Through force we will make you Safe!!

On Tuesday March 19, 2019 the San Juan County, Utah commissioners will be voting on a ordinance to force all businesses in the county to have a business license. On the surface this doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Those behind the new county ordinance say that it’s important to know what businesses are in the county and the license will achieve that. They also say that the license is also necessary in order to protect the safety and welfare of the business owners and the consumers in the county. Despite their voiced intent history has demonstrated that such government licensing does just the opposite.

One of the main problems with non-objective laws like business licensing is that it falls way outside the governments sole function.

“The government’s sole function, according to Ayn Rand, is to secure and protect the rights of the individual. Proper laws define the crimes and other actions that violate rights and establish the rules by which government may prosecute these crimes and settle disputes among men. Proper laws thereby place the government’s use of force under objective control.

But when laws are non-objective, they enslave rather than liberate. The best example of non-objective laws today are the thousands and thousands of pages of impenetrable regulations, whose meaning and purpose you as a citizen must try to guess and whose actual enforcement is determined by the whims of some bureaucrat, which you must try to predict. “Non-objective law,” according to Rand, “is the most effective weapon of human enslavement: its victims become its enforcers and enslave themselves.”” “Have Gun, Will Nudge” by Ayn Rand | March 1962 | The Objectivist Newsletter

With very little research its not hard to find out what the real reason is for such licensing. In a nutshell, it gives the government the power to manipulate through rules and regulations the economy and the people.

“Little attention has been paid to licenses; yet they constitute one of the most important (and steadily growing) monopolistic impositions in the current American economy. Licenses deliberately restrict the supply of labor and of firms in the licensed occupations. Various rules and requirements are imposed for work in the occupation or for entry into a certain line of business. Those who cannot qualify under the rules are prevented from entry.” “Man, Economy, and State, with Power and Market”, Mises Institute

There are many examples throughout our history of government licensing leading to enslaving the people instead of protecting them. These licensing practices have been used to regulate (control) a vast number of industries, which leads to government sanctioned monopoly’s, special treatment of one business over another, and restricting the consumers choice of goods and services. Legal licensing also leads to unemployment and underemployment, higher prices for consumers which in turn has disproportionate effect on the poor.

“According to conventional wisdom, one of the prerequisites for a civilized society is a system of government enforced licensing of numerous occupations.

Licensing laws establish the standards (e.g. educational) to be met before people are legally permitted to sell specified services. The government says the safety and well being of consumers impels it to enact these laws, which ensure the superior quality of various products and services purchased by consumers, as compared to what would be available in the absence of such laws.

Unfortunately, legal licensing also creates unemployment and underemployment which disproportionately affects the poor, while producing higher incomes for those employed in the protected occupations, higher prices for consumers , with fewer options available to consumers, thus moving us further away from the government’s stated goal.” “The Problem with Government Licensing Schemes” by Lee Friday June 20, 2018.

Business licensing is not only a bad economic move, but it moves us as a county further down the path of socialism and slavery. Joseph Smith Jr the leader and prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of later days in the early 1800’s summed it up this way.

“I also spoke at length for the repeal of the ordinance of the city licensing merchants, hawkers, taverns, and ordinaries, desiring that this might be a free people, and enjoy equal rights and privileges, and the ordinances were repealed.” (Joseph Smith, History of the Church, Vol. 6, p. 8.)

The passing of a business license attacks the very foundation this nation was founded on the people liberty and freedom. Despite this city, county, and state governments continue to pass these non-objective laws. Please let those officials in San Juan County know how your feel with a email or leave a message on their phone. If you have the time you can attend the commission meeting scheduled for tomorrow. Below is a list of those to contact.

Attend the commission meeting at 11:00 AM (Agenda) in the commission room.

Walter Bird and Mrs Randall presented the idea to the commission so you could contact them.

Walter Bird Human Resources Director
(435) 587–3223 ext. 4144
walterbird@sanjuancounty.org

Natalie Randall Economic Development Director nrandall@sanjuancounty.org (435) 587–3225

Commissioners

Bruce Adams
Phone:(435) 587–3225
Cell Phone:(435) 459–1351
bbadams@sanjuancounty.org

Kenneth Maryboy, Chairman
Phone:
Cell Phone:
kmaryboy@sanjuancounty.org

Willie Grayeyes, Vice-chairman
Phone:
Cell Phone:
williegrayeyes@sanjuancounty.org