On April 23, National Public Radio reports, the US Federal Trade Commission voted “to ban nearly all noncompetes, employment agreements that typically prevent workers from joining competing businesses or launching ones of their own.” The ban is largely retroactive, but does exclude existing agreements for the high-salary “senior executives” most people associate with the idea of noncompete agreements.

It’s a terrible idea, and not just because it’s likely unconstitutional in at least two ways (the Constitution forbids ex post facto legislation and only allows the federal government to control interstate, not local, commerce).

Yes, we’ve all heard the horror stories about low-wage retail workers being told they can’t leave one coffee shop or restaurant to draw espresso shots or make sandwiches for another. In that context, noncompete clauses look less like a way to keep key leadership personnel away from competitors, and more like a tool that lets vengeful, authoritarian managers/owners continue abusing former employees who don’t like working for vengeful, authoritarian managers/owners.

But the existence of vengeful, authoritarian managers/owners is a terrible reason for letting a vengeful, authoritarian Federal Trade Commission seize even more control over how American businesses operate.

If you have a problem with a prospective employer’s demand that you accept a noncompete clause, there’s a simple solution: Don’t accept the job.

Yes, that might make it harder for you to find the job you want or even need.

MANY things can make it harder for you to find the job you want or even need.

Maybe the workplace is 30 miles from your home, and you don’t own a car, and can’t afford one. Should the FTC mandate that all employers buy cars for all their employees? If you answer “yes” to that one, we’re simply not on the same political page and you can probably give up on this column now.

The “problem” of noncompete clauses for low-wage workers is in the process of “solving” itself right now. Unemployment rates are low — it’s a worker’s, not an employer’s, market. When vengeful, authoritarian managers/owners end up working double shifts because nobody wants to hire on, they’ll tone down the vengeful authoritarianism or they’ll go out of business.

Standing up for yourself instead of settling for whatever you’re offered may be hard, but it’s a better solution than turning more control of the American economy over to Lina Khan and Company. Your interests and theirs are not the same.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

On April 15, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was sentenced to 18 months in prison for involuntary manslaughter over her role in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust, a movie production for which Gutierrez-Reed served as an armorer. Actor Alec Baldwin faces trial in July, on the same charge and regarding the same incident.

Most news stories describe the incident, in which Baldwin fired a gun that was supposed to be loaded with blanks but which turned out to have live rounds in the chamber, as an “accidental shooting.”

On any given day, my news feeds show me other stories of so-called “accidental shootings,” usually involving children and guns which are mishandled by, or left unattended by, their adult owners.

The phrase “accidental shooting” is usually a contradiction in terms. There are, in the normal course of events, only two kinds of shootings: Intentional and negligent.

An intentional shooting occurs when a competent individual intentionally loads, points, and fires a properly functioning firearm.

A negligent shooting occurs when a competent individual fails to do his or her job. That job includes:

1. Knowing what’s in a firearm’s chamber or magazine before pointing it.
2. Taking care not to point a firearm at anything the shooter doesn’t want to hit.
3. Taking care to not pull the trigger if there’s anything or anyone other than the intended target in front of the firearm.
4. Taking care to secure the firearm such that people who shouldn’t have access to it DON’T have access to it.

Truly “accidental” shootings are incredibly rare. Under anything like normal conditions, guns can’t load themselves and fire themselves without human intervention.

In the Rust incident, it was Gutierrez-Reed’s responsibility to ensure that the weapon was not loaded with live rounds before it got onto the set and into Baldwin’s hands.

It was also Baldwin’s responsibility to ensure that the weapon was not loaded with live rounds before he pointed it at people, and especially before he pulled the trigger.

Baldwin claims he DIDN’T pull the trigger, implying a defective weapon that Gutierrez-Reed, as armorer, shouldn’t have missed. According to ABC News, an FBI analysis concluded that it couldn’t have fired without the trigger being pulled.

The Rust shooting was no “accident.” Like most so-called “accidental shootings,” it was the end result of negligence by one or more people.

Gun ownership is your right. Gun safety is your responsibility. Take both seriously.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“I’m going to put the entire U.S. budget on blockchain,” presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. says, “so that any American — every American can look at every budget item in the entire budget anytime they want 24 hours a day.”

That’s a great idea, regardless of whether or not Kennedy is a good candidate or has any chance of getting elected and implementing it. A publicly accessible blockchain — that is, a distributed ledger protected from alteration by cryptography and viewable by everyone — would let Americans see exactly how tax money is spent and make it impossible to hide fiscal waste, fraud, and abuse.

So, why hasn’t that already been done?

One obvious reason is that politicians don’t WANT you to see what they’re up to and purposely make it hard for you to do so.

Another reason, perhaps less obvious but just as true, is that political establishments are “conservative.” They tend to hold on to old ways of doing things, refusing to make more than minor tweaks to the system, until and unless they’re forced to make real changes.

Historically, those changes have been first proposed by “third party” political candidates, after which growing public support has eventually forced “major party” adoption.

For example, since the early 1970s, Libertarian Party candidates for public office have supported the freedom of consenting adults to marry in any number and any combination of sexes, and an end to the war on drugs. Only in the last decade or so have “major party” politicians started tentatively moving in those directions with legalization of same-sex couple marriage and widespread legalization of recreational cannabis. We’ll get there eventually, and when we do you should take a moment to thank Libertarians for getting the ball rolling.

It’s not just the Libertarians.

In 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt ran for president on a platform of balancing the federal budget and cutting the size of the federal government by 25%. But his actual and opposite program in office — the “New Deal” — was largely shaped by the popularity of the Socialist Party’s ideas as promoted by its presidential candidate, Norman Thomas, in 1928 and 1932.

FDR once told a group of citizens lobbying for a reform, “OK, you’ve convinced me — now go out and bring pressure on me.” The electoral pressure from the Socialists was already there when he took office. He simply ran to the head of the parade they started, stealing their thunder for his own political benefit.

I wouldn’t bet money on an RFK Jr. victory, even if you offered me really nice  odds. But if he does at all well in November, I WOULD bet money on some of his ideas entering and affecting the public discussion, and eventually gaining adoption.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY