The Government’s War on the Little Guy
21st November 2013
Marty the Magician performed magic tricks for kids, including the traditional rabbit-out-of-a-hat. Then one day: “I was signing autographs and taking pictures with children and their parents,” he told me. “Suddenly, a badge was thrown into the mix, and an inspector said, ‘Let me see your license.'”
In “Harry Potter” books, a creepy Ministry of Magic controls young wizards. Now in the USA, government regulates stage magicians—one of the countless ways it makes life harder for the little guy.
Marty’s torment didn’t end with a demand for his license. “She said, from now on, you cannot use your rabbit until you fill out paperwork, pay the $40 license fee. We’ll have to inspect your home.”
Ten times since, regulators showed up unannounced at Marty’s house. At one point, an inspector he hadn’t seen before appeared. He hoped things had changed for the better.
“I got a new inspector and I said, oh, did my first one retire? She said, ‘No, good news! We’ve increased our budget and we have more inspectors now. So we’ll be able to visit you more often.'”
Here are your tax dollars at work.
The inspectors told Marty that the Animal Welfare Act required him to file paperwork demonstrating that he had “a comprehensive written disaster plan detailing everything I would do with my rabbit in the event of a fire, a flood, a tornado, an ice storm.”
The federal forms list “common emergencies likely to happen to your facility … not necessarily limited to: structural fire, electrical outage, disruption in clean water or feed supply, disruption in access to facility (e.g., road closures), intentional attack on the facilities … earthquake, landslide/mudslide/avalanche … “
November 21st, 2013 at 10:50
Sonny Bono claimed that he went into politics because a gov’t inspector turned up at his 4-star restaurant and wrote him up for having the wrong kind of rock decorating the upper level of his restrooms. Sonny tried to point out that he didn’t know anyone who could urinate that high, but rules are rules and inspectors are inspectors.