I’ve been doing more research on the Buffalo, NY region and its share of problems created by decades of overbearing local government, and I came across another OpEd regarding the Buffalo/Rochestor region and a law enacted to try to solve a problem that doesn’t seem to exist: the problem with teens being out after dark. Adam McFadden, member of the Rochestor City Council, has an OpEd article in the Democrat and Chronicle titled Is curfew remedy for teen crime?.

McFadden says he has been studying for years various cities that have an established curfew to try to combat juvenile crime. His opinion is that Rochester’s policy must include a secured curfew center that would be centrally located so police officers could drop off minors in a reasonable time. Instead of throwing teens who are outside of the home at night into jail, he wants to create a new jail system for them — he calls it a secured curfew center. To get community buy-in, we would create the infrastructure to allow counselors to assess the child and family situation. He also wants “community involvement,” which to me generally means bringing in counselors from government maintained departments of Children and Family services.

In a teen is picked up for violating curfew, the parents would be fined $25 for the first offense; $50 for the second. A parent wouldn’t have to pay for a child completing some light community service. Even if the teen is doing nothing but driving around or hanging out at a restaurant with friends, they’d be “secured” in a “curfew center” and sit there with possible criminal teens until the parents can come to pay a fine and pick them up. A non-violent non-intrusive act of being in the public square is paid by fines, jail time and who knows what sort of abuse that comes along with the incarceration.

He finishes by saying I support having a curfew because I believe we must do a better job of protecting minors from crime. I read it as “I support having more government to be used to scare teens who are doing nothing wrong. Instead of penalizing actual crimes against actual victims, we’ll create new crimes so we can expand the State and expand my individual power. Rather than lowering taxes so that one parent can stay home to nurture and educate their children, we’ll have to raise taxes so even more kids have parents who are MIA during normal waking hours.”

This is nothing new to me. As usual, the State wants to be the parent and wants to reprimand people even if they haven’t committed an act of violence against a victim. As usual, I ask Where are the parents?

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By J. David Blackstone

This Memorial Day millions of American flags will be flown around the country, especially at places of business seeking a large turnout for sales, but also at private homes. Thousands of people have lost their lives seeking to guarantee the liberty of America, and those people should rightfully be remembered with honor and gratitude.

Yet sadly the liberty that these people fought for has been dying a slow and painful death. American soldiers fought and died so that Americans could be free. Yet “free” Americans are, on average, 50% enslaved to the government, judging by wages consumed through taxation. “Free” Americans are subject to myriad regulations at a multitude of levels making it nearly impossible to take any of the ordinary steps that free men might take: associating one another in a private organization, forming a private business, privately exchanging goods of value for services, building on one’s own property, even offering charitable assistance at no charge whatsoever! Government in the United States at every level has interfered with the actions of its allegedly free citizens: declaring private organizations to have public restrictions, restrictions on business that magically seem to shut out new competition while benefitting those already entrenched in an industry (and cementing the status quo long after technology and business methods have moved on), dictating prices and wages, restricting the use of land for the good of “the community,” and regulating charities to the point that they cannot economically continue to exist.

In my city I cannot even have a garage sale without permission from my feudal overlords, who conveniently brag about how municipal politics is somehow “above” partisanship and party labels — a collusion so that they can all be big government tax and spenders and violate the small government principles most Americans value without anyone crying “foul” against a fellow crony.

The sad truth is that for most Americans, the flag that businesses are flying for their Memorial Day sales and that homes are flying for their lost and honored loved ones who gave everything is a flag that is best honored by enthusiastically accepting every action of the government represented by that flag. This is not something I want to symbolize any more.

The founders of the United States understood liberty, and they understood that it meant a government that exists to secure rights — not to provide services, not to regulate industries, and not to allow one neighbor to tell another neighbor what to do. And they understood that in their case obtaining those rights meant sending a serious message to their existing government, one which had also paid lip service to liberty but offered only broken promises.

The founders symbolized resistance to the oppression of the British with the timber rattlesnake — a deadly serpent which only strikes if provoked — and with a very meaningful phrase. The phrase was not directed at neighboring countries. It was directed at their own government which had slowly encroached upon their freedoms until they ceased to exist.

Serious message for a serious subject. The British were believers in liberty; the ideals of the American Revolution were based in centuries of British legal developments (even the wording of British guarantees of liberty is sometimes preserved in our founding documents).

This Memorial Day, and on every holiday when the American flag goes up reflexively, let us remember the liberty which we have been losing. Why not fly a different flag and send a different message? It’s time to take the first step to reclaiming liberty: instructing our politicians that they do not want to step here. At the same time you’ll be taking the second step: educating your neighbors about liberty and our true heritage as Americans.

Discuss this article at the anarcho-capitalism forum.

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J. David Blackstone is quite political, a conservative, laissez-faire anarcho-capitalist, pro-life, libertarian. He agrees with the secession plank of the American Libertarian Party and he considers it the foundation of freedom. He lives with his wife and young son in the Dallas/Forth Worth Metroplex.