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Central planning in this country is getting completely and totally out of control. These days, you can hardly do anything without running into a suffocating web of red tape. For example, a small-time magician from Missouri that does magic shows for kids was absolutely horrified when he learned that the Obama administration is requiring him to submit a 32 page “disaster plan” for the rabbit that he uses in his shows. Yes, this is actually true. His name is Marty Hahne, and he thought that it was bad enough when the U.S. Department of Agriculture busted him for not having a “license” for his rabbit. He went out and acquired the proper “license” for his rabbit, but he never dreamed that eventually he would also have to submit a 32 page “disaster plan” for the same rabbit.

This is a guy that does not make a lot of money. He mostly does shows for kids at schools and at libraries…

Marty Hahne, or Marty the Magician as he is known to school groups around Springfield, Mo., where he makes a living making his rabbit, Casey, magically appear in a variety of places (birthday gift, miniature library, cookie jar), is headlining a ventriloquists’ convention in Cincinnati this week.

You would think that the federal government would have much better things to do than to shake down a small-time magician with one rabbit. Unfortunately, the control freaks that run things are not about to let anyone off the hook…

The U.S. Department of Agriculture requires the rabbit to be licensed, which is weird enough, but where things enter the rabbit warren of the truly bizarre is a new USDA rule seven years in the making. Marty must have a rabbit disaster “plan” in place by July 29, 2013, in case of calamity — “flooding,” “earthquake,” “landslide/mudslide/avalanche,” “wildfire,” “intentional attack,” to name a few examples. “My country is broke,” Mr. Hahne says. “We are out of money, and now the government is spending time, and money, worrying about an emergency plan for a bunny rabbit.”

Fortunately, a woman named Kim Morgan that specializes in writing emergency plans for federal agencies heard about what Mr. Hahne was going through and offered to draft the 32 page disaster plan for free.

But of course this is just one example of a much larger phenomenon. We are a country that literally has millions of laws, rules and regulations and that is drowning underneath an ocean of red tape.

And it gets worse with each passing year. For example, just check out what one recent CNN article had to say about the “privacy nightmare” that the new federal Obamacare database is going to create…

When shoppers apply for health insurance through the forthcoming state-based Obamacare exchanges, the online system will verify each applicant’s information by pulling in data from more than half a dozen federal agencies ranging from the IRS to the Peace Corps. It will know who you are, how much money you make, and whether or not you’re in the United States legally. The prospect of one online system having access to so much personal information is making some watchdogs nervous. In a USA Today op-ed decrying the system as a “privacy nightmare,” researchers Stephen Parente and Paul Howard penned these scary words: “This hub will achieve what has, until now, only appeared in pulp thrillers: a central database linking critical state and federal data on every U.S. citizen for real-time access.”

Can you imagine how much of a bureaucratic nightmare that is going to be? Government bureaucrats are going to have access to all of our health information, and they will instantly know where we have failed to comply with the countless new rules and regulations that are being implemented as a part of Obamacare.

It is going to be an absolutely gigantic ball of red tape. It will be a bureaucratic paradise.

So what can we do about all of this?

Individually, not a whole lot. But there are some states that are starting to push back against the federal government.

For example, the following are some excerpts from a recent email that someone sent to me about what is going on in Oklahoma…

Oklahoma law passed, 37 to 9 an amendment to place the Ten Commandments on the front entrance to the state capitol. The feds in D.C., along with the ACLU, said it would be a mistake. Hey this is a conservative state, based on Christian values…! HB 1330 Guess what………. Oklahoma did it anyway. Oklahoma recently passed a law in the state to incarcerate all illegal immigrants, and ship them back to where they came from unless they want to get a green card and become an American citizen. They all scattered. HB 1804. This was against the advice of the Federal Government, and the ACLU, they said it would be a mistake. Guess what………. Oklahoma did it anyway. The federal Government has made bold steps to take away our guns. Oklahoma, a week ago, passed a law confirming people in this state have the right to bear arms and transport them in their vehicles. I’m sure that was a setback for the criminals. The Liberals didn’t like it — But…. Guess what………… Oklahoma did it anyway. Just this month, the state has voted and passed a law that ALL drivers’ license exams will be printed in English, and only English, and no other language. They have been called racist for doing this, but the fact is that ALL of the road signs are in English only. If you want to drive in Oklahoma, you must read and write English. Really simple. By the way, the Liberals don’t like any of this either. Guess what…who cares… Oklahoma is doing it anyway.

The United States is not supposed to be a centrally-planned society where control freak bureaucrats watch, track, monitor and control virtually everything that we do.

We are supposed to be a society that maximizes privacy, freedom and liberty.

Sadly, at this point we are becoming more like centrally-planned societies such as China every single day. And if you want an idea of what life in a society that has a very high degree of central planning is like, just check out this video of a subway station during morning rush hour in Beijing…

A photo of the overcrowding in the subway station in the video above was recently posted on Twitter…

Is that how we want to live?

To the central planners, we are all essentially nameless, faceless cattle that need to be herded in the right direction.

And the central planners always believe that they know better than us. They believe that we cannot be trusted with freedom and liberty because we cannot handle it.

Unfortunately, central planners usually end up making a giant mess of things. And right now they are making a huge mess of the United States. If we don’t stop them, they will continue to wreck our once great nation.

So what do you think about all of this? Please feel free to share your opinion by posting a comment below…