A recent article
in Macomb Daily touts a Warren,
Michigan mayor as stating that knows that his local city ordinances conflict
with state law and he is happy that it does.
This Mayor (James Fouts) seems to believe that just because he does not
like fireworks that he can defy the State Legislature and do whatever he
wants. Similarly, local governments in
Indiana understand that the State Legislature has enacted a state law that gives
the State Fire Marshal the ability to regulate fireworks and protected certain
days from local interference as to their use and they don’t care. They know what the law says and they are
ignoring it to satisfy their own agendas.
Local
governments and their attorneys are researching the state law, knowing that
they have limited authority to act, but are flaunting the rule of law and
enacting ordinances which prohibit the sale and use of fireworks. They are doing this in the name of “public
safety” as their justification. The fact
that the state law does not give them this power is completely ignored. They are going to enact their bans and impose
their will on a commodity like fireworks because in their twisted sense of
logic they are “doing what is right”.
This same
mentality from government officials has given the United States a black eye in
the past and continues to haunt us today.
The US government supported slavery, removed Native Americans from their
lands and marched them to barren wastelands (many dying along the way),
interned Japanese in WWII, adopted the concept of “separate but equal” as the
law of the land and destroyed most of our civil liberties with enactment of
various measures to “protect us”.
Before
anyone starts ranting and raving that I am comparing the loss of the use and
sale of fireworks to some of the most egregious transgressions in American
history, it must be understood that the point being made is that all of these
actions were taken by government officials that wanted to ignore the rule of
law and do what was “right” in their minds.
It does not seem to matter to society that in later years, history showed
these policies to be flawed in logic or that there were long term negative consequences
to the entire social fabric for which we are still paying the price. The use and sale of fireworks are not akin to
the enslavement of people, but it is a symptom of an overall disease of local government
officials that are deciding (with only minimal input and research) their will
on the majority.
As a
former elected official, I fully understand how the game works. Someone calls the office of the local county commissioner
or mayor raising hell about this thing or that thing. The immediate reaction of the elected
official is to enact some sort of official pronouncement, ordinance or law to
address the situation and “solve the problem”.
The logic of an elected official in this capacity is that if one person
takes the time to call then this must be a significant and serious issue for
lots of people. The reality is not the
case. More times than not, the person
calling the office raising hell is just one person that has some particular ax
to grind or agenda and they know how the game is played. They call the office, make a nuisance of
themselves until they get what they want.
The saying that the “squeaky wheel gets the grease” is more of a mantra
in government than a quaint saying.
The fact that
a rule of law exists is one of the cornerstones of our democratic society. We go around the globe touting our “rule of
law” but back home we step all over it, ignore it, bend it and then when our
histrionics don’t accomplish our own agenda, we simply don’t follow it. A “rule of law” is more than just a party
favor to accept or reject depending on our own elected officials fiat.
Elected
officials in Michigan and Indiana should be ashamed that they make these types of
decisions to ignore law because they simply disagree with the majority. They should be held personally accountable
and not rely upon the public coffers to pay for their defense and bad
judgments. Elected officials can trample
rights and impose arbitrary rules all without any type of accountability
because we let them!
Before
opponents start railing over this point, see my next blog post!
