Ronald Reagan Was Correct: "No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear"

Reining (reigning?) in the power of the Justice Department would be job #1 in a Dildo administration. Well, maybe 1A. Job #1 would be putting a time limit on those stupid video challenges in baseball.

Anyway, Americans should have some expectation that court cases will not continue forever. Or, for that matter, any government interference in commerce or the legitimate exercise of our freedoms. Yes, I'm referring to the ridiculous Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The Standard Oil Case, 100 Years On

I was stunned earlier this week to read in the Wall Street Journal that the famous antitrust lawsuit against Standard Oil that broke up John D. Rockefeller’s massive creation and decided at the Supreme Court in 1911 was still an open case at the Justice Department a century later, and is only now being closed up at long last:

The Justice Department wants to bring to an end its breakup of Standard Oil Co., which started in 1911, along with its efforts to ensure competition in the markets for horseshoes and player-piano rolls.

After a review of old legal agreements, the DOJ on Tuesday asked the U.S. District Court in St. Louis to terminate the decree that was the ultimate outcome of its case championed by President Theodore Roosevelt against the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey. . .

“To say it’s been overtaken by events,” said Daniel Yergin, who wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning oil-industry history, “is a vast understatement.”

I know...I know...the government never lies. I am as surprised as you are!

Read the whole thing...it's well worth it, if for no other reason to remind one that monopolies are in many ways and cases a figment of the fevered imaginations of the anti-business left.

posted by CBD at 12:30 PM

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