Roger’s Rules

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November 25th, 2008 7:45 am

What’s wrong with America

By disposition, I am much more interested in calling attention to what’s right with America, especially at a moment when the professional hand-wringers are out in force. But every now and then I come across something so absurd, and so utterly typical of the bad things that are nipping at the heels of this great country, that I have to throw up my hands in exasperation.

Consider this episode from Strasburg, Illinois. Like many other municipalities across the country, Strasburg has been hit hard by the recent economic turmoil. So when the Stewardson-Strasburg school district needed a new electric sign, it seemed like good old American ingenuity–not to mention good old American volunteerism and generosity–when members of a local booster club raised some dough, bought a sign, and rounded up some folks to put up the sign free and for nothing. Good going, right? Wrong. At least, wrong if you are a meddlesome state bureaucrat with the Illinois Department of Labor (IDOL) and are charged with enforcing the state’s Prevailing Wage Act.

Prevailing Wage what? Yes, that’s right folks, the unions and the duly elected representatives in Illinois have gotten together and promulgated a stupid law that, in essence, makes donating money or labor a crime. They don’t put it quite like that, of course. Instead, they sit in their offices of circumlocution sucking on the public teat and tell people that “laborers, workers and mechanics employed on public works construction projects [must be paid] no less than the general prevailing rate of wages (consisting of hourly cash wages plus fringe benefits) for work of a similar character in the county where the work is performed.”How’s that for stifling freedom, stamping out frugality, and basically giving voluntarism a bad name? [UPDATE: Just to clarify, a couple of employees of the company that from which the sign was purchased also helped: they were paid, but not at the prevailing wage.]

Quoth Angie Helmuth, president of Supporters of Stewardson-Strasburg, “We’re just a small community trying to do what’s right, and now I’ve got to go through all of this.”

I feel for her. As the Canadian journalist Ezra Levant, who was harassed by the so-called “Human Rights Commission” in Canada for publishing those infamous Danish cartoons of Mohammad, put it “the process is the punishment.” On one side you have these preposterous petty tyrants (in the case of IDOL, they’re called “conciliators”–how George Orwell would have like that!) armed with the power of the state, on the other side you have individuals and local communities endeavoring to stand on their own two feet and live their lives without “bailouts” and unmolested by state interference.

But such autonomy is the one thing these miniature despots can’t abide. They don’t want people to be independent. They don’t want local communities to take care of their own needs. They want to meddle. They want to be the sole source of sustenance and labor–and they want to do it, of course, on their own terms, enforcing their own requirements for who gets to work, when, under what conditions, and how much they are paid. This, as Friedrich Hayek observed, is the road to serfdom. As Hayek put it in the great book of that title, “economic control is not merely the control of a sector of human life . . . ; it is the control of the means for all our ends. And whoever has sole control of the means must also determine which ends are to be served, which values are to be rated higher and which lower–in short, what men should believe and strive for.” It is, in short, a form of tyranny.

Ms Helmuth got the message. She called an IDOL official about the case of the donated sign: “Now you’re telling me anything that was donated, I would have to pay prevailing wage on it? Then why would I want to donate anything?” Why, indeed.

Meanwhile, President-elect Obama is waiting in the wings with his plans for various “mandatory volunteer” programs. Depressing prospect, what?

Here’s a possible silver-lining moment: all those state officials are elected. Sooner or later, they will come up for reelection. If I lived in Strasburg, Illinois, I would give up volunteering for anything except initiatives to turn the bums out of office.

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43 Comments

1. Kent Guida:

It’s the final destruction of local self-government in the broad sense — people doing for themselves what needs to be done. That was the foundation for national self-government according to Tocqueville. National self-government was possible because Americans were good at local self-government. Destroy one and you will eventually destroy the other. Hayek, Tocqueville’s disciple, saw things the same way.
You couldn’t invent a more perfect illustration of Tocqueville’s thesis.

Nov 25, 2008 - 8:46 am 2. Marshall:

The correct answer in this case is to politely reply to IDOL, thanking them for their concern, but that the city of Strausberg, IL has no intention of obeying them.

Send copies of the letter to as many media outlets as you can think of.
Send IDOL’s response to all the same media outlets.

Nov 25, 2008 - 10:53 am 3. NJclosetconservative:

Gee whiz. I just can’t wait for some of that Illinois progress to be imposed on the nation.

Nov 25, 2008 - 12:03 pm 4. Lefroy:

This needs a bit of deconstruction lol. Without seeing the whole Act, the bit Roger quoted suggests that what the act prescribes is that workers on government-funded projects – “official” projects if you like – should be paid the same as other workers. Now, whether that’s a good law or not I have no idea, but I suspect that it says nothing about work done by volunteers for school districts and the like, and has no application whatever to the volunteers of Stewardson-Strasburg.

The depressing bit, I agree, is that some bureaucrats think it DOES apply. As Levant says, the punishment – in this case, entirely unwarranted anyway – is in the process.

Nov 25, 2008 - 2:55 pm 5. gaetano catelli:

i think you’re right, Lefroy. see: http://www.ag.state.il.us/consumers/Prevailing_Wage_Act.pdf

Nov 25, 2008 - 4:48 pm 6. Pajamas Media » What’s Wrong With America:

[...] Read the entire piece here. [...]

Nov 26, 2008 - 2:25 am 7. G-Ma:

I read the link above. The operative word is employer. The sign was to
be installed by volunteers. Volunteers do not have an employer.
Mandatory volunteer is a oxymoron!

Nov 26, 2008 - 4:30 am 8. Barb:

We recently had an article in The Plain Dealer about trying to force local Amish families to accept food stamps. They were beside themselves with worry because these people refused handouts.

Nov 26, 2008 - 5:15 am 9. locomotivebreath1901:

Lawyers and unions: Guardians of the entrenched nanny state.

More insanity as NY churches ordered not to shelter homeless.

Your tax dollars at work, people!

Nov 26, 2008 - 6:40 am 10. Mike:

This stuff is only going to get worse as state bureaucracies get larger and need to justify their existence. I live in a southwestern state and so far we are fairly free of this crap but it is only a matter of time. Reply # 2 above is the correct response to the situation. Most of these meddling bureaucrats are like cockroaches, they can’t stand the light of day.
—————————————
By the way, I hope all you rich liberals out there are going to pay a bunch of taxes because Joe Biden said it’s your patriotic duty to do so and I am waiting for my share of the free stuff Obama promised me.

Nov 26, 2008 - 7:04 am 11. Paul:

I’m very happy to see that Illinois is garnering some national attention here to shine the light on this hell hole. Hopefully, someday we can get the same attention as Tibet and Darfur and perhaps one day we’ll be liberated. There is very little hope for Illinois- I know this almost intuitively because I’m steeped in it on a daily basis. It’s very hard to communicate with people that aren’t from Illinois the hopeless stupidity that has doomed our State to third-world status for at least another generation. I’m glad some of it is coming to the attention of the outside world. Maybe the resistance can get some allied help here?

Nov 26, 2008 - 7:25 am 12. Roman Con:

First, they came for the PTA, and I was silent…

Nov 26, 2008 - 7:28 am 13. bill greene:

There were very few government employees and no union members in America during its first 300 years (1620-1920) when it grew from a wilderness to rapidly to become the supreme nation in the world–in both freedom and prosperity — A classic success story of a free people acting as individuals unfettered by restrictions, taxation, academics, or bureaucratic regulations.

Today, even in a small Illinois city, the long arm of governmental regulation and labor unions reaches in to leave no good deed unpunished. The intellectuals, do-gooders, and academics have teamed up with municipal unions and government bureaucrats with a single purpose in mind–to re-distribute the national income according to their latest vision. Can the Fall and Decline of America be long in coming ?

