In June, the European Union passed legislation requiring all mobile devices to use one specific port type (USB-C) for re-charging their batteries.

US Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) , Ed Markey (D-MA), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) think that’s a great idea, and that the US should adopt it as well. They’ve asked Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo to come up with a “comprehensive strategy” to take charge of how you charge your phones, tablets, etc.

“Consumers shouldn’t have to keep buying new chargers all the time for different devices,” Warren tweeted on July 7. “We can clear things up with uniform standards — for less expense, less hassle, and less waste.”

Looking to government for “less expense, less hassle, and less waste” is like looking to your favorite local buffet restaurant for fewer dishes and smaller portions. Expense, hassle, and waste is pretty much the dictionary definition of what government does. This case is no exception.

Let’s take this astoundingly stupid idea from the top on those three metrics.

Expense: At present, we’re all free to choose the devices we buy and, if we’re worried about the expense of chargers and cables, choose devices which are compatible with each other. If your phone with a micro-USB port dies, you can buy a new phone that’s compatible with the chargers and cables you already have instead of having to buy new USB-C cables.

Hassle: Right now, you can walk into pretty much any electronics, department, or even convenience store and find a cable to fit your needs. A government-imposed standard will, over time, result in older types of cables becoming “specialty” items that are harder to find.

Waste: Right now, you can re-use your existing cables with new devices. A uniformity requirement will eventually put those existing cables in landfills as you move on to new devices which are, by law, forbidden to use them.

And all that’s just on your end. How much cost, hassle, and waste will the proposed standard impose on manufacturers whose current devices come with now-illegal ports? Those devices will have to be re-designed. The factories that make them will have to be re-tooled, workers re-trained.

Let’s add a fourth item to the list of reasons legally required uniformity is a bad idea: It will slow down technological innovation.

Suppose the government requires all devices to come with USB-C ports. Who’s going to spend the money to develop USB-D or some other new port technology, even if that technology would likely prove much more efficient, reliable, etc.?

The regulatory delays and expenses in getting better charging devices to market would make innovation much less profitable … until and unless the government REQUIRED the new port, which would put you right back in the same expense/hassle/waste position as when the first requirement was imposed.

If 1880s legislators had imposed “uniform standards” on transportation, we’d all still be staring at the rear ends of horses from our wagons. And spending proportionally more of our time and money to get from hither to yon.

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

“Recent Supreme Court rulings have threatened the rights of New Yorkers to make decisions about their own bodies and our right to protect New Yorkers from gun violence,” proclaimed New York state governor Kathy Hochul in a statement released from Albany on the first of July.

That New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen struck down New York state restrictions on what items its citizens can carry on their bodies, and that supporters of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision see it as offering protection from violence, shows the inconsistencies in the very divisions entrenched by the Court.

Gerald Ford noted in a 1974 Presidential address that those realizing that “a government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have” are nonspecialists who “are a lot better economists than most economists care to admit.” Giving the Supreme Court outsize power to override the legislative and executive branches of government has likewise been the sort of blunder in political strategy made by the most devoted political strategists.

For partisans aiming to scare their bases into line, nothing beats a Supreme Court balanced like Humpty Dumpty on the edge of the wall of polarization between the red and blue states. The toppling of that balance has cracked what protection they gave to civil liberties on one side or the other of the culture wars. The dissipation of what Clint Eastwood called the “liberal dither over Miranda rights” has been made clear by how ignored their overruling by Vega v. Tekoh has been compared to the overturn of Roe v. Wade. And all the efforts of the kingmakers will never unscramble it.

Eric Flint, a science fiction writer whose prognostications are informed by a history of hard-nosed activism, observed in 2018 that the notion that “the Supreme Court is the all-powerful institution in American politics” was disproved by its history.  “Slavery, segregation, slavish obedience to corporate welfare, grossly unconstitutional internment … are gone. Not thanks to the Supreme Court” — whose Justices consistently upheld them all — “but thanks to the struggles of the millions of men and women who fought against these injustices through the various means for mass action in a democratic society.”

The way out of the political disorder that was inevitably going to be unleashed by the Supreme Court’s essentially elitist nature lies in society routing around it, not just via more responsive and local sectors of governance but by expanding the realms of individual choice without waiting for its go-ahead.

New Yorker Joel Schlosberg is a senior news analyst at The William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

1. “It’s coming from inside the courtroom” by Joel Schlosberg, Reno, Nevada Gazette Journal, July 10, 2022
2. “It’s coming from inside the courtroom” by Joel Schlosberg, USA Today, July 10, 2022
3. “It’s Coming From Inside The Courthouse” by Joel Schlosberg, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, July 10, 2022
4. “It’s coming from inside the courthouse” by Joel Schlosberg, Sidney, Montana Herald, July 10, 2022
5. “It’s coming from inside the courthouse” by Joel Schlosberg, Elko, Nevada Daily Free Press, July 11, 2022
6. “It’s Coming From Inside the Courthouse” by Joel Schlosberg, CounterPunch, July 12, 2022

Boris Johnson, the United Kingdom’s scandal-saddled premier, is finally stepping down as leader of the Conservative Party — which, as British politics are structured, means he’s also stepping down as prime minister.

In conjunction with America’s recent annual July 4th celebration of independence from the British monarchy as declared in 1776, it seems worth noting that our former rulers seem to have long outdone us when it comes to claims of “representative democracy.”

For one thing, the British get more democratic representation than Americans. A LOT more.

Their House of Commons, the equivalent of our House of Representatives, numbers 650 for a population of  68 million, or roughly one MP for every 10,500 citizens. Our “people’s house” numbers 435 for a population of 330 million, or roughly one US Representative for every 750,000 citizens.

Their House of Lords — an even rougher equivalent to our Senate — boasts 767 members to our 100.

What’s more, while Americans are saddled with our political “leaders” for fixed terms (two years for the House, six for the Senate, four for the presidency), barring extreme measures such as impeachment, a prime minister can be sacked and replaced by the majority (or majority coalition) party any time that party loses confidence in him or her, and “snap” elections for the House of Commons can be called at, seemingly, the drop of a hat.

And, finally, the United Kingdom actually turns to “direct democracy” on some of the biggest questions. Case in point: The national referendum on “Brexit” under which the UK left the European Union. The US offers no such mechanism for “direct democracy” at the national level.

One effect (or at least characteristic) of the British system is that the Commons includes representative from no fewer than 11 parties (plus several “independents” and Sinn Fein, which wins seats but abstains from taking them), while the US is bogged down in a supposedly two-party system that really amounts to one party of two warring factions.

While I’m no big fan of government in general, and while democracy as such certainly has its flaws, the British way of doing things is both by far more representative, and  notably closer to the Declaration of Independence’s dictum that “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,” than the American system.

The comparative difficulty of replacing our rulers causes  otherwise short-term turmoils to drag on for years instead of getting settled. That sometimes produces gridlock (a good thing, in my opinion), but more often just allows the ruling party to continue down paths that the majority of Americans don’t support.

What can be done about it? Well, amending the US Constitution to make America democracy “more representative” is quite difficult (as amending the Constitution for any reason should be).

On the other hand, if enough states amended their constitutions to create their own UK-style parliamentary systems, the idea might catch on. Hardly perfection (that would be panarchy), but perhaps a good start.

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