Townhall.com, Where Your Opinion Counts
Talk Radio:   Bill Bennett   Mike Gallagher   Dennis Prager   Michael Medved   Hugh Hewitt   
BREAKING NEWS  LeftArrow - Townhall.com : Conservative, Political, Republican   RightArrow - Townhall.com : Conservative, Political, Republican  
Columns, funnies & more in your inbox!
  • Check the boxes and send us your email address to receveive your free newsletter
  • Your daily must-read of conservative columns, cartoons and news. Coulter, Sowell, Krauthammer and more.
  • Townhall.com’s weekly inside scoop on what’s happening behind the scenes in the world of politics. When news breaks, we report.
  • Signup to receive the latest daily Townhall cartoons

Comment on: Fletch for Freedom

The Consumer Advocacy Fraud

5 Comments

off topic

F1etch, just wanted to say congrats on being re-employed. I knew it wouldn't take a smart feller like you long.

Also, it is weird how "they" erased you. It's like you never existed. Even your posts on my blog are gone! Not your new ones. Anyway.

Fletch

Welcome back buddy. As for the safety regulations; don't they really amount to a protectionist scheme adopted by the auto oligopoly and their willing "friends" in congress in order to raise barriers to entry against innovative manufacturers? I think it's precisely this bureaucratic horsepucky that keeps hydrogen fuel development on the back burner.

I know the misguided push for ethanol is more for the benefit of ADM than the consuming public.

Scottie

I see it as kind of a dance:

Step 1: Caesar demands tribute! A politician puts forth a proposal knowing full well he'll hear from the constituencies both pro and con.

Step 2: Constituencies demand that something must be implemented/stopped.

Step 3: Each side figures out which partner to dance with based on their own interests (consumers, taxpayers, voters are not considered at this point). Money flows.

Step 4: Business gets slammed for funding things they support (much media play). It is pointed out that organized labor, social lobbies, trial lawyers, etc. do the same thing (media, what media? unless it's the NRA). Everybody forgets that the process started with "Caesar demands tribute!"

Cycle repeats.

Occasionally other steps are added:

Businesses already getting soaked join together and convince the politician that, if they all pull out, he ain't gettin' elected no more. Suggestions of how to limit competition are put in place (think sugar supports, import regulations, etc.) Note: when the other side does this (i.e., the minimum wage) it's portrayed as "for the people".

And sometimes there's an addition:

Step 1a: Business (think Microsoft) doesn't pay tribute.

Step 1b: Politicians and competitors (who ARE paying in) band together to punish the malefactor (think bogus charges of monopoly).

Step 1c: After much financial damage business is permitted to continue. Havving learned its lesson, business skips to Step 3.

In each case, the corrupt business practice is facilitated (and typically initiated) by government...

...you know, that thing liberals suggest is the solution.

fletch, good exposure...

of the advocacy garbage (or "special interest groups")

This garbage has been growing so much, doing increasing damage to this country, that ive started making a list of all these garbage groups. Off the top, some of the filthiest: aclu, people (scum) for the (un) american way, peta.....

Then this garbage incites more garbage, doing more damage to the country: especially the garbage legal system, with perverted judges and other legal parasites.

The “business scares me” crowd frequently turns to a group of organizations and like-minded individuals who, oxymoronically, refer to themselves as “consumer advocates”. Let me be blunt: consumer advocacy is nothing but a thinly veiled scam designed to convince the gullible to embrace a liberal philosophy and demand that government must get ever more involved in the operations of business.

(GREAT DEFINITION, FLETCH. I would add about govt: ever more involved in everything under the sun, including peoples' individual lives.

i agree that it's all a lot of dishonest garbage. I think their goal in playing this dance, is to make permanent jobs for themselves, working their scams (including the scam that govt is). So they want to ensnare as many gullible as possible, and keep them ensnared, in order to perpetuate their jobs, status, and control. Then with those who arent gullible to buy their hoax, they seek to FORCE us into their garbage, with a constant onslaught of laws.)

This week, two “consumer advocacy” groups, Ralph Nader’s Consumer Federation for America and the aforementioned Consumers Union, testified before Congress that something must be done about the rise in gasoline prices. Their position is that more “oversight” over oil industry “market practices” is needed. It, of course, never occurred to them that the chief driver of higher gas prices has more to do with governmental regulations and environmental controls that demand different fuel “blends” as summer approaches.

(YES, IVE heard and read the same, for at least a year (about the govt regs and controls).

As to this "something must be done" routine, i think that's a pretty old routine about gasoline prices, but of course, in recent years, it's a favorite "advocacy" issue. These groups of liberal idiots spend their entire pitiful lives, wondering what they can complain about next. Ever being productive, is something they would never consider. But rather, what can they complain about, and how can they make trouble? We can bet that the "something that must be done", coming from the idiots involved, will make everything worse.

If they succeed in damaging U.S. oil companies enough, making the country even more reliant on foreign oil (from scum pits, such as venezuela, africa, and middle east), then my bet is that not only will that INCREASE the cost of oil and gasoline, it will make the country increasingly at risk to the destructive and murderous scum in the scum pits.)

Another Attempt At Legislating

Stupidity and Morality out of existence.

It ain't going to happen but they keep trying.

If I don't wish to wear a seatbelt it is a stupid decision but It Is MY decision and I should not be told to buckle up.

If I don't want to wear a helmet on my bike, again it might not be a real smart decision but who the he|| are "they" to tell me I HAVE to wear a helmet for my own good.

Consumer Advocate groups = "Bubba" in the joint.
If they say they are going to "protect" you, watch out!