Expectations for Freedom in a Comment Thread?

I, personally, do not have high expectations that freedom, liberty and opportunity will once again be the hallmarks of America in the near future.  I look around, listen rather carefully, and read voluminous amounts of musings which tend to indicate a total collapse of all which America at one time represented.  I sincerely hope and pray that I am incorrect.

On occasion, my expectations that freedom, liberty and opportunity will be restored to America, and each and every individual who in actuality are America, are raised up, and in the comment thread to this Victor Davis Hanson piece, my expectations receive encouragement.  A couple of the comments.

14. Foobarista

As for the “gray market” in California, I’m convinced that regulators - and politicians - are well aware of its existence and don’t want to touch it. My wife sells small businesses and pretty much never sees a little, cash-heavy business that doesn’t pocket most or all of the cash - even in otherwise regulated areas like restaurants and dry cleaners.

The sad thing is that my wife occasionally runs into American-born blacks or whites who want to buy a business and whose heads explode when they realize that nearly everything is under the table, and that operating a completely legit business would mean you simply wouldn’t make enough money to operate because the market prices in the “grayness” of the market players. Immigrants of all sorts are far more comfortable with these arrangements and often prefer it.

And any business involving lots of manual labor? They’re completely under the table, not because the owners are paying sub-minimum wages - the workers are often decently paid - but because regulations and taxes make it impossible to operate legally. And since few American-born people are willing to work under the table, illegals are pretty much the only ones hired.

April 11, 2010 - 10:06 pm

And this one.

20. Les Hardie

Dr. Hansen: I and my upscale neighbors are all scofflaws. We live in a village in the Santa Monica mountains just west of Topanga. Most of us are professionals,others academics, scientists, businessmen, some cops and firemen. RE prices are high, but the area is semi-rural—a lot of horses, atvs, trucks, chainsaws. People here are well educated but pride then=mselves on being tougher than city people. Most are still Democrats. But everybody tries to avoid any gov’t permitting. The view is that between the county and coastal, nobody can build a dog house, much less a room addition, so f***them and do it anyway. Judges and lawyers do major remodels without permits; pools and spas, sheds and barns, these projects are regularly done subrosa. More than a complete lack of trust that the government will be fair and reasonable, is a belief that govt has no right to tell us what we can and cant do on our property (at least on a small scale). It seems to be a version of “don’t tread on me!” It may be the salvation of Ca when those who espouse the regulatory state realize how bad it is in practice, and take real steps to get it off our backs.

April 11, 2010 - 10:39 pm

Linked via a post at Classical Values titled Blackout.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 05/16 at 09:20 AM

  1. Doesn’t all this mean the government of Calley-fornia has already collapsed?  If nobody is following the laws, do they mean anything?

    Posted by SiGraybeard  on  05/16  at  04:37 PM

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