How a $5 Plastic Box Cost Taxpayers Thousands: My 20-minute Nightmare on Winchester Boulevard
The commute in Campbell, California, collapsed into chaos today (Tuesday) when a plastic trinket—placed by a weekend treasure hunter—was mistaken for the second coming of Guy Fawkes. Winchester Boulevard turned into a no-go zone while patrol cruisers, armored vans, and an inquisitive news chopper circled the scene.
Parents ran late, businesses lost customers, and every weary taxpayer footed the bill for a few lumbering hours that felt like a bad rehearsal of Homeland Security Theater.
I happened to be stuck in it. As the O’Learys claim to be an adventuring clan, I took my children on a quest while Mom was at the dentist. It turns out that the trip to the coin-op carwash a few klicks down the road was more than we bargained for.
I told Jack Callahan about our misadventure— “twenty minutes, seven side streets, and two cranky kids just to scrub road dust and a bunch of bird crap off the Yukon” —and he barked the laugh of a man who has shoveled more bureaucratic folly than snow.
“Son,” he said over a quick Zoom, clanking a coffee mug on his desk, “they closed a principal artery because some gadgeteer dropped a glorified Tupperware? That’s not safety. That’s institutional hypochondria!”
Jack has also watched government balloon in the post-Eisenhower years. There’s an industrial complex that never knows when to stand down. Whose folks haven’t regaled them about the drills of the 1950s and 60s—kids ducking under desks, generals measuring fallout with slide rules, mothers p
Article from LewRockwell
LewRockwell.com is a libertarian website that publishes articles, essays, and blog posts advocating for minimal government, free markets, and individual liberty. The site was founded by Lew Rockwell, an American libertarian political commentator, activist, and former congressional staffer. The website often features content that is critical of mainstream politics, state intervention, and foreign policy, among other topics. It is a platform frequently used to disseminate Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that is popular among some libertarians.
