Government gone wild

Fred Thompson was my favorite presidential candidate last year because he was the only one who understood that a government with the power to give you anything is a government with the power to take it away.

As examination of government's recent activities shows us, enacting a government-run health care system would be suicidal. I'm not saying that just to be dramatic — if we adopt a "universal health care" system as Teddy Kennedy and Co. would have us, people will die.

When government gets involved, citizens get trampled. Some examples:

— Earlier this week, about 300 residents of Orlando, Fla., met at a special summit to discuss ways to fight the spike in crime seen in the city in 2008. For one, 123 people in the city were murdered last year.

So on Thursday, police in an Orlando suburb threw four women in jail for flashing fellow partiers at a nightclub.

— Mike and Chris Thompson suffered last fall when thieves took the wheels and tires off of their $70,000 car and left it sitting curbside on cinder blocks. The Thompsons reported the theft to District of Columbia authorities — and then the real damage came.

A city-contracted tow truck hauled the car to the impound lot. The owners had been cited and fined $250 for the car being "too dangerous to be on public space."

No trailer. No tires. The car-draggers didn't even bother to remove the concrete blocks. The Thompsons say they did $20,000 in damage to the car. Then the Thompsons were charged $120 by the impound lot.

— John and Jennifer Davis were on their way to the emergency room. Jennifer was significantly pregnant, with contractions coming just a few minutes apart and a baby threatening to appear at any moment.

To bypass the bumper-to-bumper traffic, John pulled onto a freeway shoulder and cruised down the road. Until they ran into state Trooper Michael Galluccio, who stopped the couple, demanded to see Jennifer's belly (to prove that she was not faking the pregnancy with pillow-cases stuffed up her shirt, and cited John with a $100 ticket for illegally driving on the shoulder. This after two decent-minded state patrolmen told them using the shoulder was OK.

(In spite of Massachusetts authorities, Charlotte Jane Davis was born later that day, with no further reported complications.)

— Two Salinas, Calif., police officers opened fire on a couple — and left the couple's car full of bullet holes — after stopping them because a license plate light was not working. The cops started shooting after one of them — and I'm quoting here — "thought he was shot."

It turns out, he was not shot, nor was he shot at, nor was he shot in the vicinity of. The couple that the officers fired upon were entirely unarmed and (as far as we can tell) never threatened the police in any way. No arrests were made and no citations were issued. Only bullets.

— The City of Chicago has informed rental car companies outside the city limits that their customers are subject to the city's 8 percent rental car tax. The only way for customers to get out of the tax is to swear an oath that the rental will be used outside of Chicago.

For what it's worth, I am now notifying Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley that his own breathing transactions are subject to my personal oxygen tax. Unless he submits to me a notarized affidavit swearing that none of the air he inhales has ever been in Kansas ...

The only difference is, I don't have the bullying power to enforce my tax.