I'm hardly what you'd call an anarchist. I don't belong to any militias (haven't even visited their Web sites), and I don't have any Rebel flags on the walls. I don't burn bras or abortion clinics. I don't wear a bedsheet and burn crosses.
And I don't advocate, plot, or think about overthrowing the government. Why on Earth would anyone want to do that? The government's the best entertainment the American public has!
Herewith, some gems of how your elected officials spend your money. You thought a $30,000.00 hammer was a stupid? Wait until you get a look at some of these. I hope you enjoy them. More than that, I hope you think about them--and demand from your representatives an explanation of why they are whizzing away your money like this.
Driving to dinner one evening, I noticed this sign on the side of the road. In huge black letters on a reflective white background (the better to glare in one's eyes after dark), the Texas Highway Department proclaimed:
Now, think about that.
This sign doesn't do any good.
Two kinds of people drive. There are the folks who pay attention to the road signs, and there are those who don't. Clear so far?
Think about it some more. The people who pay attention to road signs DON'T NEED THIS SIGN. They're already observing the warning signs! And the ones who don't pay attention to road signs . . . well . . .
. . . they didn't read that sign in the first place!
So, who's this sign helping, anyway? The people who didn't need to be told that they should read signs, or the people who didn't read it because they don't read any of them? I don't know. All I do know is that there are a heck of a lot of these signs on the roadways--and the taxpayers of the State of Texas have footed the bill for them.
And then, there's the "State Law" thing. I don't doubt for an instant that we have a state law mandating that people read signs that tell them to read signs. I just wonder what the legal consequence of NOT reading a sign might be.
(I can picture it now. The judge glowers from his bench on high and growls, "What manner of heretic is brought before this tribunal?" And the prosecutor answers, "John Smith, Your Worship, charged with aggravated violation of the Texas Highway Code, in that he did willingly, knowingly, and recklessly fail to read the 'read the signs' sign." "WHAT? Then, HANG HIM!")
I also wonder about the brains behind this program. After all, don't we want drivers to pay attention to what's happening on the road in front of them, particularly since a lot of the other drivers aren't reading the signs anyway?
In 1993, the federal government passed what is popularly called "The Brady Bill," which has nothing to do with Mike, Carol, Greg, Peter, Tommy, Cindy, Jan, or "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!" The Brady Bill imposes a number of restrictions on the purchase and sale of firearms, particularly handguns. It is but one of many laws that the federal government has imposed over the years.
On Friday, 27 June 1997, the United States Supreme Court struck down one limited element of that law. Let me repeat that, before the liberals and anti-gun activists begin weeping and beating their breasts. The United States Supreme Court struck down ONE LIMITED ELEMENT of that law, specifically, the requirement that state law enforcement officers conduct background checks before permitting a citizen to purchase a firearm.
This decision had practically nothing to do with guns. It had to do with the long-established and long-debated concept in our nation called federalism. Federalism has to do with the relationship between the United States as a nation and its individual states as sovereign governments in their own right. This debate, sometimes called a debate over "states' rights," has waxed hot and cold throughout our country's history, probably never hotter than between 1861 and 1865, when 800,000 Americans died trying to determine, violently, what it meant.
Anyway, the Supreme Court struck down the mandatory background check requirement in the Brady Bill. The majority opinion, written by Justice Scalia, makes it clear that the reason for the ruling is one of federalism. It rests with the states, the Court has held, to determine what kind of background check should be undertaken. Now, please note that no state has said it's going to do away with the checks. No one's running to their state capital this morning and proclaiming their state the "guns 'r us" state. In other words, this ruling had no real practical effect.
Try telling that to Justice John Paul Stevens. He's penned a lengthy dissent, the crux of which is a rather, well, unique (patriarchal? coercive?) view of federalism. In a nutshell, Justice Stevens doesn't like what the majority did. And he doesn't like the majority's reasoning, either. Because in Justice Stevens' view, the powers that the states have aren't decided by the states. Guess who does determine what rights the states--and as a citizen of that state, you--have?
The United States Congress.
"If Congress believes that such a statute will benefit the people of the nation, and serve the interests of cooperative federalism better than an enlarged federal bureaucracy, we should respect both the policy judgment and its appraisal of its constitutional power," the good Justice has written.
