During this time, I’ve grow quite sick of explaining the technical differences between actual deregulation and regulatory capture. Likewise, as a libertarian/borderline anarchist with virtually no representation in government, it’s quite annoying to be blamed for said government’s actions. It’s doubly annoying when otherwise intelligent people somehow manage to confuse libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism with corporatism and fascism just because all use words like “deregulation” in one way or another.

Yes. I’ve actually talked to people who think like that. And, yes, that’s people, as in, plural.

As such, I’ve decided to write a simple explanation of regulatory capture to link to in the future instead of wasting breath and keystrokes to explain it over and over and over. Here it is:

Regulatory Capture for Dummies

or: How I Learned to Stop Hating Freedom and Love the Dollar

Premise:

Imagine you run a small business which sells widgets. You have one other competitor, who we’ll call Bob, that sells twice as many widgets as you do. You’re not all that worried about it though because you’re planning to release a shiny new widget with an extra gizmo and racing stripes next week which will earn you some of his market share.

Now imagine that I’m a grumpy old Senator who decides to regulate your industry because I’m sick of the damn kids using their newfangled widgets on my lawn, have been told the competition between you and Bob is “unfair” by people who don’t make widgets, or whatever.

Now imagine that my idea of regulation involves grabbing both of you by the throat and squeezing gently so that the lack of air makes it harder (or impossible) for you to make widgets. Naturally, I’ll shout that I’m doing it “for the children” while you struggle for air.

Example 1:

If I release both of your throats and walk away so that you can both go back to making and selling widgets, that’s deregulation. Simple, isn’t it?

Example 2:

Seeing as Bob was selling twice as many widgets before I started choking you both, Bob has more money, so he pulls out $100 and sticks it in my pocket. You can call this a license fee, a tax, a campaign contribution, or a bribe if you like. But either way, I let go of Bob and keep choking you.

I’ll then use a photo of Bob being released (which is conveniently cropped to keep your choking out of the frame..) and use it in a campaign ad highlighting my “free-market” record. You probably won’t feel very deregulated, but, hey, when have pesky things like facts ever mattered in politics?

After seeing Bob released to much fanfare, you might start digging around in your pockets, or waving a cup at “investors” walking by on the street, in order to find the $100 fee/tax/bribe thingy so that you can get back to work and/or breathing regularly. However, while you’re trying to come up with the money, Bob is out selling widgets to his customers and yours. He’s also selling them at a higher price since he no longer has your competition.

Now imagine that just before you finally raise enough capital from your pockets or from people passing by, Bob stops by with a big roll of cash he just made selling widgets. Bob sticks another $100 fee/tax/bribe in my pocket, plus an extra $50 campaign donation, and asks me to crack down on those “dangerous” unlicensed widget makers.

Which, of course, means you.

In turn, I squeeze your throat harder. Only this time I use a video of your face turning blue in a campaign ad behind a talking point of how I’m “pro-business” because I saved Bob’s company from the “unfair competition” of unlicensed widgets. And how I “protected the children” from your “dangerous” product.

That’s regulatory capture. See the difference?

(Oh, yea, and assuming you eventually come up with the $100 license fee/tax/bribe before you suffocate, well, now Bob’s prices will collapse since you will now make more product than there is demand and you’ve got a lower price. Due to the rapid expansion of his business while you were choking, I will now deem him “too big to fail,” take 40% of your profits, and give it to him as a bailout.)

Conclusion:

Now replace you and Bob in the above scenarios with car companies, investment banks, etc.., or even GSEs like Fannie Mae. Think of all the so-called “deregulation” which gave them special exemptions them to do things which would have gotten you thrown in jail for fraud.

Does that sound like a libertarian free-market where anybody can compete to you?

Or does it sound like an elite group of corporatist oligarchs have essentially bought the state and used its lethal, coercive force– the “..or else!” which stands behind all regulation –to choke their competition?

Regardless of whether you actually agree with me that freedom in the marketplace is a good thing, if you came to the conclusion that choking people on behalf of special interests isn’t exactly free anything, you might understand what it feels like to be a libertarian these days..

Or, in other words, they want to make it better by making it worse. You know, to save money they shouldn’t be spending to begin with.

