Obama administration squanders taxpayer dollars in anti-jobs raid on Gibson Guitar
Thursday, September 15, 2011 at 9:17AM 
Gibson Guitar sent an update to media about US government hits on factories in Nashville and Memphis. Armed agents burst in on Aug. 24, looking for ebony and rosewood imported from India.
Production halted; workers were sent home.
Gibson said federal officials claimed Gibson violated the Lacey Act. That Act comprises an antiquated, complex assortment of regulations and amendments governing natural resources—fish, wildlife, plants—and their import into the U.S. Legal scholars have written analyses of the Lacey Act and amendments that illustrate just how obscure the act can be.
In Gibson’s case, India did not dispute the validity of the wood imported. Nor did the Forest Stewardship Council, a private sector organization involved in global forest management.
Regulations about the import of wood and other resources began to become more complex in the 1980s beginning with the administration of President Barack Obama’s fellow Democrat president Jimmy Carter.
Such regulations do provide some protection but they also stack the deck against small entrepreneurs in the countries of origin. Compliance with Lacey requires money, legal talent and the ability to deal with global, national and local bureaucracies.
A number of self-appointed regulatory organizations have sprung up since the 1980s. Some are complex bureaucracies modeled on United Nations policy—these organizations are de facto colonialists issuing diktats to developing countries about resources those organizations have no legal right to whatsoever.
Theories about the raids include the fact Tennessee is a right to work state and the Obama administration has been heavily influenced by labor unions. Some have theorized the CEO isn’t a big Democrat donor like some of his competitors.
Why should those theories trouble us?
Amendment 4 to the Constitution spells out limits of the government on personal property and searches and seizures. Even to an attorney of limited intellect, it is glaringly obvious this administration trampled that amendment as well as several others.
What’s even more troubling, considering the lack of global stability in various economies, is that the federal government would squander taxpayer dollars and resources on two possibly politically driven hits on a respectable manufacturer creating private sector jobs for US workers. Ironically Gibson also is a solid exporter.
Next time Obama says he wants more jobs in the U.S., someone should ask him why he pursues an anti-jobs policy against companies like Gibson.
Meanwhile Gibson Guitar has set up a petition at Change.org that reads: “The President of the United States: Resolve Gibson Guitar Inquiry, Protect Consumers, and Make Lacey Act Fair.”
Please sign this petition if you value freedom from tyranny. The phrase may sound like a cliché but the fact is freedom is at stake in this situation.
The thug-like treatment of a productive company employing Americans should outrage anyone who has even a molecule of common sense.
Related Articles at The US Report
Gibson raids: Is Justice Dept. going after right-to-work states
Gibson Guitar raids may benefit competitor
Gibson Guitar penalizes American company for foreign forestry practices
(Commentary by Kay B. Day/Sept. 15, 2011)
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