George Rebane
For some years now RR has proffered a solution to government’s overreach in hog-tying us with laws, regulations, and codes which are “pointless, stupid, and tyrannical”. When I have attempted to explain to our elected betters – at least to those who agree that the current regulatory morass painfully afflicts our Republic – how we might break Leviathan’s relentless progress, then they look at me as if I were the family’s idiot offspring, lovable yet not quite all there.
My humble approach consists of exercising civil disobedience county by county across the land in just refusing to implement and/or exercise the pointless, stupid, and tyrannical diktats from on high. The theory being that such a simple response, properly publicized, will go viral across America with other similarly impugned counties joining in to ‘Just Say NO!’ (more here and here) But it requires substantial external plumbing to launch such a response, equipment in short supply among politicians who are devoted to the same ol’ same ol’, and then retirement with dignity. So they have patiently explained to me the futility of even attempting such an exercise in self-determination and freedom, and advised that we should get a firmer grip on our ankles and just bear it.
Well, today this gauntlet has been picked up by none other than political scientist, libertarian, and author Charles Murray, one of the nation’s best-known and celebrated thinkers – The Bell Curve(1994), Coming Apart(2013), and now By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission – in a major essay featured in the 9may15 WSJ. The piece, ‘Regulation Run Amok – How to Fight Back’, spells out the national blight in chapter and verse, and offers some new ideas on how to “insure” success in such a nationwide enterprise which he fully agrees will go viral once started.
If you still consider yourself to be a net wealth creator, then Charles Murray’s ‘call to arms’ should resonate with your ideas about a better plan forward for our nation. However, if you are a devotee of the idea that society should be run with other people’s money, then these ideas will be anathema to you. In any event, ‘Just Say NO!’ has just been awarded national creds.
[update] Fellow blogger Russ Steele has dug up the graphic of Murray’s Field Guide for Civil Disobedience from his new book, and kindly shared it with RR in addition to posting it on his Sierra Foothill Commentary. Many thanks.



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