There is a lot of great stuff up on Combest today, so I’ll give him general credit for links to these articles right at the beginning. Two things we have written a lot about on this blog are the use of lobbyists by governments (spending tax dollars to get somebody else’s tax dollars) and issues of individual rights, such as seat-belt laws or red-light cameras. So, imagine my disgust when I read complaints in the News-Leader about MoDOT employees who spend their time lobbying the legislature to enact a primary seat-belt law, basically allowing the police to pull you over if they see you not wearing a seat belt.

I am a big fan of MoDOT and Director Pete Rahn, and I was writing their praises before it was cool to do so. But the use of MoDOT employees to lobby to restrict individual rights while on the taxpayers’ clock is simply awful. It is bad enough that so many people are more than happy to give up their rights in the name of safety, but now we are all being forced to pay for unelected government employees to try to take away more of those rights? I commend the legislators who objected to this, and I again refer you to Carl Bearden’s article about this subject, which was published in various places a few months ago.