How it's done

Goodlatte Says House Will Act on Gun Legislation

Goodlatte, in one of his first interviews about gun violence since taking over the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee in January, said the administration’s recent enforcement of gun laws has been “pathetic.” He noted that the Justice Department rarely prosecutes those who attempt to buy firearms illegally by lying on federal forms that ask prospective buyers to assert that they are not among a group of prohibited purchasers. He pointed to statistics, cited in the Judiciary Republicans’ letter to Obama, that the Justice Department prosecuted just 62 of more than 76,000 such cases in 2010.

The formula for growing the Raw Power of Government:  (1) Pass laws and regulations; (2) Fail to enforce those laws and regulations; (3) Use that failure as the excuse to pass even more laws and regulations; (4) Repeat, starting with (2)...

This toxic loop guarantees that before long there will be enormous numbers of laws and regulations on the books, which Government can choose to enforce, or not enforce, according to its purposes at the moment -- such as punishing or destroying a particular organization, some individual person, a business or company, etc.

Call it "soft tyranny" if you want, but it's tyranny nevertheless.  Ask anyone who's got on the wrong side of some bureaucrat and been put through the Government wringer.  Even if you at long last finally win, there is no victory; your life and your assets will have all been bled away by then.

Byron

P.S.  Those with no such experience need not feel left out, because ObamaCare is coming -- with its myriad ambiguities, unresolved regulatory details, endless complications, and armies of state and Federal bureaucrats who will be under intense pressure to cut costs. If you don't think it's going to get ugly, well, that's just nature's way of telling you to cut down on the recreational pharmaceuticals.  Forget the cost in money, which is going to be a helluva lot more than advertised, and just ask how many hours of your life are going to be devoured. Here's my estimation formula: Take the hours you've spent on the phone -- including the time spent on hold and just trying to reach the right person or office -- to get a problem resolved with (a) IRS, (b) the Social Security Administration/Medicare, and (c) your current health insurer, and multiply that sum by the two-digit number of your choice. Too bad there's no good way to add in the quantities of frustration, anxiety, and anger that will accompany every iteration of this scenario.  With ObamaCare, you won't need a hobby.