Nanny State: Is Austin's 10-1 City Council overdoing it with the regulations? Casey Claiborne, Fox7Austin.com
Council Member Ann Kitchenwho has spear-headed the added safety measures doesn't think its over-regulation.
"You're talking about very, very basic common sense rules. Requiring fingerprinting, requiring you identify the car and requiring that you not stop in the middle of the travel lane, you can't get much simpler than those 3 things," Kitchen said.
When you hear, or read, a politicians say "common sense rules" you should be wary. Because what they really mean by 'common sense' is two-fold.
1. In the interest of whomever is providing them patronage. (In this case, the taxicab companies who have been fighting Uber and Lyft's intrusion into their monopoly)
2. Regulation to the standard of the most dense in society.
Politicians either consider themselves to be the smartest people in the room, or they're getting paid. Not always illegally mind you (although that certainly can happen) but in the form of patronage and campaign donations and in the form of post-public service positions and "consulting" jobs (see former Mayor Lee Leffingwell whose working for Uber).
All of this is perfectly legal, just as it's legal for Houston-area Legislator Boris Miles to have an ownership stake in businesses doing business with the State. Until just recently insider trading did not run afoul of U.S. Congressional rules. Although, as a private citizen, you can be thrown into federal prison for it.
Even the media doesn't break out in the vapours about it any longer. It's just the way things are you see? And if start-up businesses are thwarted, if economic innovation is stifled, you can't make an omelette after all without breaking some eggs. It's OK however, because these same media outlets support expanding Welfare and Medicare (and raising taxes on those making just slightly more than they think they will earn) in an effort to help those poor souls who might otherwise find gainful employment but for government interference.
It's intrusion of the worst sort and it's applauded, and supported, by both Statist progressives and so-called "Constitutional" conservatives. Support dependent on whose ox is being gored.
Here's the issue. There's thin line between an benevolent authoritarian and an oppressive one. Typically that line lies between whether or not they're going after something that you like. And, trust me on this, they will ALWAYS eventually try to take away something that you like.
It's only a matter of time.