Nov 26, 2008 - 7:28 am 14. SteveInNJ:

They were beside themselves with worry because these people refused handouts.

The nerve! It’s just plain un-American to refuse handouts, especially from the government.

Nov 26, 2008 - 7:29 am 15. ベルエポック美容専門学校:

はじめましてベルエポックです。
よりしくお願いします。

Nov 26, 2008 - 7:48 am 16. The Historian:

EDUCATORS NIGHTMARE: THE REAL THANKSGIVING STORY
This is what teachers don’t want our kids to know about the Thanksgiving holiday:

http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2008/11/educators-nightmare-real-thanksgiving.html

Nov 26, 2008 - 8:54 am 17. Wild Bill:

A way around…there’s always a way…tally all costs, material and labor, keep a good spreadsheet, then donate ‘prevailing’ wages, etc. Send this along with the letters to all local/regional media. More light of day.

Nov 26, 2008 - 9:36 am 18. Richard:

Heeerrrre it comes!! It’s “Change you can believe in” or is that; change you’d BETTER believe in, comrade.

What I find even more depressing than the actual absurdity of this situation is that these people just stood and accepted it? Can anyone imagine if this had been 75 years ago? The messenger would have been running out of town hoping he’d make it alive.

The rule of law; just because it is a rule of law does not make it just,lawful or worthy of any kind of respect. This is the kind of arrogance unopposed authority breeds.

Nov 26, 2008 - 9:49 am 19. AdrianS:

SIGN THE PETITION TO FORCE BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA TO PRESENT HIS QUALIFICATIONS.

PETITION FOR PUBLIC RELEASE OF
BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA’S BIRTH CERTIFICATE

To: Electoral College, Congress of the United States, Federal Elections Commission, U.S. Supreme Court, President of the United States, other controlling legal authorities

Whereas, by requirement of the United States Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, no one can be sworn into office as president of the United States without being a natural born citizen;

Whereas, there is sufficient controversy within the citizenry of the United States as to whether presidential election winner Barack Obama was actually born in Hawaii as he claims;

Whereas, Barack Obama has refused repeated calls to release publicly his entire Hawaiian birth certificate, which would include the actual hospital that performed the delivery;

Whereas, lawsuits filed in several states seeking only proof of the basic minimal standard of eligibility have been rebuffed;

Whereas, Hawaii at the time of Obama’s birth allowed births that took place in foreign countries to be registered in Hawaii;

Whereas, concerns that our government is not taking this constitutional question seriously will result in diminished confidence in our system of free and fair elections;

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=81550

The above article appears on WorldNetDaily.

Nov 26, 2008 - 10:29 am 20. Karin:

I live near Amish country, in upstate NY, and true to form of nanny-NYS, the local beaurocrats are always at loggerheads with the Amish, particularly when it comes to nit-picking and obscure building codes. Now, I agree that the Amish should accept smoke detectors as a gift from God, but as for all the rest, I really think the Amish know how to build things, and build them well.

Nov 26, 2008 - 11:28 am 21. Ursa Major:

Simply another example of the utter failure of government at the local, county, state and federal level. We the people are being played for fools, and now we have elected the most unqualified person in the United States Congress to be president who can deliver nothing but misery to the very people who supported him. And I predict that these same people will turn on him in less than six months after Jan 20.

Nov 26, 2008 - 11:49 am 22. always right:

14. SteveInNJNov 26, 2008 – 7:29 am
The nerve! It’s just plain un-American to refuse handouts, especially from the government.

You are so right.

Not only it is un-American, it is down right dangerous. We wouldn’t want the self-reliant independent spirit to spread now, would we?

