Not only “process as punishment” but process to gain power
Every month, it seems, brings a new story of this presidency leveling the intimidating powers of the federal government against some law-abiding citizen. Now comes a terrifying tale of how the Federal Trade Commission, a governmental Goliath, crushes an average David—because it can.
In March of this year, a small nonprofit in Cincinnati—the Music Teachers National Association—received a letter from the FTC. The agency was investigating whether the association was engaged in, uh, anticompetitive practices. […]
The association’s sin, according to the feds, rested in its code of ethics. The code lays out ideals for members to follow—a commitment to students, colleagues, society. Tucked into this worthy document was a provision calling on teachers to respect their colleagues’ studios, and not actively recruit students from other teachers.
That’s a common enough provision among professional organizations (doctors, lawyers), yet the FTC avers that the suggestion that Miss Sally not poach students from Miss Lucy was an attempt to raise prices for piano lessons. […]
MTNA Executive Director Gary Ingle, who has been at the organization 17 years—and who agreed to talk when I reached out about this case—said that he and the group’s attorneys immediately flew to Washington to talk to federal investigators. They explained that this provision had been in the group’s code for years, and that it was purely aspirational. The association has never enforced its code, and no member has been removed as a result of it.
The FTC didn’t care. […]
With a dozen employees and a $2 million budget, the group doesn’t have “the resources to fight the federal government,” Mr. Ingle says. The board immediately removed the provision from its code, but the MTNA staff still had to devote months compiling thousands of documents demanded by the agency, some going back 20 years: reports, the organization’s magazines, everything Mr. Ingle had ever written that touched on the code. Mr. Ingle estimates he has spent “hundreds upon hundreds” of hours since March complying with this federal colonoscopy.
This October, MTNA signed a consent decree—its contents as ludicrous as the investigation. The association did not have to admit or deny guilt. It must, however, read a statement out loud at every future national MTNA event warning members against talking about prices or recruitment. It must send this statement to all 22,000 members and post it on its website. It must contact all of its 500-plus affiliates and get them to sign a compliance statement.
The association must also develop a sweeping antitrust compliance program that will require annual training of its state presidents on the potential crimes of robber-baron piano teachers. It must submit regular reports to the FTC and appoint an antitrust compliance officer. (The FTC wanted the officer to be an attorney, but Mr. Ingle explained that this would “break the bank,” so the agency—how gracious—is allowing him to fill the post.) And it must comply with most of this for the next 20 years.
The MTNA has no idea how it got into the FTC cross-hairs. Someone somewhere pissed off an Obama bureaucrat and now the FTC has control of the organization for the next 20 years (if they are lucky).
From the IRS to the EPA, this is how creeping fascism works. Businesses and organizations are allowed to present themselves to the public as private enterprises, but they operate at the pleasure of an unaccountable government bureaucracy.
How’s that fundamental transformation working out, eh?
“Monopoly for me,” says the government, “but not for thee. Our eyes only see in the one direction: outwards.”
I see we have reason number 4,572 not to trust government to run health care in this country.
When the Government forgets about the First Amendment, it is time for the People to remember the Second.
this is not a country what values freedom
but also i bet you 95% of those music teachers voted for dickstain
Across much of the world and for almost all of the time of human society there were only two classes of people as defined by wealth and power. The very rich and powerful and the poor. Places where there arose a middle class which made it possible for people to transition upwards from the ranks of the poor to the wealthy/powerful have always been the exception and exceptional as societies.
One of the goals of the ideology that is expressed here today in the person of Obama is the destruction of the traditional middle class which is entrepreneurial, risk taking, small business people. They are to be replaced, in the class structure, by government functionaries who will be making roughly the same income but have a completely different way of looking, relating to the world.
The destruction and replacement of the bourgeoisie by the nomenclatura is on track.
As Jeff might say, it’s the ruling class against the rest of us.
Whoever caused this to happen, and the cronies that helped make it happen, likely revel in the power to put boots on faces. This could easily have been dismissed by some functionary at any point in the food chain of tyranny.
I believe that part of the reason this happened is that one has an agency that has to justify its existence, and the only way to do that is to demonstrate that someone is being punished for potential transgressions. They need things to point to when the are asking for next year’s budget.
What’s even worse is that this tyranny is self-perpetuating. Once one has created these various autonomous institutions, they seem to persist past the point of solving whatever problem they were created to solve. They find new missions. They will never stop finding new missions. If it goes on long enough, something almost every living creature creates as a by-product of metabolism is declared a dangerous pollutant, and few have the courage to laugh since that might draw the ire of other autonomous institutions that also need a reason to justify their continued existence.
When criminals no longer fear the law, they must learn to fear the people. The prospect that criminals might become the law is the reason for the Second Amendment.
“In small towns as well as large, good people outnumber bad people by 100 to 1. In big towns the 100 are nervous. But in small towns, it’s the one.” — Paul Harvey
Add the FTC to the list of agencies that needs to see it’s budget slashed because it has too much time and money on its hands.
Uh-oh, Obama is bowing to foreigners again…
I’m sure the FTC will get around to investigating the unions for colluding to drive up wages and keep out competitive non-union workers any time now, right?
Burn it all down and salt the Earth it stood on, because we can’t nuke it from orbit. It has gone as wrong as it should be allowed to go.