John Stossel’s great executive producer Kristi Kendall sent to Russ and me the following e-mail regarding some outstanding television fare:
ILLEGAL EVERYTHING airs Friday at 9 PM on the Fox News Channel
John Stossel argues that America has become a country where no one can know what is legal.
Kids who open lemonade stands are now shutdown by police. Stossel tries to open a lemonade stand legally in NYC. That was quite an adventure. It takes 65 days to get permission from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
With government adding 80,000 pages of rules and regulations every year, it’s no surprise that regular people break laws without even trying.
A small businessman spent 6 years in federal prison for breaking Honduran regulations (and, to make it worse, the Honduran government said he didn’t). A family in Idaho can’t build a home on their land because the EPA says it’s a wetland—but it only resembles a wetland because a government drain malfunctioned and flooded it.
TAXI TROUBLE: Want to start a taxi business? Too bad – it’s illegal. Illegal, that is, unless you buy a government-issued “taxi medallion” that can cost as much as a million dollars. One city has a free market for cabs – Washington, DC – but lobbyists there are pushing to regulate.
ILLEGAL FOOD: Increasingly, government tells us what we can and can’t eat — bans on trans-fat, happy meals, “raw” foods. California officials raided a raw food club, and arrested clerks for selling unpasteurized milk. Farmer Joel Salatin, author of “Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal,” explains why Americans DON’T have the freedom to choose the food they eat.
ILLEGAL DRUGS: Drug use is illegal – but should it be? Where drugs are legal, businessmen replace gangs as the dealers and pay taxes. Portugal decriminalized all drugs 10 years ago–including crack, ecstasy, and heroin. What has happened since then? We go to Portugal and get the facts from police, politicians, and drug addicts.
ILLEGAL SEX: Our government bans prostitution because people think it’s a dirty, dangerous business. But in brothels where prostitution is legal there is no crime or disease. On this show, three sex workers confront a prosecutor.
One bit of good news is that while there may be so many laws that no one knows if he’s a lawbreaker, it has never been easier to “watch the watchmen.” Tiny cameras in our iPods and cell phones allow citizens to film law enforcement and hold our government accountable. But in the last few years, cops have arrested and jailed people for taping in public. The arrests are not legal, but they happen anyway. Fortunately, arrests are caught on tape.
