles will begin in earnest.

The problem with the progs is they have almost given up. They are content to suffer at the bottom by placing the burdens on everyone BUT the ones who are above it all - shared misery, if you will. The Democratic party saw just how lucrative working with Wall St., Pharma and Big-Ag can be, and it has paid big homage to them ever since Clinton. The two parties have essentially merged in their approaches. They remain only separated because of the turf battle - like two prostitutes battling for rights to a certain, prime street corner where all the rich guys can be seen.

Today, I see the GOP senators have announced they will block any further legislative agenda until tax cuts are extended, including cuts for the uber-rich. Why? So they can create jobs? Give me a break! Before you need to hire someone to make or sell your product, you first have to have DEMAND for it. You can put more money in the coffers of the rich, but they will hold onto it until they have a REASON to put it to production and job-making. That reason is DEMAND. Supply-side economics is a silly myth.

Philosopherking
Philosopherking

...and why do democrats write them if those regulations help big business?
...and if not writing regulations allows big businesses (which I agree with) to squash competitors then shouldn't not writing any regulations protect the weaker small business from the larger big business? Doesn't that put those who do not believe in business regulations on the side of small business?

Jeff Matthews
Jeff Matthews

"....and why do democrats write them if those regulations help big business? "

Money.

"Doesn't that put those who do not believe in business regulations on the side of small business?"

It's hard to fashion a universal imperative which would address this. Nobody can authoritatively demonstrate that all regulations are good or all regulations are bad. Some have both good and bad components.

Food safety, the topic of the article, is one such example. Sure, it is important to have minimal regulations to insure that nobody can sell mad cow meat for human consumption. On the other hand, such regulations often go so far as to place substantial road blocks to legitimate would-be competition.

If you look at the paradigm in the grand scheme, all regulations are designed to affect, at least indirectly, the flow of money. So, you can tell whether they are an overall good thing for the public by looking at how the money flows. The data is kept on this, and there is no dispute that wealth is concentrating at the top.

In fact, if you just consider why we're in a recession, it will be obvious. The reason is that the vast majority of Americans do not have enough money to sustain the level of demand we previously had. And if you look at why we previously had higher demand, you will see it is because we borrowed money like there was no tomorrow. So, in essence, we can't earn enough money to keep a sound economy for the middle class. We can only borrow it until the lending bubble bursts. And that's what happened.

Now, as to tax cuts, if tax cuts create jobs, then why is it that we have such high employment when taxes are lower than at any other point since the 1930's? We had booms in many points during this period when tax rates were much higher. So, if lower taxes translate to more jobs, we should have the lowest unemployment ever.

Demand creates jobs. Taxes have nothing to do with it, except to the extent taxes on consumers cause a reduction in their purchasing power. In essence, then, taxes on the rich have nothing to do with it, because the rich, even though they have the ability to consume more, ultimately do not spend nearly as much of their incomes/wealth on consumption as the working stiffs do. One person can only enjoy so many flat screen TV's, cars and couches, etc. That's why it's so important to fashion policy that transfers wealth back to a more fair balance. Otherwise, we're going to be looking like Mexico before long, where you're either rich or broke, with few in-betweens.

KY10th
KY10th

The federal government should collect taxes only to fund the constitutionally delegated responsibilities granted to it. Period. Not as a tool for social architecture, not to encourage or discourage this or that behavior. Certainly not to redistribute wealth. I agree that conservatives are often duped into supporting a corporatist system. But I disagree with your apparent willingness to increase the tax burden on the people making more than $250,000 per year. The iniquity in the system isn't that the rich don't pay their fair share. The iniquity lies in the fact that 10 percent of the population bears the majority of the tax burden in this country, while nearly half of Americans pay no income tax at all.

Jeff Matthews
Jeff Matthews

I totally respect your comment and have considered that line of reasoning in the past. Here is where it led me:

The fact that we have a government that is essentially a corporatist oligarchy is beyond debate. It just simply is that way - period. That's why the lobbyists exist.... to perpetuate and grow wealth of those for whom they lobby. And if anyone thinks our government does not cater to lobbyists, there is nothing I can do to help him.

I think you and I agree with that much.

Now, if these corporatists and oligarchs are raping our system by making all the rules they can in their favor (including the procurement of contracts through appropriations channels), why should anyone want to protect them so that they can keep as much as possible of what they stole?

Why the heck should WE sit tight and honor the rules of a proper design while THEY abuse it and use it to our disadvantage against us? How the heck could retreating to a pure Constitutional structure ever right the wrong that has been done? After all, if a bank robber gets caught, the notion of justice demands we make him give the money back - to undo the damage as much as possible.

So, to answer you, "No. I do not care how much the rapists get screwed back." Anything to even the score is fine by me. As far as I am concerned, there is no tax high enough to even the score of what they did to us with the recent TARP, bail-outs, etc.

Did you see that the fed released data that it secretly doled out $3.3 TRILLION to these clowns? Read here. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/...

And no, I'm not a Democrat, so no need to go "party-line" on me. I know thieves when I see them, and some wear red, and some wear blue.

As to your comment about how the top earners bear the brunt of taxes, let me explain it to you from their eyes (I'm talking about the rich, rich - and not chumps making $250k): "Sen. Blankstein, why we'd be delighted to get that $100 billion contract for TSA security. It'll make us a dandy $20 billion in profit. And I really don't mind if you taxed us 60% on it, because we still come out with $8 billion in our pockets.... but do what you can to try to lower the tax rate. Will you?"

Now, do you see how it works? The fact they pay a lot in tax means nothing. If you're paying BIG taxes, you're making BIG money.

Jeff Matthews
Jeff Matthews

That cat's been out of the bag for so many decades, I am sure it must be dead by now. What I am saying is one can hope aimlessly for justice, but if it becomes clearly futile, then, other options are entirely relevant. Our country was founded on a civil war against its own government because it became quite evident its own government was beyond repair. I don't know when today's populous will determine the futility of politics as it exists, but mark my words - it is futile. Once politics can be bought, there remains nothing to stop it... nothing.

Save this post and come back 3, 5, 10 and 20 years from now. If the political process is the sole resort during these periods, you will see nothing will have changed. Grant me one exception, though. If, and only if, the country goes into a deep, deep, unforgiving depression, then maybe a new politics will emerge.

KY10th
KY10th

I see where you are coming from, Jeff. But I would say this: doing the wrong thing for the right reasons is still the wrong thing. If you deny freedom and liberty to the powerful, you loose your moral footing to demand protection of your own liberties. If we the people insist that the federal government limits itself to its constitutionally defined role, so much of the power, money and influence would disappear. Treat every citizen and every organization equally under the law and allow the free market to operate - and by free market, I mean free market - not corporations partnering with government to shape the economic playing field. On that, we certainly agree. Whether that is possible at this point, with the system being what it is - I don't know. On my optimistic days - I think so. Other times...not so much.

At any rate, I appreciate your thoughtful response and the fact that you took the time to read my post in the first place!

Peace. mm

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