Nov 26, 2008 - 12:27 pm 23. Historical update:

Just an historical note – I believe all states have some form of the Federal Davis-Bacon act that requires any provider of public works projects to pay their employees at the prevailing wage for their labor. For nearly all government project (Federal, State and Local) the prevailing wage has generally meant union wages and benefits. For the most part these laws are aimed at public works projects where bids and contracts are secured by the governmental body to the work to be performed. Generally there is a minimum dollar amount that requires compliance with the laws. I have not reviewed the Illinois statute but suspect that the “concilitator” has most likely overstepped their authority in applying this law to this situation.

Nov 26, 2008 - 12:41 pm 24. Historical update:

I forgot one other important detail. These laws were enacted in the 1930’s as part of the New Deal program to get the economy moving. Despite the intent, these laws have done nothing more than made government projects (including highways) far more expensive they they would be with true competitive bidding.

Nov 26, 2008 - 12:51 pm 25. Lefroy:

Historical Update has nailed it, thank you. This is not a law that makes it impossible to do volunteer work (that situation pertains, or pertained, in Denmark I believe – really).

However what is appalling, and creepy, and not at all my idea of America, is that some bureaucrats in some government labor regulation department thought it did apply, and solemnly proposed to make criminals out of a group of moms and dads who pitched in to fix up the local school.

The phenomenon is not unfamiliar. Bureaucrats recruited to government agencies with particular regulatory resposibilities – eg labor, corporations, transport, competition – are often ideologues. When the boredom that occasionally attends every kind of employment sets in, such people realise that it can be banished, or at least suppressed, by getting sustenance and nourishment from a sense of mission – we’re here to make a better world, and we’re on the side of the angels. That’s what causes rank stupidities like this.

Nov 26, 2008 - 2:33 pm 26. David Denholm:

Historical update is only part right. The first prevailing wage law was enacted in Kansas in 1891. Kansas has since repealed the law. Illinois prevailing wage law is a depression era relic. It should be repealed. The real problem with prevailing wage laws is that the prevailing wages don’t prevail. They are almost always set to union wage rates as a political sop to the construction unions. Consider this, in 2007 approximately 38 percent of construction workers in Illinois were union members. It is impossible that union wages prevail but that doesn’t matter to the politically motivated bureaucrats.

Nov 26, 2008 - 3:42 pm 27. cedarford:

bill greene:
There were very few government employees and no union members in America during its first 300 years (1620-1920) when it grew from a wilderness to rapidly to become the supreme nation…. A classic success story of a free people acting as individuals unfettered by restrictions, taxation, academics, or bureaucratic regulations.
….. The intellectuals, do-gooders, and academics have teamed up with municipal unions and government bureaucrats with a single purpose in mind–to re-distribute the national income…..Can the Fall and Decline of America be long in coming ?

1. America from 1620 to 1920 had it’s industries and domestic market protected by tariffs. Blocking more efficient overseas competitors like Britain and Germany allowed us to grow and become a great nation – rather than just ship our national resources off to those who could make finished goods easier and cheaper.

2. In America from 1620 to 1920, any American business owner that shipped his factory jobs and technology overseas would be considered a traitor. Any employer found to be using unauthorized illegal Chinese, Mexican workers would have his place of business shut down, even burned.

3. Davis-Bacon is a problem, but remember that in the Depression when it was enacted, we had 27% unemployment and we had Guard with machine guns protecting the Southern border against illegal workers. We even had the West Coast’s state police turning away Okies and other economic migrants from undercutting West Coast labor rates.

4. Davis-Bacon sounds misapplied in this case, but I think there will be more government job protection measures and more workers seeking the security of a union or government job – because so many Americans see their family’s livelihood and future endangered by the gutting of good American private sector jobs by free markets and free trade sending it all to Asia. Simply to enrich a small band of owners and professionals in law and finance and import/export merchandise channels at the expense of the American public.

A trillion dollar trade debt, and trading our GNP growth potential so to help China and India grow at at 8%-11% annual rate. It made a mockery of supply side theory. And our slow growth despite huge deficits “to prime the consumer economy” means we are falling further and further behind the supply siders illusion that we would have such a robust economic growth that we would “grow our way out of deficits”.

