This is from today’s Arizona Republic:
Businesses that send employees door to door through Phoenix neighborhoods have jumped into the discussion over whether the city should require peddlers to be licensed before ringing doorbells.
Phoenix is the only major city in the Valley that does not require some sort of business license for door-to-door solicitors. In the past year, council members have been getting complaints about bad behavior by people who sell door to door.
On Tuesday, about 25 residents and business representatives gathered at the Phoenix Public Library’s main branch for the first of seven public hearings the city will hold on the issue.
Of course we need a new law. Why should fully-grown adults be expected to confront and respond to “bad behavior” without Big Brother to scare away the bad guys and Big Mother to kiss their boo-boos?
But wait. There’s more.
About half of those attending represented areas that are fed up with solicitors. The rest represented businesses that had a range of opinions on regulation.
This is a fact: Business “regulations” are written by and for the businesses putatively being “regulated.” They put the Rotarian in Rotarian Socialism. Hide and watch:
“We are in favor of regulation and monitoring of door-to-door solicitors,” said Magnolia Lee, who described herself as business consultant who represents a small group called Sales, Solicitation and Distribution United.
“There needs to be some sort of standard for professional and courteous conduct,” she said.
What’s the standard? Me-and-mine, not thee-and-thine. The “regulations” will advantage Lee’s clients by disadvantaging their competitors. This is the objective sought by all “regulation.”
But we’re not done yet:
Marc Scher, government relations director for the Phoenix Association of Realtors, said his group favors licensing people who ring doorbells to sell products but wants any new law to exempt real estate sales people seeking listings.
“Realtors have been going and knocking on doors and introducing themselves to their neighbors,” he said. “There has to be a differentiation between selling a product and a relationship.”
This would the the anti-dog-eat-dog rule, straight out of Atlas Shrugged. Steal the other guy’s dinner, but keep your mitts off mine! Makes you proud to be a Realtor, don’t it?
And all of that is pitiful, but take a look at the awful crimes this new law will protect the citizens of Phoenix from:
Neighborhood representatives, meanwhile, brought up concerns about sales people knocking on doors after dark and using aggressive tactics that scare homeowners.
“My community, which is the Laveen area, has had very pushy door-to-door salesmen selling alarms,” Stephanie Scovell said. “Some put their foot in the door so the homeowner can’t close it. To me, door-to-door sales is no longer an efficient way to run a business or keep a community safe.”
Jackie Rich of north Phoenix said people in her area worry about opening the door to solicitors who might be casing their homes for burglaries. Rich said Phoenix residents she has spoken to favor some sign or sticker that could be put near a doorbell that tells solicitors not to ring.
The people who first settled Phoenix crossed a thousand miles of empty plains to get here, many of them pulling hand-carts, often going for many days without water. The land here is hostile and inhospitable, and the heat is blistering. There were snakes, scorpions and Gila monsters to deal with — along with at least 100 consecutive days every summer of 100+ degree temperatures and storms like nothing you’ve ever seen. But they were hale and hardy and armed to the teeth. But, by now, the proud citizens of Phoenix cannot pick up a semi-automatic hand-gun and explain to a pushy salesman that going door-to-door with a shredded foot might not be very profitable. Good grief!
But even now we’re not done. Because we still have to carve out an exemption for the most annoying door-knockers of all: Fundies.
Phoenix City Councilman Claude Mattox, who ran Tuesday’s meeting with Councilman Tom Simplot, said any licensing ordinance for peddlers would only aim to regulate for-profit businesses, not religious groups or other non-profits.
“We’re not talking about limiting religious groups – or handbills.” Mattox said.
“The First Amendment comes into play,” Assistant City Attorney James Hays said. “There is a limit to what we can do.”
Wonderful…
This is a very small thing, of course, but this is precisely how the “regulation” process works for everything, at all levels of government. Only big-babies and the “businessmen” who stand to profit from their inability to diaper themselves will show up for the “hearings,” and the “regulations” that emerge from these “hearings” will always be to the advantage of the politically-connected.
Do you think this can be reformed? Think again. The corruption is baked in the cake. The only way to eliminate this kind of mishegoss is to eliminate government entirely. So long as politically-favored insiders can use the power of the state to eliminate their competition, they will.
Don’t believe me? Ask your broker to show you your real estate license. What do you think it’s for…?