Oh, come on, Justice Stevens! Congress gets to decide what powers Congress should and shouldn't have? And apparently the only choice the country has is between the federal government making the states do its dirty work and enlarging the federal government so it can do the dirty work directly? Haven't you noticed what the voters have been saying for four years now, sir?
And, let's not even touch on Congress deciding what is and isn't constitutional. That's what the courts are for--and just because you and three other dissenters don't like the limitation of the federal government's intrusion on private lives is no reason to continue permitting the federal government to make those intrusions.
Step on it--or else!
According to the Houston Chronicle, the United States Postal Service has fired a letter carrier with eighteen years' experience. Was it for dishonesty? Nope. How about insubordination? Not that, either. Discourtesy toward customers? No.
The U.S.P.S. fired her because she wasn't taking big enough steps.
Martha Cherry has been a postal worker and a letter carrier for eighteen years. For those years, she served a delivery route in White plains, New York. Ms. Cherry is, according to the article in the chronicle, the kind of postal worker we'd all like to have on our route. If she saw suspicious people in citizens' yards, she investigated. If an elderly person on her route hadn't picked up his mail for a few days, she checked on his welfare.
Apparently, there were no complaints either about the accuracy or timeliness of her deliveries. Everyone was getting their mail, correctly and, as far as anyone can tell, efficiently.
"Efficiently," that is, except in the eyes of postal inspectors. Little did Ms. Cherry know, as she went about her route, that others from the Postal Service were keeping her under surveillance. This on-the-job spying resulted in her dismissal. Her letter of dismissal gave the following as the cause: "You were observed on June 9, 1997, to walk at a rate of 66 strikdes per minute with a stride of less than one foot at each step, the hell of your leading foot did not pass the toe of the trailing foot by more than one inch."
Are these people serious?
I can see it now. Postal inspectors hiding in shrubbery, pencils and clipboards, pocket calculators out, laser rangefinders in hand, as they peep through the foliage, watching Ms. Cherry with a single-minded focus that is truly awesome. Step-step-step . . . count-count-count . . . scribble-scribble-scribble. "Click," on goes the stopwatch. "Click," and the time count is done for this minute. Calculations. Eureka! 66 steps per minute.
I can't even venture a guess as to how they measured the distance. Either they had some really tiny inspectors hiding on her shoes (in which case there may be another explanation for the slowness and shortness of stride, mightn't there?), of the United States Postal Service has surveillance equipment the eny of the C.I.A., the K.G.B., and even the telephone company!
Perhaps I have the wrong world-view, and this explains why I'll never be a bigwig in the Postal Service, but personally, I care more about whether my mail is delivered correctly than how fast my carrier walks. Even more than that, I think courtesy, friendliness, and care such as that displayed by Ms. Cherry is something that should figure much more strongly than any purely statistical compilation.
It's bad enough that by law, the Postal Service has a monopoly on daily letter delivery in the United States. It's worse still that the U.S.P.S. has to spend our money for commercials about how hard it works for us--as if we have some realistic choice about whom to use to deliver our daily mail. It's far worse than that, that post offices have become retail trinket outlets selling everything from key chains to Warner Brothers ties. To learn that no detail is too trivial for the Postal Service to monitor at our expense is a most unflavorful icing on this already unsavory cake.
It's true that the Postal Service doesn't spend our tax money, but it does spend money we give it through postage fees, and so it is no different from any other government institution in terms of its duty to spend our money repsonsibly. Listen to Ms. Cherry's customers, gentlemen. Do the right thing--and put away the pedometers.
(UPDATE: Recently, I received an e-mail from Mr. Rich Liebson, a reported in White Plains, New York, who wrote the original story concerning Ms. Cherry. He was kind enough to inform me that after her grievance hearing, the U.S.P.S. reinstated her, assigned her to a window clerk position, and restored her full pay and benefits. She did not receive any back pay. Mr. Liebson advises that the U.S.P.S. denies its decision concerning Ms. Cherry had anything to do with the negative publicity its original actions toward her generated.)
I welcome your suggestions for additions to this page.