But, yea, this got me thinking. Apparently, nationalized health insurance is important because, without it, you might go into debt (which they would rather you accumulate by borrowing non-existent money to buy a new TV to A: stimulate the economy, B: distract you via “reality” shows  from the wholesale Treasury looting operation, and C: so they can blame your sitting in front of the TV for obesity or something) if you get sick and have to *gasp* pay the bill for some medical service which would have been considered close to Necromancy even ten years ago at an emergency room which cannot deny treatment. Or if your attention span failed during that run-on sentence,  I’m saying you won’t die without national health care.

You’ll just be stuck owing ever more worthless bits of paper to pay for it if you get sick.

Without food, however, you will die without it. Period.

So if “health care reform” is important enough to follow the lead of the open air island prison where Great Britain used to be, then shouldn’t hunger care reform be important enough to copy another authoritarian regime?

Like, say, North Korea?

Seeing as political science is essentially the art of inventing numbers to make a really stupid, collectivist point, let’s just go ahead and assume the US spends eleventy times as much per capita on food than they do in N. Korea. Let’s also claim, breathlessly, that there are 47 gajillion, err, un-in-fooded people in the US. If we were to take inspiration from Kim Jong Il, nationalize the food industry, and ration everybody a ball of cold rice every week (and perhaps a rat or something on special occasions, if you’re lucky enough to find one), we could save tons of money while still guaranteeing everyone their “fair share!”

And once the malnutrition kicks in, we’re sure to wipe out the parenthetically aforementioned obesity problem too.

Or, seeing as a vast majority of medical spending is on the elderly, well, instead of just telling them to take a pain pill and shut up and die to save money, why not just combine the two plans..

Summary, in case you don’t want to give them the traffic, goes like this:

Real guy goes to a real town hall with a real gun, which, seeing as it was in New Hamster, was probably attended by other real people with real guns. This real event from the real world, however, is apparently just:

the embodiment of the gun lobby’s dangerous and irresponsible myth: that an “armed society is a polite society.”

And how do they counter this “irresponsible myth?”

But this old XBOX advertisement that was banned several years ago shows the complete opposite.

So, basically, reality is a myth, but paid actors in a fake scenario with imaginary guns in a commercial for a game console is a “cogent argument.” Oooooooooooookay.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be going back to being abducted by aliens in Fallout 3 because it seems a lot more realistic than whatever world the “Gun Guys” and the rest of the freaks in DC think they’re living in..

How is this man allowed to serve on our Supreme Court when he seems to have no idea what is contained in the Constitution?  He does not “embrace” the Bill of Rights?

Clarence, here’s a radical idea that may not have occurred to you yet: Look at the fucking Constitution, you dipshit.  It sure as hell contains a Bill of Rights, but does not contain any sort of Bill of Obligations or Bill of Responsibilities.

So what are these rights contained in the “fucking Constitution” which Justice Thomas doesn’t know about? Well, if you follow the link to the story which the Kosstard is apparently incapable of reading..

He gave examples: “It seems that many have come to think that each of us is owed prosperity and a certain standard of living. They’re owed air-conditioning, cars, telephones, televisions.”

Those are luxuries, Justice Thomas said.

Unless someone swapped the US and Soviet Constitutions when I wasn’t looking, it appears to me that Thomas was basically telling a group of students they shouldn’t wait around for government handouts. Because free cars and televisions aren’t rights contained in the “fucking Constitution.” Likewise, the “Bill of Responsibilities” line looks like one of those fancy metaphor thingies which one would assume the self-proclaimed intellectual giants on the left would have learned about at school.

Meanwhile, Justice Ginsburg is shocked that her use of foreign law (which obviously isn’t part of the Constitution) to decide cases is controversial. Yet Thomas is the one they want to impeach. But, again, it’s probably just projection.

The funny part is how so many of the moonbat commenters over there seem to be frothing at the chance to get payback of some sort against the eeeeevil conservatives who try to take their toys. This, despite the fact that roughly four out of five politicians who support game censorship are so-called liberal Democrats. In fact, it’s quite amazing how the left has pushed the whole Republican = censor meme while they’re the ones who were behind 95% of the failed laws.

But, then, like most things with the left these days, they’re probably just projecting their own neurosis onto others.

