Remember the social media debate from a few years ago, about whether a hot dog in a bun is a “sandwich”? To coin a phrase, the question “served-up” plenty of comments. Strange interlocutors offered in-depth histories of the sandwich and the “hot dog,” and the debate distracted many people from other matters. Only each person can judge for himself or herself whether the distraction from other matters was worth it.
It turns out that for five years in Indiana, a similar debate has been cooking. It’s about whether a taco is a “sandwich,” and this “debate” also serves to distract – from the much more fundamental problem of government claims to control people’s lives and livelihoods.
USA Today’s Ahjané Forbes offers the first-blush info on this debate, noting that it actually saw tax-funded, government courts getting involved.
“An Indiana judge ended a yearslong debate between a restauranteur and the county commission that ultimately ruled, ‘tacos and burritos are Mexican-style sandwiches.’
Starting in 2019, Martin Quintana, the owner of Famous Taco, a Mexican-style restaurant that serves made-to-order burritos, tacos and other food items located about 125 miles north of Indianapolis, sought zoning approvals from the Fort Wayne Plan Commission.”
Ahh. There’s the problem.
Zoning.
Do you think you own property? Do you want to use it in a peaceful manner? Should you harm someone through that use, are you open to a person bringing a claim against you, just as you should be able to do so if someone else harms you or your property?
Not so, thanks to the political claim of “zoning power,” where you don’t really own your property, because politicians will demand that before you try to use it in a peaceful way, you have to come groveling to them to get “permission.”
In other words, they claim the power over YOU and YOUR PROPERTY.
Writes economist Ash Navabi, for the Mises Institute:
“Zoning is the practice of governments controlling the type, size, and population density of buildings… The purpose of zoning has been to create separate regional ‘zones’ of building types: broadly, these categories typically include residential, industrial, retail, and parks.”
Do you own a house and want to open a small retail space in one room?
Watch out. You have to go to the Zoning Dons and kiss a few bureaucratic rings, and, even then, you likely won’t get permission to do that, on your own property.
This Indiana matter is not so much about the superficial distraction of whether a taco is a sandwich. That debate just indicates the level of absurdity to which government impositions push people, as they try to fight over terms, escape clauses, loopholes, and exceptions, in an increasingly government-regulated America.
Here’s how the past five years have gone for Mr. Quintana:
“Quintana’s request was to upgrade the space from a single family designation to a limited commercial occupancy for his business, according to the court documents published by local news outlet WISH.
In order to be approved, he would have to agree to a written commitment that highlighted specific restrictions for his business. To be compliant, Quintana’s restaurant had to be a ‘sandwich bar-style’ facility that sold ‘made-to-order’ or ‘Subway-style’ sandwiches.”
In other words, if, for example, you own a house with a kitchen and invite neighbors over to have tacos each Tuesday, and they love the food, and you agree that they will pay you a bit each time they get them in the future, you can’t do that unless you get the GOVERNMENT to ordain that a TACO is a sandwich, because they already claim the power to stop you and your friends UNLESS what you serve is termed a “sandwich” by said slave-masters.
Many people concentrate on the superficial debate about the terminology. But that terminology is irrelevant when compared to the fundamental issue of property rights, free will, and government thuggery.
“’It kind of became an argument of... is a taco a sandwich or not. So, we thought it's easier to agree that it fits within the character and scope of what we had anticipated. And so we have an amendment,’ Quintana’s representatives said in 2022, according to the court documents.
After years of legal proceedings, Judge Craig Bobay of the Allen Superior Court ruled on Monday that Famous Taco was eligible to open and operate its business under the terms of the original written commitment created in 2019. Bobay said that the restaurant was compliant according to the commitment, the court documents said.”
All that trouble. All that time. All that tax money, from the initial creation of the “zoning code” to the salary of the judge and the staff… And all those lost opportunities for Quintana and his customers to engage in peaceful trade.
Related: Georgia Gun Laws: Understand the Impact on Property Owners' Rights
Does the role of government as mobster or liege lord here become clearer as one looks at all those lost opportunities, or will flighty people just stare at the “taco/sandwich” debate and remain blind to what is morally/economically important?
Economists and moral philosophers for years have decried this relatively new phenomenon in western governments (zoning appears to have been started by German politicians, circa the late 19th Century), and Navabi notes key points to carry away:
“The economist Ludwig von Mises marked a distinction of ownership under the principle of violence, and ownership under the principle of contract.1 Under the principle of violence, ownership constitutes physical possession only. A person no longer owns a thing if someone stronger takes it from them via violence. It can be best expressed by Tacticus’s description of the young men of ancient Germania: ‘they actually think it tame and stupid to acquire by the sweat of toil what they might win by their blood.’2 The principle of violence is a policy of arbitrary chaos over peace.
Conditions are different under the principle of contract. Once it is recognized that the stability of ownership is a beneficial institution and ought to be maintained, the principle of contract emerges. Under a policy of contract, voluntary exchanges of property become the norm.”
You have no contract with any political entity. By definition, all political institutions are imposed on people.
“Zoning, as it is commonly understood, is a policy of the state. The state, despite its appeals to democracy, consultation, public reason, and the like, is fundamentally an institution that operates under the principle of violence. Its laws and ordinances are always backed by the threat of violence.”
Is it violent to serve a taco to a willing customer? Of course not.
Is it violent for politicians to tell people they only can serve customers according to the diktats of the politicians?
Absolutely.
And even if one did not want to discuss the absurd "terminology" problems zoning ordinances create, even if one wanted to avoid the baseline immorality of the codes, such proscriptions discourage new ventures and ideas because the people with those new ideas (which could be very successful and help them, customers, and potential employees) are hesitant to fight the red tape preventing them from starting a new endeavor.
Politics is a dangerous enticement. The state, in all its forms, presents a world of aggression and force as if it were normal, and seduces people to get their hands on the controls, or create new controls, over people’s lives.
The less often that kind of seductive aggression exists, the better, and this debate about what a taco is can serve as a reminder about what zoning is:
An attack on private property and free will.
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