BUREAUCRAP

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We hear lots of talk today about the Federal Government—the President, the Speaker, Congress, the Senate, Republicans, Democrats. And while these are all legitimate issues, there is something far more sinister corrupting the American way of life. Like a cancer, it is the silent killer of freedom. It is a cockroach born of wasteful, irresponsible politicians on both sides of the aisle and in your hometown. A nasty bugger that seemingly will not die; in fact, it only grows fatter and uglier. It has many names—Department, Bureau, Administration, Office, Agency, Service, Commission, Council. It is Bureaucracy. Its members have an unquenchable thirst for your tax dollars. They are not elected. They have no term limits. As a citizen, you have no direct power over them. They usually provide only hassle and no real service. Regardless of how poorly they perform, they are rarely, if ever, removed or even reprimanded. They are notorious for gobbling up budgets of staggering proportions. And in times of economic crisis, does anyone put these bureaucracies on the chopping block? Of course not. Instead, firemen are laid off, and school teachers are furloughed.
Here is a prime example of American bureaucracy in action. In 1977, as a response to the oil crisis of the time, Democratic President Jimmy Carter rolled about 20,000 employees from three existing energy bureaucracies into the newly-formed Department of Energy. The annual budget was around $8 billion. One of the tasks assigned to the Department was to develop alternative energy sources and reduce our dependency on foreign oil. At the time, foreign oil made up about 37% of the oil consumed in this country.
Even though Republican demagogue Ronald Reagan promised to eliminate the Department of Energy during his presidency, it still exists today. It has approximately 16,000 federal employees and nearly 100,000 contract employees. The annual budget is $27 billion, and, in 2009, Congress dumped in another $38 billion. So, how’s that investment of our tax dollars paying off you ask. Well, today over 50% of the oil we use is from foreign sources. We have very little to show in the way of practical, alternative energy available to the masses. And, it’s a safe bet that China’s nuclear program is based on information stolen from the U.S. under the watch of the Department of Energy.
That’s just one small example. Do a search for all of the agencies of the Federal Government, and I think you’ll be shocked at the sheer amount of information that you’ll come up with. If you’d like to learn more about the history and potential future of bureaucracies, I highly recommend John Silveira’s article, “Why Bureaucracy Will Likely Destroy America” (http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/silveira50.html). Also, check out the Institute for Justice’s video page at www.ij.org.
Every election, we change the flags, buttons, banners, and t-shirts of our elected officials, and Republican or Democrat, when they leave, they each leave us with the same thing—a stinking, heaping pile of Bureaucrap. If you’re sick and tired of the American pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness being poisoned by this Bureaucrap, call your elected officials. Let them know that you want an end to it. Let them know that if they won’t fix it, we’ll find someone who will. And, proudly let everyone know where you stand with your own “Bureaucrap” t-shirt. To order yours, visit tshirtguerilla.blogspot.com. For T-shirt Guerilla News, I’m Matt Ashel, and I’m not going to take it anymore.

BEE FREE

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Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or you are a bureaucrat or career politician, you’re fully aware of our current economic crisis. And it’s a crisis that has apparently hit the world’s financial capitol. It seems that a New York City bee inspector (yes, you heard right; they have bee inspectors in New York City) recently levied a $2000 fine on a Queens man because he did not have water for the bee hive on his property. The single bee hive was on a residential property that borders Little Neck Bay, and there are several fresh water ponds in the area. The man has also continuously had a bee watering device within two feet of the hive for the past year. But don’t cheer the city for protecting the ever-so-vital-to-our-ecosystem-honey bee. In fact, it is perfectly legal to exterminate the bees. The bee watering ordinance is actually to protect neighboring citizens. Honey bees require a fair amount of water, especially in summer months. To keep the bees from moving into a neighbor’s air conditioning unit, the city requires adequate water to be kept near the hive. Unlike many local ordinances, there is some logic to New York’s bee laws. However, the problem here stems from incompetent enforcement. It appears that many budget-breaking, local bureaucracies have put pressure on their henchmen to extract more funds from the tax-burdened public. In this scenario, it seems that the city inspector did not bother to get close enough to the bee hive to see the obvious water supply two feet away. The man was issued a $2000 fine. When the story hit the papers, radio, television, and internet, the city quickly reduced the fine to a warning. When asked why, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office claimed that city officials had “thought it through”. No apology for the mistake. No mentioned reprimand for the inspector. My question is, “If a man can be fined $2000 for failing to water the bees in his yard, what is the punishment for a city inspector that fails to do the job that tax payers pay him to do?” As tax payers, we agree to financially support jobs like this for the greater good of the whole community. However, our local governments are using civil service as a way to extort more money from the community. I would speculate that for every story like this one, there are many more in which citizens reluctantly, but nonetheless, pay these ridiculously unjust fines. If you are ever the victim of such a fine, you owe it to yourself and the other members of your community to question it, protest it, fight it, tell every media outlet that will listen, and post it and share it everywhere that you possibly can. There are still more of us than them, and we don’t have to be pushed around. Tell them to let us be free of the incompetence. Let us be free of the greed. Let us be free of the deception. Let us be free of the corruption. Let us be free of the bureaucracy. Let us BEE FREE.
If you’d like to bee fashionable and make a point, order your very own “BEE FREE” t-shirt at tshirtguerilla.blogspot.com. Be and let be. Live and let live. Believe in a better America. For T-shirt Guerilla news, I’m Matt Ashel, and I’m not going to take it anymore.

