From England: The world’s most useless sign
Posted on 01/30/2013 9:58:42 AM PST by Kaslin
As a public finance economist, I normally focus on big-picture arguments against excessive government.
If the public sector is too large, for instance, that undermines economic growth by diverting resources from the productive sector of the economy.
The damage is then compounded by a needlessly destructive and punitive tax system.
But I’ve also discovered that it helps to personalize the analysis by pointing out examples of ridiculous and wasteful behavior by government.
From England: The world’s most useless sign
That’s one of the reasons I share horror stories as part of the U.S. vs U.K. government stupidity contest.
Some actions by government, however, belong in a different category. I’m not sure what word I would choose to describe them – perhaps venal, evil, despicable, reprehensible, or disgusting would be good options.
Am I being overly dramatic? Perhaps, but is there any other reaction when the government persecutes a family with possible jail time for rescuing Bambi?
Here are some absurd and disturbing details from the Indianapolis Star.
When Connersville police officer Jeff Counceller first encountered the baby deer, she was curled up in the corner of a front porch.It was clear the fawn was injured. Counceller could see the wounds… If left to its own, the animal would surely die… So the Councellers took in the deer, which they named Dani, cleaned and dressed its wounds and nursed it back to health, all with the intention of turning it out into the wild once it was big enough and strong enough to have a chance on its own. …she was unable to stand, and her maggot-infested wound was ugly. The Councellers contacted DNR at the time but were told to return the deer to the wild and let nature take its course. “It would have been a death sentence,” Jeff said.
So the family did what any decent people would do. They nursed the deer back to health. But decency and government often are in conflict.
Trouble is, what the Councellers did is against the law. Now, more than two years after rescuing the deer, more than six months after conservation officers began an investigation, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources wants them prosecuted. …DNR officials began an investigation that entailed half a dozen visits to their home and numerous calls to local authorities. In July, the agency issued an eight-page report and asked for a special prosecutor from another county to handle the case. Why the charges are being sought now — six months later — isn’t clear.
Bureaucrats wanted to kill this baby deer
I think the answer is obvious. The bureaucrats from the Department of Natural Resources are sulking because their imperious demands weren’t obeyed.
So they’re lashing out at an innocent family, as indicated by the following excerpts.
…when the DNR came calling, the Councellers say they were almost ready to release Dani back into the woods. They were just waiting for the summer drought to pass and the nearby corn crops to mature enough to offer cover and food for Dani. They say they weren’t aware it was illegal to keep the deer.
That’s when the bureaucratic nightmare began.
When the DNR began its investigation, the Councellers say the conservation officer suggested they obtain a rescue permit. But that was denied. Soon, the DNR said the deer must be euthanized, that it was a safety threat to humans.
Fortunately, an unknown good Samaritan intervened and freed Dani before the government could kill the helpless animal.
But on the day of Dani’s scheduled execution, the deer turned up missing, its enclosure left open. The Councellers say they didn’t arrange the escape or know how the deer was freed but acknowledge that they didn’t probe too deeply to find out.
But no good deed goes unpunished when spiteful bureaucrats are involved.
…there was nothing but silence from the DNR until the Councellers received notice of the charges earlier this month. They plan to fight the case, even though jail is unlikely and the lawyer costs — which could reach $5,000 — are significantly higher than a likely fine. It’s a matter of principle, they say. They don’t want to plead guilty for trying to help an animal and when they had no criminal intent.
Not surprisingly, the rest of the community is on the side of the deer (and the persecuted family). Indeed, there’s even a Facebook page for folks who want to register their displeasure with this example of government thuggery.
“People are outraged at the DNR and that the government has nothing better to do than harass these people,” said John Waudby, an Indianapolis man who created the Facebook page after hearing about the story. “Anybody in their right mind would have done the same thing.”
All things considered, this story from Indiana shouldn’t be part of the government stupidity and incompetence contest. Given the venality of the bureaucrats, it belongs with this list of horrifying examples of government thuggery.
In a just world, a court will immediately dismiss the charges against the Counceller family.
I would urge that the family then be awarded damages, but that’s not the right response. The bureaucrats would merely shrug and let taxpayers pick up the cost.
The only good outcome is to unceremoniously fire every bureaucrat who played a role in this outrageous episode.
