Many of us, at one time or another, have seen the truth of the adage: You can’t fight City Hall. And, too many of our fellow citizens ave learned the hard way that fighting abuse of power by some federal bureaucrats is even worse than trying to fight City Hall.
Judge Andrew Napolitano is famous for asking the question: Does the government work for us, or do we work for the government? The truth is that most American taxpayers work a large part of their lives just to pay for government. Worse, however, is that often times your government works against you and sometimes they work against you illegally. When that happens, you have legal redress, right? You have rights protected by the constitution to due process and a speedy trial, right? Well, you can go bankrupt trying to get your rights enforced against a rogue bureaucrat that is breaking the law. Worse yet is that your Congress, those men and women with D’s and R’s after their names that you send to Washington to protect your rights, have actually written a law that makes it easy for unscrupulous bureaucrats to abuse your rights. You are going to want to read this American Thinker article to understand what I’m talking about. For now, let me share some excerpts.
Victims of bureaucratic lawbreaking are deprived of real due process of law. Under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), victims must exhaust “administrative remedies” before they can get before the courts. But even when they do get to court, judges defer to the evidentiary findings of the bureaucratic agencies. _ (Emphasis added)
The costs to deal with government lawbreaking can bankrupt individuals and businesses even before they get their chance at due process through the courts. Bureaucrats know this, which can make them contemptuous of following the law.
And
Government lawbreaking, you see, is treated differently than private sector lawbreaking. Government protects its lawbreaking — because it can.
The IRS is this week’s widely publicized example of the biggest lawbreaker in America — government. And, there’s no close second place. If Republicans were serious about, and committed to, the principles of the rule of law and limited government, they’d ensure that victims of government lawbreaking at the IRS and beyond are entitled to full remedies, including legal fees.
The author gives examples; e.g., the tragedy of the Sacketts and of the of Virginia farmer Martha Boneta. And, many of you Ii am sure remember the abuse of the Gibson Guitar Company. Sadly, there are thousands of cases citizens being abused by government bureaucrats. Most can not afford to fight for their rights and the bureaucrats know that. As the American Thinker article says:
They don’t merely think they are above the law; they believe they are the law.
Not all bureaucrats are abusing their power. But, it only takes a few to make life miserable for many Americans. And, it is not just the Administrative Procedure Act that allows some bureaucrats to abuse their power. It is also the mere size and partisanship of the bureaucracies. Politicians come and go but bureaucrats are there until they retire. Even when a given politician tries to clean up the mess, it like punching a sponge, no damage is ever done.
And yes, I do believe partisanship plays a big role. I apologize for not having a link to share with you, but I read recently that nearly 70% of bureaucrats are registered Democrats. A large percentage of them belong to public employee unions, which support the progressive policies of the Democratic Party. So, it’s not hard to imagine that some will use their positions to promote their political agenda. The current IRS scandal is a perfect example.
The American concept of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people was a nice idea. Too bad that most of We the People didn’t our responsibility to be vigilant of our governments seriously enough. Even if we could somehow elect 100% conservatives, I doubt they would be a match for the Leviathan that is today’s entrenched bureaucracy.
Well, that’s what I’m thinking. What are your thoughts?
Asylum Watch 
Government of the bureaucrat, by the bureaucrat and for the bureaucrat shall never perish from Washington D.C.
Watching the IRS hearing this morning, one finds little comfort that the IRS has a clue about what they did and the significance. Arrogant little man is who headed the commision.
Reblogged this on danmillerinpanama and commented:
Our system of governance was not initially intended to foster and protect the intimidation of private citizens by their – our – “public servants.” It was initially intended to do the opposite. However, it was not initially intended to do many if not most of the other things it now does either.
Jim quite rightly assigns much of the blame to the Administrative Procedure Act. However, the effects of the APA are greatly enhanced by many subsequent acts of Congress (and even some Executive
DecreesOrders that have given too many Federal agencies too much discretion to do too many inadequately specified things. Congress tends to assign to agencies the tasks of implementing ill thought-out legislation with such language as “taking such other actions and adopting such other regulations as the Administrator may deem appropriate.” The mass of HHS ObamaCare regulations continues to become greater, already reaching, I understand, ten thousand pages. The Internal Revenue Service has been charged with implementing much of ObamaCare not to be implemented directly by HHS. Binding IRS interpretations of IRS regulations will follow as those regulations are adopted and implemented.I offered a small example of the nature of the beast in an article about The Safe Teen and Novice Driver Uniform Protection Act. If enacted (it died in committee) it would have authorized
When I practiced communications law in Washington, I was often involved in Federal Communications Commission cases before the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, charged by statute with hearing appeals from most FCC rulings. That court, which I still regard as one of the best in the nation, had no choice but to defer to findings of fact by “experts” at the FCC as well as to the expansive but inadequately defined authority granted to them by legislation.
Occasionally, I glance at Yahoo News to learn what’s happening outside the sadly lunatic world of politics. There was recently an article titled Why is there so much poop in swimming pools? Swimming pools were not intended to serve as toilets or septic tanks but it seems that too many do. It strikes me that our Federal Government has promoted more growth of dangerous bacteria that dine upon our freedoms than all swimming pools have become infested with “E. Coli, the bacteria most commonly associated with fecal matter.”
We’ve come a long way baby, and it’s getting pretty dark and scary. Shouldn’t we stop going “forward” and head on home?
Reblogged this on Es ist ein Klaüsterfökken..
Reblogged this on That Mr. G Guy's Blog.
As one getting ready to pay an installment of my 2013 estimated tax to the federal government, that one statement in this post jumped out at me!
I could “stimulate the economy” if I didn’t have to shell out over 1/3 of my income. Sheesh.
Sadly this type of intimidation starts at the bottom and goes all the way to the White House in Washington DC.