The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is a government body designed to ensure the complete failure of commerce and act as an arbiter between parties when disputes may arise because courts are for weaklings. You see, instead of allowing the courts to do what they do best, the FTC is here to save you from yourself while also doing what the FBI was designed for (investigating interstate crime), or generally allowing anyone and everyone to contest the way you do business.
While masquerading as a consumer safety commission, the FTC gives you access to useless forms that are most frequently responded to with canned answers. The canned answers essentially refer you to the civil court system if they can not resolve the dispute. They also manage a giant database to prevent telemarketers from doing their business to protect you from the annoyance of having to say a single, one-syllable word when they call.
Don’t want to take my word for it? Even the FTC alludes to it:
When the FTC was created in 1914, its purpose was to prevent unfair methods of competition in commerce as part of the battle to “bust the trusts.” Over the years, Congress passed additional laws giving the agency greater authority to police anticompetitive practices. In 1938, Congress passed a broad prohibition against “unfair and deceptive acts or practices.”
You see, the ‘trust busting’ was a political movement derived from the demands of early progressives, through the valiant efforts of muckrakers, on the assumption that monopolies are bad and they stifled competition. At the same time, the FTC knows the joke is on you, the private citizen. What else would explain:
unfair and deceptive acts or practices.
They put it in quotes. A lack of quotes would imply that they believe in such a thing – that “unfair” is not an ambiguous word that “deceptive” has an implicit meaning. To use quotes permits the FTC to dwell in ambiguity and serve as the judge of a court that does not exist when and if they desire to take on cases.
The FTC gets to make rules. Congress gave them the power to do so. These aren’t just any old laws – they are laws created by a panel of unelected persons, often with political motivation who serve at the behest of the political beast. Don’t let the guise of consumer protection fool you. These are not servants of the most noble intentions. They are very human and prone to human responses to incentives.
You see, when Congress doled out the power and took a step into adding more regulation, they created a beast that can regulate speech and determine rights simply because you might be behaving in a manner that might benefit yourself. See, once you step into the world of potentially profiting from something – whether by cash, favor, product, etc. – you are now acting in a manner that falls under the wide powers of the beast. You can be hunted down and you can be taken down like prey simply because you dared to act in your own self interest and it crosses into FTC territory.
Some believe that the FTC only does what it does to keep big business in line. However, the true power of the FTC is that it can keep anyone in line if you transact with another person. If bloggers are repulsed by the power of the FTC to flex its muscle in their affairs: welcome to the real world of government power.
