{"id":22800,"date":"2015-05-11T15:01:43","date_gmt":"2015-05-11T19:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=22800"},"modified":"2015-05-11T15:01:43","modified_gmt":"2015-05-11T19:01:43","slug":"resist-the-nanny-state-with-private-citizen-defense-funds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/22800\/resist-the-nanny-state-with-private-citizen-defense-funds\/","title":{"rendered":"Resist the Nanny State with Private Citizen Defense Funds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charles Murray at AEI has a thought-provoking idea<\/a> for pushing back against the Nanny State: private citizen defense funds.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t build tornado-proof houses; they buy house insurance,\u201d Murray explains. \u201cIn the case of the regulatory state, let\u2019s buy insurance that reimburses us for any fine that the government levies and that automatically triggers a proactive, tenacious legal defense against the government\u2019s allegation even if \u2013 and this is crucial \u2013 we are technically guilty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defending the technically guilty is designed to make overzealous regulators think twice before going after someone. The point is to concentrate enforcement resources on the worst offenders \u2013 not the weakest targets.<\/p>\n

Murray suggests two ways of funding his citizen defense initiative. \u201cThe first would be a legal foundation functioning much as the Legal Services Corporation does for the poor, except that its money will come from private donors, not the government. It would be an altruistic endeavor, operating exclusively on behalf of the homeowner or small business being harassed by the regulators. The foundation would pick up all the legal costs of defense and pay the fines when possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

But wait, there\u2019s more!<\/p>\n

\u201cThe other framework would be occupational defense funds. Let\u2019s take advantage of professional expertise and pride of vocation to drive standards of best practice,\u201d says Murray. \u201cFor example, the American Dental Association could form Dental Shield, with dentists across America paying a small annual fee. The bargain: Dentists whose practices meet the ADA\u2019s professional standards will be defended when accused of violating a regulation that the ADA has deemed to be pointless, stupid or tyrannical. The same kind of defense fund could be started by truckers, crafts unions, accountants, physicians, farmers or almost any other occupation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though it would be nice if some of the great ideas touching on regulatory reform \u2013 for example, the REINS Act \u2013 are signed into law someday, the wonderful thing about Murray\u2019s idea is that it could go into effect without any helping hand from government.<\/p>\n

You can read the entire article<\/a> at the Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charles Murray at AEI has a thought-provoking idea for pushing back against the Nanny State: private citizen defense funds. \u201cPeople don\u2019t build tornado-proof houses; they buy house insurance,\u201d Murray explains. \u201cIn the case of the regulatory state, let\u2019s buy insurance that reimburses us for any fine that the government levies and that automatically triggers a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1138,4049,84,300,3042],"class_list":["post-22800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-bureaucracy","tag-charles-murray","tag-congress","tag-regulation","tag-reins-act"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22800"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22804,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22800\/revisions\/22804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}