Like most bureaucrats, I suspect the pinheads at the Indiana Department of Natural Resources are overpaid. So losing their pampered positions would be genuine punishment and it would send a message to the rest of the paper pushers not to harass innocent and good people.
I posted a horrifying story last week about a Lithuanian immigrant who was mooching off British taxpayers.
She basically had a very comfortable life thanks to beleaguered taxpayers, and I compared her to a Greek woman who thought the state owed her everything.
But there’s no ethnic requirement to be a bum. I’ve also shared stories about American moochers and Austrian moochers.
I’ve even shared stories about terrorists getting welfare handouts in Australia and France!
So I hope my British friends won’t be upset that I’m now going to highlight a couple of English deadbeats.
Here are some odious details from the UK-based Sun.
Danny Creamer, 21, and Gina Allan, 18, spend each day watching their 47in flatscreen TV and smoking 40 cigarettes between them in their comfy two-bedroom flat. It is all funded by the taxpayer, yet the couple say they deserve sympathy because they are “trapped”.
Does this mean they are imprisoned? Is someone holding them at gunpoint?
Hardly. It simply means that these two scroungers get such lavish handouts that their living standards would fall if they actually lived decent and honorable lives and went to work.
The couple, who have a four-month-old daughter Tullulah-Rose, say they can’t go out to work as they could not survive on less than their £1,473-a-month benefits. The pair left school with no qualifications, and say there is no point looking for jobs because they will never be able to earn as much as they get in handouts. Gina admits: “We could easily get a job but why would we want to work — we would be worse off.” Danny’s father, 46, even offered him a job with his bowling alley servicing company — but could not pay him enough.
So how much are these moochers stealing from taxpayers? Quite a lot, particularly if you keep in mind that £1 is equal to $1.57.
The couple, who live in Hants, receive £340 a week, made up of £150 housing benefit, £60 child tax credit, £20 child benefit and £110 in Job Seeker’s Allowance. They pay just £25 towards their spacious £625-a-month home. Their lounge is dominated by the huge TV and a leather sofa. …They spend the same on tobacco as they do on their daughter’s milk and nappies.
Gee, isn’t that nice. Taxpayers are even financing their cigarettes.
I blame Danny and Gina for being a couple of bums, but I also blame British politicians for creating a lavish welfare state that enables this awful behavior.
It’s not that people are trapped in poverty, but they definitely are lured into dependency.
By the way, the same problem exists in the United States. Indeed, this chart shows that the plethora of freebies from taxpayers means a household can be better off with $29,000 of income rather than $69,000 of income.
No wonder the poverty rate stopped falling once the so-called War on Poverty began.
For more information, here’s a short debate I had about the topic, and here’s a video explaining how the welfare state is bad for both poor people and taxpayers.
This is one of N reasons (where N is large and increasing exponentially) why respect for bureaucrats no longer exists.
Whoever issued the arrest warrant (whether deserved or not) should be fired, tarred, feathered, and dropped into the nearest lava pit.
I once saved an abandoned fawn. It was around my place, and alone for four days, before I knew for sure it was actually abandoned. Then it was sufficiently starving to death to walk right up to me. I put it in the fenced part of my yard. I called local wildlife agencies to find out what I should do. I was told by all of them to just put it back in the woods and let it die, and of course they all had to tell me it was the law, and I could be in legal trouble if I didn’t. I didn’t. I eventually found out they can be fed goat’s milk. Got some from Winn Dixie and fed it four times a day with a bottle, for three days. I found a wildlife rehabilitator some 75 miles away, and took it there.
Give an environmentalist a badge.
Incidents like these are why I don’t fly the American flag or celebrate “Independence Day” anymore. They used to symbolize freedom. This is not a free country anymore.
This is why the mad rapid expansion of government power must be halted.
Will common sense ever prevail in this country again????
I once represented a young man in the following circumstances:
He worked at a hardware store in an affluent suburban community. An elderly lady with a raccoon problem asked for advice on how to get rid of them, so he sold her a sizeable trap (the kind with the closing door on the cage, not the bear claw trap kind).
Next day the lady brought him back the trap, with a live raccoon inside. He asked his boss what to do with it, and he advised to drown it, just as they did with mice/rats. So he did.
The city police caught wind and arrested him, and charged him with cruelty to animals, as a Class D Felony.