By banning guns and sending SWAT teams to kill their political opposition.

Though, in all fairness, I suppose it wouldn’t be paranoia anymore if they actually did it.

But, yea, I just thought I’d take this opportunity to pass along a friendly bit of advice to any misguided hippies who might pass through while googling for news about capitalism’s inevitable demise. Before you “take up arms” and start your “combat training” in order to wage civil war against us eeeevil capitalist pig-dogs or whatever, there’s one itsy bitsy detail you should probably keep in mind:

We have all the guns.

And we’re buying so many more that you’ll be lucky to find a handful from your local shop without getting on a two month backorder list. It might be worth pointing out that if your pals in Congress and the White House had their way, there would be no more arms for you to take up against us. But, then again, communist rich kids aren’t known for their ability to recognize irony..

Anyhow, as I said, this is friendly advice, so don’t take it as a threat. Most of us eeeeevil capitalist pig-dogs would much rather discuss things *gasp* peacefully until your head hurts from the sudden collision with logic. If, however, you really intend to take up arms and start a physical fight, know this:

We will finish it.

Or, in other words corporations making jobs = “trickle down” economics and “failed policy.” Raising taxes and creating a Federal Ponzi scheme where the money is filtered through the pockets of politicians, bureaucrats, and lobbyists to accomplish the exact same thing = “Change You can Believe in!”

Can someone explain to me the difference between Bernie Madoff and President Obama? I mean, aside from the fact that Madoff’s victims willingly gave him money but the taxpayers are coerced at gun point..

But, yea, despite (or perhaps because of) the confusion, the Brady Campaign to Promote Gun Myths couldn’t resist dancing in the blood and spreading disinformation. And once again, they’re lying about the SKS being an “assault rifle.” No matter how many times they say it, it’s still a lie. And are they seriously implying that a “38 caliber handgun” is a “military-style semiautomatic assault weapon” now too?

An 18-year-old city resident is in a Massachusetts jail after state police said they found an arsenal in his truck.

ZOMG an arsenal!! Everybody panic? Oh. Wait. He only had two guns, some knives, and a set of brass knuckles. But not just any guns..

A Bushmaster rifle with a night scope and pistol grip.

Eeeek! A night scope and a pistol grip?! We’re all doomed!

Then there’s this:

The trooper ordered him out of the truck and patted him down — which turned up several rounds of ammunition, including a .50 caliber rifle bullet, and a knife, police said.

A single .50 cal bullet? Was it a whole cartridge? Or just the pointy bit? And, umm, what exactly is so scary about a round with no rifle to put it in? I’m betting it was probably inert and attached to a a key ring..

But, yea, if you really want to fill up your PSH bingo card, click here.

State police said troopers found a 16-inch Bushmaster assault rifle,

16 inch “assault rifle?” Umm, okay. Is that supposed to scare us because it’s too big or too small?

a Remington 12-gauge shotgun with a pistol grip,

Oh noes! Another pistol grip! hide the women and children!

seven 30-round magazine ammunition clips seven 30-round magazine ammunition clips and several boxes of ammunition.

Magazine ammunition clips? Did his truck have a high powered automatic manual transmission gear shifter too?

The assault rifle and the shotgun had both been modified and each gun was equipped with laser sightings, the paper reported.

Modified with laser sighting?! Well. That’s it. I’m heading to the bomb shelter and waiting for the Apocalypse! The guy might be able to blind me if I stare at his lasers too long! That’s even scarier than Lite-Brites!!11!1one!eleventy!

Huizinga was charged with marked lanes violation, possession of a large-capacity firearm, possession of a firearm, seven counts of possession of high-capacity feeding devices, possession of a dangerous weapon and unlawful possession of ammunition.

Now that seems a bit redundant. What’s next, charging him with being charged with a crime? Then charging him for the crime of being charged with being charged of a crime?

Huizinga could face federal charges, including transporting guns across state lanes and not having a license to carry firearms, the paper reported.

That’s funny. Federal law protects transporting firearms across State lines if the original and destination States don’t have ridiculous laws like, say, Massachusetts. Well, they’re supposed to anyway. This should be an interesting test case.

Oh, and, err, there’s no such thing as a Federal license to carry firearms. Good luck charging him with a non-existent crime.