Quote from achilles28:
Government, like any other human agency, seeks to perpetuate it's own existence. Since it's chief duty is the administration of law, Government seeks to pass the maximum amount of law, to justify itself. Notice how Congress never repeals law? But simply piles more law and regulation on top of more laws and regulation? It's mostly the lazy, inept and control freaks that gravitate towards bureaucracy, and in the end, we have a bunch of zealots ruling over us. Not unlike the Taliban. Except these aren't religious extremists. They're legal extremists. Authoritarians. Most of these police chiefs, city councilors and homeland security types fit the mold to a T. They couldn't give a shit what is moral or right or just, they only care whether you broke one of their 50 million laws in the registry, and then they throw the book at you. It's about the raw exercise of power. Domination. Very similar to how warmongers get off on bombing Iraqis or stomping around Afghanistan for 20 years. These authoritarians get off on bankrupting your ass and sending you to prison for a Code (C) Chapter 12 Paragraph D violation. And then you're really fucked like that guy who imported lobsters and got six years in the clink.
Here's a personal story. My dad inherited a factory that sat on 5 million dollars worth of land, adjacent to a creek. In late '00, city council "declared" half the land (2.5 million dollars) as flood-land, and literally took the property. Seized it. No compensation. No money. Nothing. My dad consulted a few lawyers, they said forget it. There is nothing you can do. The city will bankrupt you in court and you'll never get the land back. Bear in mind, this is Canada. But that's how fucked up and out of control these little parasites are. That land was in our family since 1912. And they just took it. So who's the real criminal here?