Extremely Lame

I was listening to This American Life earlier today, and the show I was listening to was called “The Audacity of Government” and focused on this administration’s behaviors with regard to getting the decisions they want at any cost. I am sure that certain people on the right will get excited and sound like howler monkeys pointing to this as evidence that NPR is this vast biased left-wing pinko commie organization designed to bring down democracy and institute socialism, but really, if one thinks about it, it’s something that conservatives should ideally be more concerned with if they’re genuinely concerned for smaller government.

Instead of focusing on the big things this administration has done that have been getting media attention, Ira Glass and the producers focused on little things that no one has heard of to show, I imagine, a record of this administration fighting tooth and nail over even the most minor of issues and non-issues even when capitulating to reason would save both time and money.

Example one.  There is a federal law that grants death benefits to the family of any peace officer who dies in the line of duty. A pair of auxiliary police officers in New York were killed in the line of duty. The Justice department denied the families benefits because they weren’t real police officers, despite the fact that they wear police uniforms and they go to a police academy for training. So why are their families not entitled to benefits? Oh, it’s because the Department of Justice has re-interpreted it so that they aren’t considered peace officers since they aren’t allowed to arrest people. They can only detain them. When the families sued and won their case, the DOJ appealed the decision and fought it just as aggressively there as well, despite the fact that they were spending more on their defense than the benefits they were fighting to pay.

Example two. At the turn of the twentieth century, a treaty was signed between the Canadian and American governments establishing an independent international agency to keep the border between the countries well demarcated and to prevent any more bitter hostilities as citizens of both countries continued to expand westward. This International Boundary Commision was created as an independent commission whose members swore an oath to protect the treaty instead of to their nations of origin to prevent politicians from trying to manipulate the commission into moving the border away from the 49th parallel.

In order to maintain the border properly demarcated and prevent encroachment, a swath ten feet wide on either side of the border is maintained free of trees or man-made settlements. A few years ago, a new homeowner built an abutment on her property to prevent litter from the nearby border crossing from getting on her property. Unfortunately, it was within ten feet of the border and attracted the attention of the commission, who told her that she was violating an 80-year-old treaty. So, like any red-blooded American, she sued the commission.

Initially, when asked advice on what to do, the government told the American half of the commission that they would have to hire their own lawyer since they were an independent body. So, they did. They lost and appealed. During the appeal, the government came up to the American commissioner and told them to fire the lawyer they hired and turn over all documents regarding the case under pain of termination. Unfortunately, this isn’t a position you can be fired from, similar to a Supreme Court Justice or the head of the SEC. So, the government does the next best thing. They appoint a new commissioner without technically getting rid of the old one. According to the old commissioner’s aides, the new guy was in there for one day to read over everything and then just hasn’t come back.

Example three. A young woman comes to the United States, falls in love, gets married, and then the young couple starts filing all the paperwork to get her a green card. The paperwork has been filed and they are waiting for their interview with Immigration Services. You know, the one where they ask all kinds of personal questions to make sure you are actually married. Before the bureaucracy gets around to them, her husband has a heart attack in his sleep and dies.

Because they were not married for two years, the Immigration Services folks deny that she is a spouse of an American citizen and have her taken away in chains and locked up and tried to deport her. Her lawyer was able to get her out of jail and prevented her deportation. When the case went to the 9th Circuit court, Immigration Services lost, so they create another reason to deny her. Furthermore, they say that the decision only holds in the 9th Circuit and they will continue to deny similar requests out of hand in all other Circuits.

Hear the entire radio show at ThisAmericanLife.org.