Framing the Dialogue

Part 7 – A Willing Suspension of Logic

This slogegment of the Government Series is all about how government action defies logic.  Quoting our Secretary of State when she called the military leader in the Iraq a lier during a war; you have to have a “willing suspension of disbelief” to think that government can be logical.  I started writing this posting a few days ago when I heard some stories of government action that defied logic, but this afternoon, a friend experienced a more personal example of a willing suspension of logic.

My friend purchased an older row house in an inner city neighborhood many years ago.  The house had a vacant, overgrown lot next to it and she decided that she wanted to purchase the lot and convert it into a garden.  It literally took years for her to go through the red tape and buy the land.  Many people would have given up, but she persisted.  Then came the really hard work.  She had to remove weeds and when they grew back had to remove them again and again after that.  The weeds still creep in from neighbors’ yards.

She not only have a love of gardening, but has a background in biology and is actually a certified landscape designer.  She replaced the weeds with native plants and even had friends help dig a pond.  This was digging through brick, bricks and bricks, but the pond was installed.  She is constantly adding new plants to her garden and would guess that she has spent thousands of dollars on her plants over the last decade.  Her garden has become a place of peace and refuge for her.  Here is where government suspended logic.

She just received a letter from an official from her municipality telling her that her yard was covered with “weeds” and she had fifteen days to cut the weeds or else!   She was rather fired up when she told me about this and by fired up, I mean FIRED UP!  I did not mention that she made the effort to have her backyard habitat registered by the National Wildlife Federation (mine is too).  She is currently developing strategy to defend her case and has already launched her first salvo by responding to the poor schleb who sent her the letter.  She also blogs and plans to post all of the documents and I’ll link to it when she does.

This should be good!

The original story that inspired this post was about a woman in Michigan who offered to allow some of her neighbors children to stay at her home a few minutes each morning before the school bus arrived.  This mom stayed at home and her gesture allowed some of the working moms to leave their children with someone they trust and get to work.  This should have been a great story about neighbors helping neighbors as neighbors used to do for neighbors (that may be the most “neighbors” in one sentance) before government suspended logic.

The State of Michigan notified the mom to cease operating her “unlicensed day care center” or face prosecution.  So a mother who watches three of her neighbors’ children for a few minutes each morning is an “unlicensed day care center.”  I should mention that the mother does not charge for helping her friends.  I feel like my wife and I got away with stuff when our kids were younger.  My kids used to have sleepovers and I wonder if that would also constitute unlicensed day care?  The government folk in Michigan will probably go after the Boys Scouts next for their summer camps.

My next example involves a Florida school district who do not want children to ride or walk to school.  God forbid that the children get some exercise before their government approved PE class.  We walked to school everyday when I was growing up (uphill both ways through three feet of snow) and I had some of my most memorable times on those trips.  Think of Stand By Me without the dead person or the railroad tracks.  There were street cars back then.

The last example unfortunately will end up costing us lots of money.  It seems that, due to the large number of bank failures, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (“FDIC”) will need to borrow money to pay claims.  Here is the suspension of logic…the FDIC is planning to borrow money from banks.  They will not be seeking money from the Treasury Department (the ones with all of the bailout money).

Willing Suspension of Logic!

Update – October 6, 2009:  As anticipated the Garden Witch has posted her side of the story regarding governments defying logic.  It seems that logic may win out in this story, but I would like to see her to get it in writing before we celebrate too much.