JUDGE THOMAS PENFIELD JACKSON, WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

by Jack VanNoord

If you enter into the market place, offer a product at a price that consumers are willing to pay, allow people to vote with their wallets and you emerge a winner; it’s called a monopoly. 

If you go to Washington, bamboozle a few elected officials into agreeing that your particular business represents a compelling public interest, help a few legislators to see your point of view by contributing to their campaign funds and use the legislative process to handicap or eliminate your competitors to assure your victory in the marketplace; it’s called government-as-usual.  The hypocrisy.  

Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who do you think you are? 

This from a government that for years told us that they had to protect us from the perils of gambling; and then proceeded to hold state-run lotteries and to throw it’s legislative weight behind horse tracks that were protected from competition by the power of government.  How hypocritical. 

Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who do you think you are? 

Government, by nature of being government, is only equipped to deal with one class of citizen: criminals.  Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson didn’t like what Bill Gates had, so he criminalized what Mr. Gates had done.  Mr. Gates hasn’t killed or beaten anyone.  He hasn’t take a single dollar from any customers who didn’t willing hand it over.  He provided a product that people were apparently quite willing to pay for because they were buying them by the millions at a time when a high-quality, affordable alternative existed.  The people had voted with their wallets and declared Mr. Gates a marketplace winner.  Yet Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson --in his infinite wisdom-- saw fit to override the decisions of millions of consumers.  

Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who do you think you are? 

How arrogant.  How condescending. This from the same government who decided that we weren’t capable of being in the driver’s seat of our children’s education, so they implemented monopolistic government-run schools that are protected by legislation against competition in the form of parental choice.  This from the same government who decided that we weren’t savvy enough to save for our retirement, so they decided to monopolize our retirement dollars and stick them into a government-run retirement scheme.  How hypocritical.   

Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who do you think you are? 

We are not children.  And Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson you  most certainly are not our father.  We do not need you looking out for us.  We do not need you  interfering in our affairs.  Mind your own business.   Leave well enough alone.  How hard is it to realize that this not what we need or want form our government officials: elected, appointed or otherwise?  Didn’t your mother ever teach you “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”?   

Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who do you think you are? 

It’s hard to fathom how humanity ever managed to elevate itself out of its primitive, barbaric existence without the paternalistic Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson there to watch out for us every step of the way.  How did we ever create the innumerable innovations and technologies that we currently enjoy without Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson there to oversee everything?  It’s a miracle that humanity didn’t shrivel up and wither away many millennia ago without Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson there looking out for us. 

Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, today is a dark, dark day in America.  Shrouded in your judicial arrogance, you have overstepped your bounds.  Shame on you.   

Who do you think you are?

06-10-2000

Written by Jack VanNoord - West Dundee.