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by Mel Griffith
If there was anyone out there who did not already believe that our government is run by idiots and escapees from mental institutions the recent airplane grounding episode should have removed all doubt, The government ordered hundreds of planes grounded, disrupting travel for thousands of people and wasting millions of dollars. What was the urgent problem that needed to be fixed before the planes could fly? The bands that hold bundles of electrical wires together were slightly farther apart than the book said they were supposed to be. This had absolutely nothing to do with safety of performance of the planes, it just wasn't exactly what the regulation said. One would suppose that Congress, which was elected to look out for the interest of citizens, would have been demanding that this nonsense stop and that the morons responsible for it be fired. Far from it, they not only didn't demand it be stopped, they were indirectly responsible for the mess by criticizing the FAA for daring to use a common-sense approach to regulating the airlines instead of mindless enforcement of the exact rules. Yet this pack of incompetents is regularly reelected because we have turned into a nation of paranoid chicken littles who want the government to protect us from all imaginary dangers. Folks seem to believe that everyone from their neighbor to multi-national corporations are engaged in a conspiracy to do them harm and the government must protect them from everything. In truth, it is the overbearing and intrusive bureaucrats that we are most often in need of protection from. Having them protect us is like putting a fox in the hen house to protect the chickens from the rabbits. It's good for keeping the rabbits out, but not too helpful to the hens. Clearly, if the government thought that it was important to have wire ties exactly the right distance apart, it could have been done over time when the planes were down for other maintenance without disrupting anything. This situation was caused by arrogance, incompetence, and stupidity of government bureaucrats.
Just to make sure that arrogance isn't confined to the federal government, our esteemed Cleveland City Council has determined that henceforth landowners will need the permission of Big Brother before they can cut their own trees on their own land. Naturally they will have to pay to get a permit for something they shouldn't need a permit for in the first place. Perhaps this needless paperwork is to keep the urban forester busy. It's probably hard for a forester to stay busy without a forest. Now that the city has a forester for the forest they don't have, what's next? Perhaps a shepherd for the sheep they don't have? Or a cowboy for the cows they don't have? There seems no limit to creative thinking when it comes to putting drones on the public payroll.
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