Fortunately, the deputy prosecutor was a sensible man, along with the Sheriff’s Department animal control officer, who agreed that invasive raccoons were pests, and that unless they were killed, transplanting was not an option as they would just return. The charges were dismissed.
But it’s still a travesty that the State does stuff like this to perfectly law-abiding persons.
All too often, beaurocrats are mindless monsters, insensate droids which humm on, powered by tax dollars scammed and extorted from the public.
In some cases, beaurocrats try to buck the system, like the County Clerk in that County in New York which was served with a records request by Gannett for the names and addresses of gun owners in that County and he refused to release said information.
SOMEWHERE in the Indiana Division of Natural Resources, there MUST be SOMEBODY with a FUNCTIONING BRAIN!!!
Drowning is a HORRIBLE way to kill a mammal.
He should have shot it in the head or released it somewhere where there were few people.
A fawn is reasonable, but there are lots of people who illegally feed deer here in Virginia in the fall and early winter. The law is mostly intended to preclude hunting over bait. People don’t consider the ill effects of overpopulation and the areas with no hunting are the worst for bleeding heart suckers and their welfare wards.
Combined, their work incomes couldn’t total $2,600 a month? Bulls**t.
So, an enforcer for pinhead bureaucrats was stung by pinhead bureacrats. Just deserts, as far as I’m concerned.
In my experience ,”conservation officers” are real a**holes!
I found them overbearing jerks filled with self-importance and whiners. And THEY have power under Indiana law to go anywhere wild animals go without needing a warrant,i.e. they can come onto your farm without even notifying you to “seed’ a new turkey flock or check for whatever.
Indiana DNR “officers” have charges other people in my area with this keeping wildlife illegally charge,and it has usually been a kind-hearted person rescuing an injured animal.
Oh they also severely punish someone poaching the over-populated deer herd for food;they will take the meat,the freezer,the vehicle it was transported in,and the gun. AND impose huge fines.
I think they would cheerfully hang poachers if only the king would decree it like in the good old days of merry England!
I have NO respect for CO’s.
I find it impossible too, unless they live in a luxury appartment /s>
“I think they would cheerfully hang poachers if only the king would decree it like in the good old days of merry England!”
Marry! By our good Lady!!!
It sounds like Indiana is almost as bad as New Jersey.
And not only is a family better off with $29,000 in ‘benefits’ from welfare, there is the equivalent of one full-time government welfare worker for each family.
So,... $100,000 a year to pay a government worker $70,000 to give a welfare recipient %30,000 to sit on his ass.
Now THAT’s good government!
Just more proof that the legislative overburden spread on legislation by regulatory bureaucrats stifles new ideas and unjustly enriches the maggots and termites of our society.
Drug Warriors should feel so proud:
"'When the Brown County, Wis., Drug Task Force arrested her son Joel last February, Beverly Greer started piecing together his bail. She used part of her disability payment and her tax return. Joel Greer’s wife also chipped in, as did his brother and two sisters. On Feb. 29, a judge set Greer’s bail at $7,500, and his mother called the Brown County jail to see where and how she could get him out. “The police specifically told us to bring cash,” Greer says. “Not a cashier’s check or a credit card. They said cash.” So Greer and her family visited a series of ATMs, and on March 1, she brought the money to the jail, thinking she’d be taking Joel Greer home. But she left without her money, or her son. Instead jail officials called in the same Drug Task Force that arrested Greer. A drug-sniffing dog inspected the Greers’ cash, and about a half-hour later, Beverly Greer said, a police officer told her the dog had alerted to the presence of narcotics on the bills — and that the police department would be confiscating the bail money.'
"You probably can figure out the rest of the story. Radley’s column has a lot of additional details, but here are a couple of passages to whet your appetite.
"'The Greers had been subjected to civil asset forfeiture, a policy that lets police confiscate money and property even if they can only loosely connect them to drug activity. The cash, or revenue from the property seized, often goes back to the coffers of the police department that confiscated it. It’s a policy critics say is often abused, but experts told The HuffPost that the way the law is applied to bail money in Brown County is exceptionally unfair. It took four months for Beverly Greer to get her family’s money back, and then only after attorney Andy Williams agreed to take their case. “The family produced the ATM receipts proving that had recently withdrawn the money,” Williams says. “Beverly Greer had documentation for her disability check and her tax return. Even then, the police tried to keep their money.”'"
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