Look to Davis-Bacon gathering strength, new laws to:
Either open up elite jobs like lawyering and defense contracting to foreign competition – or accept new variants of Davis-Bacon applied to IT workers, drug makers, autos etc. – not a single IT troubleshooting, a single tablet of aspirin or vehicle but those made or services performed by American workers. Which would be the end of “win-win” globalism and China’s rise. Oh well..

Nov 26, 2008 - 9:46 pm 28. JKB:

Well, it would seem to me that the volunteers have a nice tax deduction for their donation of time. Since the state law prohibits them from valuing their time less than the “prevailing rate” they get that even if their historical pay rate is less. Wouldn’t try it on federal taxes but how could the state of Illinois complain about a subject complying with the state’s law.

I know this won’t work in practice but in the paper, it would force the IDOL would either have to agree with it or acknowledge their real purpose of trying to prohibit volunteers from doing work high priced union labor could be doing at a lesser quality.

Nov 26, 2008 - 9:56 pm 29. Walworth:

I posted this on another PM article.

A Mundelein, Illinois school (yes, I’m another suffering Illinoisan) with a high Spanish speaking population received recognition for raising test scores, but then the State Board of Education found out they weren’t teaching ESL students the “legal” way and PUNISHED THEM by denying them funding.

‘Bilingual progress comes with a price. An English focus for Spanish-speaking pupils lifted scores but could cost $175,000 in funding’

http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2008/feb/27/news/chi-english-teachingfeb27

For the dumbest comment uttered by a State Board of Education spokesman, the award goes to Matt Vanover who said, “When we monitor the bilingual program, we’re looking at the services they are supposed to legally provide. We’re not looking at how they are doing.”

Yes, raising test scores is not the objective; following ineffective policies is. Of course, bureaucracy and ineffective policies go hand and hand.

Nov 26, 2008 - 10:10 pm 30. Jason Sieckmann:

The trouble (aside from labor laws) is the concept of ‘public’ property. There shouldn’t BE public property as no has a ‘right’ to education.

Then, as private property owners, the schools management could choose who to do their projects with; whether they are students or contracted laborers. By guaranteeing these people checks via the government; and combining that with labor laws; they have no incentives to work hard and get the job done-

-though they are guaranteed their work and pay just the same.

If you are advocating separating state from citizen activities, I wonder how you would feel about tax dollars going towards scholarships and the military to sponsor the NROTC at Columbia in New York. http://mediacondom.com/?p=396

Nov 26, 2008 - 11:26 pm 31. ew:

can the government just leave us alone- just a little bit? Is the controlling leftist illuminati going to be telling me which tv stations to watch and when soon? Am I going to get a government mandated amount of coffee to drink each morning? This is ridiculous. Charity should never be forced to be paid.

Nov 27, 2008 - 7:16 am 32. usd6:

protect and preserve these rights?

Nov 27, 2008 - 10:47 am 33. Tim J.:

“The correct answer in this case is to politely reply to IDOL, thanking them for their concern, but that the city of Strausberg, IL has no intention of obeying them.”

Or, as Brigadier General McAuliffe put it in his one-word reply to the Nazis…

“Nuts”.

Nov 27, 2008 - 2:11 pm 34. Horace Wells:

While this flap by the unions over a sign is both self serving and contemptible there are far worse problems and tragedies to wring hands over than the little list Mr. Kimball set forth. Sometimes, I think people have it so darn good that they obsess over the smallest things.

Nov 27, 2008 - 6:46 pm 35. Horace Wells:

Another point, to be a stickler to purpose, was adding teh Ezra Levant HRC flap. I thought Mr. Kimball was hand wringing about America, I guess he is too deep to remember Canada is another country. But he is such a fun loving, optimistic American so why burden him with little things.

