OK, we get it: regulations are only for people

Here's an important point of order about The Online Lunchpail and the politics that guide it.

There's one theme that keeps confronting us in feedback about The Online Lunchpail, The Last Word, and everything else we do: Supposedly we're too pro-regulation. This even after we criticized Rudolph Giuliani for enacting too many absurd regulations on personal behavior.

The criticism against us is consistent with the false libertarian contingent that seems so vocal on various Internet forums these days. We say they're false libertarians because they usually support tyrannical government ideas like the UnfairTax and right-to-scab laws. And they focus almost exclusively on economic matters. They lambaste government regulation of big corporations, but they fall silent on government control of personal conduct. A real libertarian would want Corporate America off our backs as much as they want the government off our backs.

Maybe this contingent is just a typical bunch of conservative ideologues in different packaging. Modern American conservatism is basically the melding of two bad ideas that are seemingly polar opposites: chaos and tyranny. It's a bit like how a Catholic high school I went to had an oppressive dress code yet no discipline. Conservatives today believe in social regimentation but corporate deregulation. Go figure.

Humans have a natural instinct to seek personal autonomy and build societies where corporate power is minimized. Our politics reflect that: Government power should be unsheathed to trump corporate power when corporations run afoul of human needs. But lately, if you don't adhere to the smorgasbord libertarianism that rules the roost on various online venues, it's assumed that there's something wrong with you. And there's always somebody around to remind us how wrong they think we are.

So we get it, geniuses: Your side thinks regulations are just swell as long as they apply to people instead of Big Business. We hear ya, and we've heard ya for years. We're still not going to agree with this stance, no matter how much it's repeated.