Published 15 September 2006

(word count: 750)

From a news report in the once communist but now enlightened Westernized European Union member Slovak Republic: a teacher who took his class on a school trip to a historic cathedral was arrested because he did not have a license to give guided tours.  The pupils were also arrested for listening to the unlicensed tour.

Some people, such as American libertarians, are outraged by this example of bureaucratic pettiness.  The live-and-let-live attitude of libertarians sees a clear distinction between committing a crime (defined as initiating force or fraud against another) and merely breaking a law that, since it doesn't involve injury to a person or property, and which was created by politicalhacks and pettycrats, constitutes an offense against government – in other words a political crime, an abomination in a free society.

Non-libertarians, however, such as people who can be described as authoritarians (liberals, conservatives, socialists, progressives, third-worlders, Greenies, and all others who help put the extra S in USSA) see nothing wrong with using the coercive power of government to regulate others as long as that power is never used to regulate themselves.

Clearly, to them, government should have the power to guarantee the jobs of tour guides.  And, as long as the USSA rabble continues to get its way in America, expect to see many more Slovakian style news stories.

Denver CO – A squad of armored Homeland Security Storm Troopers bashed in the door of a suburban home and arrested a young mother for reading a book to her daughter.  The mother was taken into custody and charged with teaching without a license.

"The illegal instructional activity was detected during routine Patriot Act authorized anti-terrorism surveillance efforts," explained an undisclosed spokescrat for an unidentified secret government agency. "Also, based on our own authority to determine such things, the surveillance event itself was determined to be perfectly legal."

"It appears that this woman was reading a bedtime story to her daughter," a Mouthpiece for the state's teacher's union declared in a staged, prearranged news conference.  "We simply cannot allow unlicensed, unregulated, uncertified teaching events to go unpunished.  Real teachers' jobs and salaries are at stake."

The female minor was taken into custody by the Children's Protective Services for her own good, and to ensure the continued employment of CPS civil service bureaucrats.

St. Paul MN – Conducting the first ever "Operation Mow Them Down" license enforcement sweep, the Regional Lawn Care Task Force composed of 35 federal, state and local law enforcement officers and county deputies fanned out through the Como neighborhood and confronted everyone actively engaged in mowing their lawns.

"We were looking for lawn mowing permits," explained the PR Flack for the task force.  "Ever since the Professional Lawncare Lobby pushed its bill through the legislature only licensed Turf Specialists are allowed to operate powered grass management equipment."

In all, 168 tickets totaling $21,000 in fines were issued in the attempt to protect the general public from itself, to keep mowing services artificially high while restricting competition, to secure more income for city councilcrats' frivolous and wasteful pet projects, and to provide coveted overtime pay to 35 federal, state and local law enforcement officers and county deputies.

"It was a good day," mused one member of the Barney Fife Chapter of the License Enforcer's Guild.

Woonsocket RI – A major scandal erupted at city hall when it was discovered that Cy Tayshan, the city's License Compliance Administrator, is not a licensed License Compliance Administrator.

"Oh, he's certified," conceded the Regulations and Permits Subagency Directorcrat, "but a certificate does not qualify one to be a city License Compliance Administrator."

"Looks like his Six-figure job is in jeopardy," smirked the city's Deputy License Compliance Administrator.

The official State Bar Accepted and Politically Approved City Attorney attempted to defend the disgraced citycrat by pointing out that he was originally hired on the basis of the "Regulatory Accreditation with Rubber Stamping Authorization and Two Oak Leaf Clusters" legal documents he presented during his Duly Recognized Selection Committee interview.

However, this statement only brought calls for a Formally Sanctioned and Bureaucratically Legitimized Investigation into the credential status of the city's Human Resources Manager, whose own six-figure job may now be in jeopardy.

Regulation, after all, helps limit qualified applicants and keeps the good-old-boy network healthy.

Meanwhile, student activists from the nationwide campus-based libertarian guerilla demonstration street theater protest group "Bureaucrash" engaged in unregulated but free spirited picketing outside city hall with perhaps too-scholarly placards that read "carpe bastardi."

Offered one, "It means seize the bastards."