Over the last decade, the majority of Americans signed on to the idea that government is bad.
Individuals and corporations are the oppressed and downtrodden victims of government, their energies snuffed out by unreasonable over-regulation, excessive taxation, and "activist" courts.
"Government go away," is the motto.
Two recent examples illustrate the potential consequences of the popular philosophy and what could happen if government goes away—or becomes the accomplice of industries in which cash is a cruel king?
The owners of the Flying Hat Ranch, south of the Friedman Airport's runway, ignored polite requests from the airport to be allowed to place safety lights in a stand of cottonwoods that sit on ranch property near the runway safety zone.
The commercial airlines that serve the Wood River Valley require instrument flights from takeoff to landing. If the trees are not lighted or removed, Friedman would be disqualified for Instrument Flight Rules approaches by aircraft.
In plain English, either the trees or the airlines have to give.
The loss of air service would damage the valley far more than lighting, trimming or cutting down a stand of trees.
Last week, the Friedman Airport Authority asked Blaine County and Hailey, which own the airport, to condemn the trees—or the property.
Is this the unreasonably heavy hand of government? No. It's government power wielded well to protect air travelers, local jobs, businesses and family incomes.
In the second example, the Idaho Supreme Court ruled 3-2 this week against the Idaho Department of Agriculture that tried to keep secret dairy and feedlot plans for manure disposal submitted by private businesses.
At the behest of the dairy and feedlot businesses, the Idaho Legislature had allowed an end-run around public records laws. It had allowed the department to refuse to keep the plans on file after they had been reviewed and approved.
That left neighboring property owners and the public in the dark when it came to evaluating the potential impact of spreading tons of manure on overall groundwater quality.
The high court's decision could help insure that the public isn't suddenly overtaken by the nightmare of contamination of its water supplies, a problem for which there is no quick fix.
In both examples, private interests became secondary to the interests of the public. In both cases, the public needed government to do the work that individuals could not do on their own.
So much for the wisdom of ridding the nation of government.
