Voting Won’t Fix This

Zero tolerance policies are one of those topics no candidates want to touch. Another policy no candidates want to touch are permits. Permits, like the income tax, started off as a requirement that only effected a handful of people but quickly ballooned into effecting everybody. At first major projects required permits. If you wanted to build a building, for example, you needed to acquire a permit from the city. Today almost everything requires a permit. And if you don’t obtain a government mandated permit you can end up facing time in a cage:

Reulas, who hails from Stockton, California, is part of an informal potluck group on Facebook, where people who like to cook can trade recipes, cooking tips, and occasionally dishes. It’s not uncommon for a someone to offer a small amount of money for an equally small amount of food, says Reulas.

According to Fox 40, someone in the Facebook group offered to buy a plate of Ruelas’s signature ceviche, a Mexican seafood fish. That person was an undercover cop carrying out a sting: twelve potluck participants were arrested for selling food without a permit.

Reulas refused to plead guilty and accept a lesser sentence—probation—so her case is headed to trial.

Good on Reulas for refusing the plea deal. If more people opted to fight their cases the court system would quickly be overflowing with cases and a denial of service attack against the courts would effectively be underway. But the fact remains that by refusing to take the plea deal she faces the risk of being found guilty and thrown into a cage for the crime of selling food.

When you go to cast you vote today remember that these seemingly minor issues aren’t being addressed by candidates even though they are negatively impacting the lives of people across the country. Sure, one or two city council members might pay a bit of lip service to reducing the number of permits required within their city but by and large no candidates are even whispering about the burden of needing permits for even the most minor activities. And there’s no motivation for them to do so because the State rakes in a ton of cash off of permits.

No matter how hard you vote today nothing will change. A few figureheads will be swapped around but the machinations of leviathan won’t be altered.

2 thoughts on “Voting Won’t Fix This”

  1. That person was an undercover cop carrying out a sting: twelve potluck participants were arrested for selling food without a permit.

    “That person” should be stopped from further predations by whatever means prove necessary. That’s how we take freedom back.

    Grammar cop: effect as a verb means “to bring to pass”; affected/affecting would be correct in the context above.

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