And yet, all the heat and passion seems, for folks on the right, to be directed at the feds.

You also have to consider that national issues make the national media more often than local issues do (almost by definition). This one only did because of its amusing nature. If the new store had been a coffee shop or a jewelry shop, no one would have cared and the story would have probably never hit the news. And if it did, it wouldn't have been considered interesting enough to blog about.

So yes, I think outrage would be directed towards the local government, if people knew about it. People are just exposed more to things like the stimulus plan than they are to the fact that John Smith didn't get a building permit. And if there was local outrage over John Smith's building permit, you wouldn't hear about it unless you read local news or a local blog. The story just wouldn't hit most papers.

My guess is that local papers do have letters to the editor about red light cameras. I wouldn't know. I couldn't possibly read them all. I do remember Delaware's smoking ban being a big story at the time. Huge hubbub.

Well the city council never did like the whole concept and they spent a bunch of time and effort harassing the owner, threatening to revoke the liquor license and all sorts of stuff. Eventually the guy sells out to a new store, whose owner promptly removes the garage door and puts up a normal storefront. "No, no, no", the historical commission says, "you gotta re-install the garage door."

So now there's an ugly-ass garage door on the front of a building that sells who-knows-what, at considerable expense and still causing an eyesore for the city planners.

I hope you don't have to pay a lot to have that crap removed from your driveway.

It's ridiculously cheap and my wife likes the Parade and the Sunday Magazine. We also tend to get enough coupons out of it to more than pay for it.

They try to give me the other six days for free but I won't take it.

Despite my being local and getting the Sunday Washington Post delivered to my driveway

I hope you don't have to pay a lot to have that crap removed from your driveway.

It's not surprising that the rules have so many unintended consequences. Everyone should expect that and be extra cautious when passing new regulations. Unfortunately we know they seldom are.

If you doubt for one moment that you are, in this day and time doing anything more than renting land and property though property taxes, from your local government, give me a call. And then, at anytime they can invoke any law or ordinance to drive you from your residence or out of business.

No one can hardly get any permission at all to change or build ANYthing. But now the indians want to build a casino, and it looks like they will be allowed. What a joke!

If it's on a reservation, they don't need permission from the state. They're a quasi-sovereign entity under the Constitution.

In cases of planning and control my experience has taught me the problem is staffers who weave a tangle web of regulations that ensure continued employment for themselves. That employment may be with other municipalities but it often comes in the private sector as a consultant hired to navigate those very same rules they proposed and got passed by citizen commissions and boards.

It's not surprising that the rules have so many unintended consequences. Everyone should expect that and be extra cautious when passing new regulations. Unfortunately we know they seldom are.

And yet, all the heat and passion seems, for folks on the right, to be directed at the feds.

Federalists tend not to mind local communities imposing their own values on the neighborhood. It's a very different thing when it's nationalized.

Theoretically, at least, it's a different thing. If one doesn't like the tight strictures that Old Town puts on your business and you can't persuade your fellow citizens to change the rules, then one can shop for a saner jurisdiction a couple miles away in Fairfax County. Contrariwise, if you don't like what's happening in Washington, your only recourse is to leave the country.

My approach was an end-run around the city architect, directly to the political powers-that-be, which is how things get done in Chicago anyway.