We’re all criminals now

Michael Krueger, staff writer of The Constitutional Reporter

It’s late. You are asleep in your bed dreaming of acing your finals. You awake from your slumber to get up and use the restroom. You flush the toilet and climb back into bed. You are just about to fall asleep when you hear banging on your front door. Bewildered, you stumble out of bed to see who it could possibly be. You think to yourself that it must be your drunken roommate. He must have forgotten his keys. You are almost to the door when suddenly it bursts open and federal agents storm in and tackle you to the ground. You yell that you didn’t do anything. They put handcuffs around your wrists and stand you up. You demand to know what is going on—what crime you have committed. One of the agents looks you in the eyes and says, “You flushed your toilet.” Title 10 part 430.32 of the Code of Federal Regulations makes it a crime to operate a toilet that uses more than 1.6 gallons per flush.

To be sure, the FBI is hardly kicking in doors gestapo-style to arrest people for having old toilets, but the fact remains that you are in violation of federal law for doing absolutely nothing. You are a criminal, not because you murdered someone or robbed a bank, but because of the kind of toilet you own. Of course, it does not end with toilets. Among the 75,000 pages of regulations, one is certain to be found in violation of something. Whether it is how much water one’s showerhead uses, the proper sterilization of chimpanzees as per the CHIMP Act, mandatory locks on bathrooms in private homes, the kinds of labels that must be placed on clothing, or what kind of trash cans one can own, we are all criminals somehow.

Welcome to the nanny state—where the government infringes on your rights but assures you that it is perfectly ok because it is “for your own good.” Government officials, instead of dealing with issues of any real importance, are obsessed with controlling and regulating the lives of the people. They regulate everything. One code about housing construction reads, “Each habitable room shall be provided with exterior windows and/or doors having a total glazed area of not less than 8 percent of the gross floor area.” Do these bureaucrats have nothing better to do than decide how many windows someone’s living room has? If I want to buy a house that doesn’t have any windows, then isn't that my prerogative as a free individual in a supposedly free country?

Government regulations are kind of like those carnival games where everyone is a winner and gets a prize so he can feel good about himself for actually overcoming his ineptitude and winning something for a change. Only in this game your “prize” is not some cheaply made stuffed dog that is supposed to resemble Pluto but looks more like some malformed mutt. Instead, your prize is around 75,000 pieces of toilet paper with complementary paperwork, liability waiver, a safety inspection, a license and zoning permit, and a contract stating that it will only be flushed down a 1.6 gallon toilet. Basically, everyone is a loser together, but the government gets to feel good for “helping” people.

These rules have real impacts. Complying with them costs businesses $1.14 trillion. They burden farmers with unnecessary and cumbersome farming regulations, manufacturers with endless safety protocols, small business with mountains of paperwork, and the average citizen with the single greatest travesty since the Noachian Flood: the U.S. tax code.

The government has no right to intrude in the lives of the people as it currently does. These regulations are chains of slavery forced on both individuals and businesses and serve only to expand the power of the State. These government sanctioned codes, regulations, and laws erode our liberties. As Barry Goldwater wrote, “My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel out old ones that do violence to the Constitution…I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is ‘needed’ before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible.” We must not allow the State to run our lives for it will inevitably lead to serfdom and tyranny.