Nov 27, 2008 - 6:50 pm 36. myth buster:

Jason,
The ROTC scholarships the military hands out are part of a contract. They are money the students have earned, just as much as anyone who accepts a signing bonus has earned that money. Wages need not be payed at the same time they are earned. True, most compensation is earned within the pay period for which it is payed, but there is nothing wrong with things like signing bonuses (advance pay obliging you to work for the employer for a specific period of time) or pensions (deferred compensation taken in lieu of higher pay, so the individual doesn’t have to worry about saving for retirement). Every graduate of the ROTC program is obliged to at least four years of active duty service upon graduation, with certain specialties having obligations of eight years or more. By the way, if you’re going to spell out an acronym, get the name right! It’s Reserve Officer Training Corps.

Full disclosure, I am a Midshipman in the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps, Wolverine Battalion (University of Michigan).

Nov 27, 2008 - 11:38 pm 37. myth buster:

Almost forgot to mention: the NROTC program doesn’t tolerate people who waste their time and the taxpayer’s money. We need technically competent people, especially engineers. We have a shortage of nuclear officers, and when half of our nuclear arsenal is based off of nuclear powered submarines, nuclear officers are a must. So where would you prefer to recruit them from, and how would you go about recruiting them, Jason? Aren’t you glad there are people willing to accept a scholarship to attend college in exchange for cutting themselves off completely from the rest of the world, including their own families, while they drive a submarine around for three months at a time, all for the purpose of making sure that anyone who would want to kill us knows that we have fourteen submarines each armed with 192 475-kiloton nuclear warheads with a precision of 15 feet scattered all around the world, and nobody but the Captain, XO, Officer of the Deck, and Navigator of those submarines knows where they are. You sleep soundly in your bed because our enemies know that if they dare to use nuclear weapons on us, we will rain down a nuclear holocaust on them from those SSBNs, and they are powerless to stop us. If you want peace, make sure any potential enemy knows that war is suicide.

Nov 27, 2008 - 11:50 pm 38. Tom Paine:

Dear AdrianS, (comment #19)

MoveOn moron. That round is over.

You lost.

Nov 28, 2008 - 3:24 pm 39. Micha Elyi:

This holiday season, help starve a feeding bureaucrat. Go John Galt.

Nov 28, 2008 - 3:54 pm 40. Steven Earl Salmony:

See the “Horsemen of the Apocalypse” ride during “blitz” of Wal Mart in Valley Stream, NY.

“Blitz” lines are a sign of the times. These ‘lines’ are designed to evince rampaging greed. How many other ploys can you think of that surreptitiously exploit human avarice?

Here and now we behold the chimera, the “paint horse and its pin-striped-suited rider, named GREED” being followed closely by a pale horse ridden by Death.

Nov 29, 2008 - 7:42 am 41. Will Becker:

It’s Socialism people,wake up!

Nov 30, 2008 - 9:28 am 42. Talnik:

Re Horace @ #s 34 and 35: If you ignore the little things, they grow to be larger things. The “far worse problems and tragedies” of which you write were once on a “little list” of things that people ignored.

Nov 30, 2008 - 5:38 pm 43. deguello:

America,like every Western natiion,is choking in its own toxic, cultural BS. You cannot exist without acknowledging reality,and Western ideologies of personal freedom,ie;brainless consumption,and gratification,
pc,multiculturalism,relativism,”progressive”-education,post modernism,are all dedicated to evading reality.The enthusiastic handibng out of mortages to the unqualified,and the subsequent buying of that debt by supposedly competent finaciers,not only constitutes another example of criminal reality avoidance,but shows that absent a moral-ethical code,whoring for short-term gain,replaces all other activites,and ultimately destroys the society that fosters it. The U$A is NOT coming out of this;nor does it deserve to.What did Americans do about the financial thugs who sunk the economy? Why they re elected them with large majotities in congress,and voted for one of them for president..Decadence:Live it!Laugh at it! Survive it! A national deguello is coming!Let’s lock and load!

Dec 3, 2008 - 11:43 am