A Taste of the Police State

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Virginia vintners taste the police state | WashingtonExaminer.com

The winery ordinance is Obama-esque, passed under the pretext that it protects the health, safety and welfare of the public. It forces wineries to close at 6 p.m. and prohibits sale of food -- something that goes quite safely with a taste of wine -- unless the wineries obtain special permits from the zoning administrator. The ordinance lists prohibited winery activities such as hot air balloon rides, farmers' markets, and mini-golf, which assuredly threaten the health, safety and welfare of the public, right?

This type of bureaucratic red tape threatens to cover all facets of our lives, if it doesn't already. It actually reminds me of gun regulation in some states. In an attempt to regulate one thing (of course in the name of public health and welfare) they trample people's fundamental private rights. In many instances these regulations make it impossible for small businesses to stay alive and compete with larger competitors.

Our country is full of middle men bureaucrats, like the zoning administrator in this article, who abuse the authority they are given trying to justify their parasitic existence in our society. We don't function very efficiently as a country anymore because we don't produce anything really. We just regulate, administrate, consult, and represent each other. There are far too many paper pushers overseeing the tiny labor force in this country, and it has upset the equilibrium of the way we do business in our society. I advocate less regulation, less red tape, less paperwork, less rules, and less people looking over your shoulder to ensure those rules aren't broken. We have become a nation of busy bureaucrats, eager to justify their existences. The reality is that we don't need these parasitic middle men and we have gotten by without them for thousands of years.