1. If you are on the look-out for tyranny and oppression of the Soviet Union variety, then it is no wonder you don't even realize that you live under almost the same virulent level.
The current brand of tyranny was explained by J.L.Talmon as a system of government in which lawfully elected representatives maintain the integrity of a nation state whose citizens, while granted the right to vote, have little or no participation in the decision-making process of the government.
How do they do it?
2. Former NY Senator James Buckley gives the reason:
Today, this federal law is 1700 pages more than it was prior to the New Deal. The reason is the creation of more and more bureaus and agencies endowed with ever broader responsibilities and discretion in defining the rules that govern our activities and our lives.
And these rules have the full force of law!
Congress has increased the number of rules whose infractions are criminalized, waiving the common law requirement that one knows he is breaking the law. Today, one can be jailed for violating a regulation that one had no reason to know even existed!
What once was....and what now is:
3. "... laws in America used to be simple and beautiful.
They were written with care, and citizens could read them quickly and understand their meaning. Of the four organic laws that founded Americathe Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Northwest Ordinance, and the Constitution of the United Statesnone of them was more than 4,500 words long.
4. [This example of the kind of writing, from the Northwest Ordinance:]
Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary for good government and the happiness of mankind, the means of education shall forever be encouraged. http://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/file/archives/pdf/2013_12_Imprimis.pdf
5. To understand how the new bureaucratic tyranny works, simply compare that with the Affordable Care Act, 363,086 words, and countless rules and regulations...
'We Have to Pass the Bill to Find Out What's In It' - ...not by accident, and "not readable or comprehensible to any member of Congress who voted for it or to the citizens whose lives it was aimed at manipulating in a detailed and intrusive way."
Ibid.
6. The governing elites might have chosen to use Occitan or Old Norse runes in the writing of laws and regulations, or made it illegal for non-elected officials to even read the laws we must live under.
7. The result is an oppression as firm and ineluctable as actual chains.
And the collectivist regime has taken aim squarely at the economic sector!
In effect, the private sector, the free market, exists no longer...excepted only by way of bribing, lobbying.
" The evidence is overwhelming that the Obama regulatory surge is one reason the current economic recovery has been so lackluster by historical standards.
Rather than nurture an economy trying to rebuild confidence after a financial heart attack, the Administration pushed through its now-famous blitz of liberal policies on health care, financial services, energy, housing, education and student loans, telecom, labor relations, transportation and probably some other industries we've forgotten. Anyone who thinks this has only minimal impact on business has never been in business." Review & Outlook: Regulation for Dummies - WSJ.com
And anyone who thinks this has only minimal impact on liberty has never understood America.
Big business is doing awesome right now, it just isn't trickling down for some reason. Could it be that they like us happy just to have a shitty no raise ever job rather than homeless and destitute?
Big business is hundreds of thousands of diverse people who have different political bents, different social bents, and a multitude of economic differences. It is not some collective brain trust that desires to keep you poor. The truth is, that unless you work for them, or are one of their suppliers or customers, big business doesn't even know that you exist, and could care less what your economic status is.
Like most socialists, you are looking for the devil on the wrong end of the chain. Big business created some of that chain, but government, through taxes and regulations created the vast majority of it. If you want to control the devil, you need to control government.