Thread by @HNIJohnMiller

1) So, I'm going to explain a bit of a higher-level concept. As in, a concept that should not be as hard as it seems to be to some people.

The concept is hard regulatory power vs soft regulatory power.

https://twitter.com/Lynniepenny/status/1053709770832654338

2) Hard regulatory power is when you solve a problem by writing more laws, creating new agencies, essentially the raw expansion of government power where it didn't exist before.

3) This is a favorite solution of Democrats and other such authoritarians. Examples of hard regulatory power is Obamacare, Cash for Clunkers, the creation of the CFPB, the auto bailout and placement of czars in companies etc.

4) The warping of entire industries or the creation of new regulatory frameworks in an attempt to solve a problem. Or, in some cases like Cash for Clunkers, the creation of an illusion of a problem in order to justify the warping of an industry by the government.

5) Hard regulatory power often generates shit outcomes. It often goes: Problem->Solution->Unintended Consequences.

6) As a more global example, here's one that @Debradelai taught me about.

In some areas of Spain, the government has created a program for the economic migrants arriving by the literal boatload. Rent guarantee. See, they're economic migrants, so surely they should be coddled!

7) What? Spanish citizens? They're privileged for being born in Spain, they should be able to take care of themselves and pay enough in taxes to coddle the economic migrants!

Anyways, the rent guarantee is that if one of these migrants can't afford their rent the government pays

8) So, what do landlords do?

Rent out entire apartment blocks for the maximum amount of the rent guarantee to a bunch of these economic migrants that won't pay the rent themselves as that would involve being responsible and productive members of society, aka suckers.

9) Then, every month, the landlord marches down to the local government office, and collects one fat check for all of the migrant tenants.

Unintended consequences of Hard Regulatory Power. By guaranteeing the rent, now none of the migrants are paying rent.

10) Note, of course, that the government also gives the migrants an allowance to pay for things like rent and such.

Yeah.

11) So, then, what is soft regulatory power?

Soft regulatory power is the use of laws and coercion with the tools such as agencies already available to push a desired outcome.

12) Now, this has the potential for abuse, yes. See Operation Chokepoint, the Obama administration using the threat of oversight against financial institutions dealing with 'undesirable' companies. Bullet sales, payday lenders, etc. townhall.com/tipsheet/sarah…

13) I'll note that this could also be interpreted as hard regulatory power seeing as some of the threatened oversight came from groups like the CFPB, institutions and powers created by the hard regulatory power grab of the Obama administration as a result of the 2008 crisis.

14) But, an example of soft regulatory power.

The use of anti-trust laws THAT ALREADY EXIST and HAVE BEEN USED TO GREAT EFFECT PREVIOUSLY in order to break up the internet tech giants.

15) The suggestions I keep seeing of EU-style 'privacy laws' and an 'internet bill of rights' and other such idiocy is HARD regulatory power. It will inevitably create unintended consequences that fucking idiots will then claim further regulation is needed to solve.

16) Another example of using soft regulatory power? Taking the Post Office, an institution which ALREADY EXISTS, and modernizing it so that it can handle modern means of communication, essentially the internet and related items (email, social networks, etc).

17) "B-b-b-BUT PRIVACY KYLE!" STFU. I hate you. You fucking idiotic cockmonglers.

You gave up privacy the minute you turned on your smartphone this morning.

You gave up privacy the minute you used Internet Explorer or Google Chrome or Firefox or any other web browser.

18) You gave up your privacy to private corporations that glossed right over the 'we will anally probe you and every part of your personality, psyche, etc in order to sell you shit and sell shit about you to whoever the fuck we want' part of the terms and conditions.

19) DIDN'T YOU READ THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS?!? They can do THIS because YOU AGREED!!!!

20) Could the government do likewise to us with the US post office?

Actually... they might not be able to.

21) 1877, the Supreme Court in Ex Parte Jackson

"Letters and sealed packages of this kind in the mail are as fully guarded from examination and inspection, except as to their outward form and weight, as if they were retained by the parties forwarding them in their own domiciles"

22) "The constitutional guaranty of the right of the people to be secure in their papers against unreasonable searches and seizures extends to their papers, thus closed against inspection, wherever they may be."

23) "Whilst in the mail, they can only be opened and examined under like warrant, issued upon similar oath or affirmation, particularly describing the thing to be seized, as is required when papers are subjected to search in one's own household."

24) "No law of Congress can place in the hands of officials connected with the postal service any authority to invade the secrecy of letters and such sealed packages in the mail"

25) "and all regulations adopted as to mail matter of this kind must be in subordination to the great principle embodied in the fourth amendment of the Constitution."

26) This is what guarantees the right to the privacy in the mail. A right to privacy so ingrained that people CAN STILL MAIL RICIN TO ELECTED POLITICIANS WITHOUT THEIR LETTERS BEING INSPECTED FOR SHITS SAKE.

27) So I'm saying, as the Post Office's original intent backed up by the Supreme Court of the FUCKING UNITED STATES is to be the guarantor of the First Amendment and to protect our privacy, how hard would it be to argue that the same exact fucking principles apply to email?

28) The Supreme Court itself has acknowledged how the First Amendment has expanded to covering free expression in any form, and 'the founders didn't envision such technology' is not an excuse to abridge said freedoms.

29) And what is the honest different between a letter sent through the post office and an email sent through the post office's hypothetical servers? "But they might be able to search them!" Yeah.... they can search letters too. With a warrant.

30) "But FISA abuse!" Oh, you mean, where the FBI FALSIFIED INFORMATION AND EVIDENCE IN ORDER TO OBTAIN A SPECIAL VARIETY OF WARRANT?

31) The FISA abuse scandal is the abuse of already legal warrant-granting systems that are in place using shit evidence and circular reporting, ie the leaking of evidence to reporters to generate reports to back up the shit evidence.

32) The post office having email services that it legally is unable to search for personal information and social media that it legally could not boot people off of because they disagree with what's being said does not an Orwellian nightmare make.

33) And think about it... what kind of communications were being collected by the abused FISA warrants?

Protip: none of those were fucking letters. NOTHING that went through the goddamn post office. Just phone calls and emails going through PRIVATE FUCKING COMPANIES.

34) One of those private companies, keep in mind, whose executives THREW A GODDAMN CRYING FIT the day after Trump won.

Just food for fucking thought for the hamster wheels in your brains. If said hamsters are still alive. For some of you.... well... I doubt that.

/end

35) Wait, forget that end, I forgot, got off on a tangent.

Soft regulatory power.

The modernization of an already existing federal institution. For what purpose? To provide an alternative that forces other companies to model their behavior after.

36) Post office opens email that is strictly private, no information scraping, no data collection, nada. Not without fucking warrants. SCOTUS said so. Social media that is free speech personified.

Gmail, Yahoo, Facebook, etc, all have a choice.

37) They can continue their abuses of power and authority in a leftist drive for power, consequences be damned, and the consequences being their losing massive amounts of market share as half the country is sick of their bullshit

38) Or.... they can reform their data usage, cut down on the censorship, and make a hard turn TOWARDS the middle, in order to stem the bleeding from people abandoning them in mass.

No new laws. No new regulatory agencies. Just some modernization and sprucing up.

/end