LEGALIZE LEMONADE

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These stories have been popping up all over the country in recent years. But this one has gained widespread media attention. It happened in a small, one-stop-light town of just over 1000 residents known as Midway, GA, ironically, in Liberty County. It seems the police chief and a trainee were patrolling a residential neighborhood when they came upon 3 young girls ranging in age from 10 to 14 operating a home-made lemonade stand in front of their parents’ mobile home. The girls wanted to go to a water park in a neighboring town. Their mother told them that she could not afford to take the girls, but if they could earn the money themselves, she’d take them to the park. Thus, the plywood over sawhorses, poster board and marker signs, and a pitcher of sweet, home-made lemonade. When the children could not produce a license and permit which costs $50 a day or $180 for the year, the police chief said, “Look, we understand you guys are young, but still, you’re breaking the law, and we can’t let you do it anymore.” With that the 3 young girls were forced to close their lemonade stand.

Defending her actions on the day of the incident, Police Chief Kelli Morningstar added, “The law is the law, and we have to be consecutive, uh, consistent with how we enforce the laws. We were not aware of how the lemonade was made, who made the lemonade, or what the lemonade was made with, so we did act accordingly by city ordinance.”

We called the Midway Police Dept. the next morning assuming that there was more to the story. They were very short in saying that the story shown on television was accurate and complete. By the next morning, the police dept. could not handle the number of angry calls that they were getting. No one answered the phones, and their voice mail box was conveniently full. The mayor stands behind the actions of the police dept.

A week later, in an interview with another local TV station, another officer with the Midway Police Dept. claimed that they shut down the lemonade stand because the girls were dangerously close to the road, unsupervised, and because there are half a dozen registered sex offenders living in the area. Maybe the police dept. should have taken another week or two to work on that response. Keep in mind that this lemonade stand was on private property in a residential neighborhood in a small town. The mother of the 10 to 14 year old girls was inside the home no more than 100 feet away.

Half a dozen registered sex offenders? Really? Is that how police in Midway protect their citizens? By locking them inside so the criminals can roam freely. On second thought, it might be better if the Midway Police Dept. would stick to the standard “no comment”.

Most recently, the police chief and her family were relocated after her home was shot at with a pellet gun.

If there is a hero in this story, it is the citizens who have come to the aid of the 3 girls. The local news affiliate that broke the story offered free tickets to the water park. Calypso Lemonade offered to pay for the license and permits and supply the girls with a summer’s worth of their product at no charge. And, good Americans all over have planned protests. However, the mother of the girls suggested that the purpose of the stand was to teach the children to work hard to earn what they want and not to wait for handouts. No word on whether they have accepted any offers. They did move their stand up the road into Bryan County where they were allowed to operate at a farmer’s market without a license – a move that brought them more business in a day than they would have seen in weeks in their small neighborhood.

Here is some free advice for the lemonade entrepreneurs out there – If the cops try to stop you, change your sign so that you aren’t “selling” lemonade, but rather, “giving” it away for free with a suggested donation. Local authorities don’t have a license or permit for that….yet. But rest assured that your tax dollars are providing a healthy salary and benefits to some official who is diligently working on that right now.

And on that note, if you’d like to show your support of free enterprise in this country, we’d be glad to send you your very own “Legalize Lemonade” t-shirt when you contribute your donation. To order yours today, visit  tshirtguerilla.blogspot.com  or click the link below.

Unless we stand with each other, for each other, and against our common enemies together, they will bring us to our knees one by one.

For T-shirt Guerilla News, I’m Matt Ashel, and I’m not going to take it anymore.