The outdoor smoking ban of which John Lutz ran foul is just one example of a frenzy of puritanical edicts from California's politicians that in the past few weeks has outlawed trans fat in all restaurant food, prevented LA supermarkets from handing out plastic bags, and put a halt to fast-food joints opening in the suburb formerly known as South Central. Other recent bans -and attempted bans - have challenged such monumental threats to human wellbeing as helium balloons, camp fires, circuses, swearing, texting while stopped at traffic lights, anything made from a dead kangaroo, dogs sitting on drivers' laps, homeschooling, rodeos, unordered tapwater in diners, spanking, nude beaches, and (this is true) the use of sexually-discriminating terms such as “Mom” and “Dad” in school classrooms.
Chris Ayres prefaced this column by asking if this is a foretaste of what an Obama administration would be like. I guarantee you it would be with San Francisco Nanny Pelosi still in control of the House after all she's busy trying to save the planet from mythical anthropogenic global warming.
A vote for any Democrat is a vote for massive tax increases, over regulation of industry and a further loss of freedom, jobs, industry and production in America.
I live just north of Seattle and this state has way too many politicians that look to California for legislative inspiration.
ReplyDeleteSeattle has transfat bans, a new tax on plastic and paper bags, smoking bans, cell phone bans, carbon this and green that.
But, we can do you one better - we currently have a democrat governor to go along with a democrat house and democrat senate.
Spending has increased 33% in the last three years. The projected budget deficit is close to $2.7 billion. Carbon/CO2 related bills proposed last year amounted to over 250 billion dollars in new fees and taxes over ten years.
These new taxes don't include the new taxes the government wants to have for light rail and forcing people out of their cars.
They don't include the higher taxes the state has been collecting since 2005 to replace some bridges that have been an "emergency" since 2001, yet no final designs have been decided on to date.
It's bad enough at the state and local level. Obama, Reid, and Pelosi would ony make it worse converting us to wards of the state, instead of free Americans.
We have a lighting store. If you want to see the effect of legislation gone mad, do a search for "Title 24". It specifies the number of watts that can be used for lighting per square foot. It also dictates the % of lighting in your kitchen and bathroom that has to be fluorescent, and that your primary light control panel has to be to fluorescent lights. Also, many of the usual incandescents are now banned - there _are_ workarounds, so that if you buy a new ceiling fan, you'll find that the lightbulbs it has _look_ your regular lightbulb, but when you go to replace them, they have an intermediate base. The medium bulbs of that wattage were restricted, so they put a different base on them. You have to look hard for the replacement bulbs.
ReplyDeleteThe legislature should get out of the electric business, and let new electric producing plants be built. There was one in LA that has just recently been nixed because a Judge said that the district hadn't adequately answered the challenges by an environmental group. The district said it didn't forsee being able to provide the information demanded, so it said they'd probably just buy the power they needed from out of state.
Stupid.