Posted on 04/15/2023 10:38:00 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
The fourth branch of government: an unofficial term for the collection of federal regulatory agencies that impose fascist, centralized control over every aspect of our lives. Ryan McMaken of the Mises Institute equates it to the Deep State, and adds a befitting if gory aspect, calling it the “headless” fourth branch of government. In a 2019 Mises Wire article, McMaken quotes Garet Garrett’s book Ex America:
These agencies have built up a large body of administrative law which the people are obliged to obey. And not only do they make their own laws; they enforce their own laws, acting as prosecutor, jury and judge; an appeal from their decisions to the regular courts is difficult.… Thus the Constitutional separation of the three governmental powers, namely, the legislative, the executive and the judicial is entirely lost.
The Lincoln administration spawned this hydra in 1862 with establishment of the fledgling U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), now one of the largest of the 15 federal departments that are part of what should be the smallest branch of government, the executive. Today, the USDA hamstrings our farmers, our food supply, and rural development. Likewise, the Department of Energy, established in 1977, has been stifling science and innovation and burning taxpayer dollars on the altar of environmentalism. And since 1913, the Department of Labor (DOL) has aimed its guns at American business.
President Richard Nixon expanded DOL’s control in 1970, when he added to its list of agencies OSHA — the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Proponents argued that personal injuries and illnesses related to workplace environments imposed a hindrance to interstate commerce. Decreased production, lost wages, and increasing medical expenses were other excuses for stripping away individual companies’ constitutionally protected freedoms and imposing bureaucratic fascism.
(Excerpt) Read more at thenewamerican.com ...
Yeah, that’s not gonna happen. OSHA will be given more power instead.
Start with the EPA.
Dismantle OSHA, EPA, and any other Noxious Nixon stuff to Protect American Business
Death by a thousand agencies.
Another “ gift” from the Pinko Nixon.
OSHA and all the other agencies and departments. Abolish them cleanly. Just announce in each office that business is closed and will not reopen as of 1600 hours today. Good luck in your job hunt. Too bad about your pensions. Then eliminate most taxes as there is so little left to pay for.
OSHA regs could do with scaling back and some fine tuning. But there are real cases where lives have been saved. You can’t always rely on the goodness of a company’s heart to keep workers safe. Sweat-shops are not just a thing of the past.
The old "If we can save just one life, it will be worth it" Commie bromide.
Government is the greediest, most corrupt and murderous force on Earth, but you trust them to "take care of us."
Prove me wrong. Prove that government is not the greediest, most corrupt and murderous force on Earth, after they murdered 262,000,000 of their own citizens in the 20th Century alone, and God only knows how many by biological weapons in the past few years.
Occupational health and safety should be a state responsibility.
I agree. It should also be limited according to actual written statute.
I never made that argument. My argument is that not everyone has the joy of Jesus in their hearts so reining in their malfeasance is a public good. Work place safety can be accomplished without the overzealous one size fits all mandates of OSHA. But the principle should not be just scrapped.
It is good for agencies to be reminded of their limits. Too often legislatures abandon their responsibility to write clear laws in favor of authorities having jurisdiction being given a broad brush. This is when overreach and abuse happens.
But you place your faith in the goodness of government and imply American citizens who create jobs for other people are morally inferior and cannot be trusted.
Well some can’t. History shows us that.
If you cant trust private business to protect their workers how can you trust government to protect their citizens. Both are run by flawed people.
Less government is better than less business. You can quit and get another job. Very hard to do when you are under a government that has the power to strip all your rights and freedoms.
I think that the states have established their own agencies that enforce the federal OSHA mandates
That is true for Tennessee TOSHA and I believe NC. The problem I see is the rigidly stringent EU bureaucracy. Safety regulations have migrated from the EU to America via EU corporations with American facilities.
Professional affirmative action gangster-government bureaucrats can’t either. History shows us that.
Yeah, people stink. Over and over again the doctrine of original sin is proven. I believe in regulations that are specific in scope and answerable to the voters. I will just leave it at that. A moral people need less government.
We don't have that, and never will.
Government agencies exist for their own benefit and grow like metastatic cancers.
I worked for local government for years. One of the main problem was people demanding we go outside our scope of authority. Patiently explaining to people that we were not in charge of making sure everything their neighbors did was to their liking was a routine conversation. I once answered the demand “Why are you people letting them do this?!” with “Because we fought a war with the British and we won.”
I had no interest in making even more work for myself. Council members did not always embrace that ideal though. Perhaps your beef should be with those who write bad laws giving too much authority to regulatory agencies.
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