Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Big Government Bullies vs the Little Light Bulb

How many incandescent light bulbs can I stockpile before 2014 and where should I store them all?  Boy, you can bet I will be!

Via Memeorandum, this Washington Post story about the closure of the last GE plant in America to make incandescent light bulbs.  Two hundred workers will lose their jobs.  The jobs will go to China:

What made the plant here vulnerable is, in part, a 2007 energy conservation measure passed by Congress that set standards essentially banning ordinary incandescents by 2014. The law will force millions of American households to switch to more efficient bulbs.  The resulting savings in energy and greenhouse-gas emissions are expected to be immense. But the move also had unintended consequences. 

That was a Democratic Congress, by the way, pinning their hopes and dreams on AlGore's global warming fantasy.  

By 2014 all incandescent bulbs will be history and you'll be forced to use those squirrelly CFL bulbs filled with mercury and made in China that don't light worth a darn and cost three times as much.

Professor Jacobson is taking predictions on a Mexican light bulb cartel while Althouse is also planning to stock up on the good stuff.

Mark Krikorian at NRO has the best summation:

We can complain about this among ourselves all we want, but Republican candidates need to actually run on this sort of thing — acknowledge that it’s just a light bulb (or shower head or whatever), but that a government big enough to tell you what light bulb to use is a government big enough to take everything you have.

It's not JUST a light bulb, of course.  It's the ruling class telling you how to live your life.  Krikorian is absolutely correct that before you know it, the government will be so big and so powerful they'll tell you what kind of car to drive (oh..wait....) or how much water you can use, how much gasoline you can consume, where you must buy that gasoline and the exact chemical makeup of that gasoline.  Heck, before long they'll even be telling you what doctor you can see and what you can see him for and whether or not you can have that prescription regardless of your own ability to pay for it.  They'll even be telling you we can't be innovative and search our own oil reserves.  Worse than that, they'll try to tell us we can't tap those reserves even though we know where they are because, you know, we might kill a caribou in Alaska or offshore drilling could possibly be *gasp* dangerous.

Oh wait.  Well.  Of course they can tell us what kind of light bulbs to use.  They're in control of everything else already, aren't they.

Damn.

5 comments:

Jazz One said...

Seriously, how much hate is in your heart? This country is about evenly split. More people voted for Obama than Palin/McCain. During the '04 election Bush had a "mandate" of 52-48%. If you hate Democrats, you hate about half of the America. I say the same thing when I see Dems that hate Republicans. I hear conservatives talk about how liberals hate America. It really seems like I hear more conservatives that hate the other half of Americans. If you hate Americans, you hate America.
I love this country. I love Americans. I love Republicans, some of the best people I know are Republicans. I can't say I agree with their solutions to the problems we ALL face as Americans.
What happened to diplomacy? What happened to statesman? What happened to compromise?
Republicans and Democrats are not rival football teams. Republicans and Democrats aren't red and blue gangs. Republicans and Democrats are Americans.
You are a teacher, I doubt you would accept this sort of behavior out of the children in your classes.
This is not personal. I hear so much hate, from both sides. Hate doesn't do anything good. Hate doesn't help. Hate doesn't make anything better.

Good Ole Boy said...

Great post, I don't know where Jazz One finds hate in the piece. Must be a liberal who forgives his freedom being ripped from him, hail to the state. The American Revolution would never of happened if he was in charge.

Back to your post. You nearly need a hazmat team for cleanup when a CFL is broken and mercury is sure to contaminate our waters in the future if this crap is allowed to go on. If they didn't save energy they would be banned as an environmental hazard.

I have some dangers of CFLs and other green boondoggles in a post on my blog http://realamericanpolitics.wordpress.com/2010/09/07/397/ It seems anything labeled green is given a pass no matter what dangers it pose.

Jazz One said...

No, it is just the generalized "hate" I hear from the right. I say the same thing to the left. Eight years ago, a lot of people on the left were saying the same thing you guys are now. It doesn't make it right (pardon the pun). I heard lefties referring to Bush as King George. What the left was saying back then and what the right is saying now, just sounds a lot like a party that is out of power. That kind of name calling and "hate" doesn't help anything.
I am a Liberal. I am a Common Sense Liberal. If you guys can have Compassionate Conservative, then I'm taking Common Sense Liberal.
Where do I find "hate"? Even as something as small as light bulbs and taking care of the planet God gave us is a problem. Seriously, if the bulb last longer and uses less energy (thus making your electric bill less), doesn't it make a little sense?
I am not big greenie but if your father gave you a house to live in, would you want to take care of it? God gave us this planet. I think we should take care of this gift he gave us. I know, I'm a crazy liberal right?
"Hail to the State", isn't that what you guys were saying during the Bush administration?
Hail to the United States is what I say.
Good Ole Boy,
The American Revolution wouldn't have happened if I was in charge? Do you have an understanding of the American Revolution beyond what is taught in elementary school textbooks? Jefferson took
the ideas of Voltaire, Locke, and Rouseau used them as the basis of Declaration of Independence. These ideas were very liberal for the time. Some of the same writers and philosophies that inspired the French Revolution also inspired our American Revolution. I will avoid writing a small book on the subject. I can talk all day about if I'm not careful. From what I read over the years, some were conservatives and some were liberals. They agreed that we should go to war. Well, except for the Loyalist. Most liberals want to look at the founding fathers and see themselves and yes some of them were liberal. The same thing with republicans, most of them see themselves in the founding fathers. Some of them were conservative. Our founding fathers did not have a single ideology.
So, if I were living back in those times, I would have been in favor of going to war for our freedoms.

Jazz One said...

No, it is just the generalized "hate" I hear from the right. I say the same thing to the left. Eight years ago, a lot of people on the left were saying the same thing you guys are now. It doesn't make it right (pardon the pun). I heard lefties referring to Bush as King George. What the left was saying back then and what the right is saying now, just sounds a lot like a party that is out of power. That kind of name calling and "hate" doesn't help anything.
I am a Liberal. I am a Common Sense Liberal. If you guys can have Compassionate Conservative, then I'm taking Common Sense Liberal.
Where do I find "hate"? Even as something as small as light bulbs and taking care of the planet God gave us is a problem. Seriously, if the bulb last longer and uses less energy (thus making your electric bill less), doesn't it make a little sense?
I am not big greenie but if your father gave you a house to live in, would you want to take care of it? God gave us this planet. I think we should take care of this gift he gave us. I know, I'm a crazy liberal right?
"Hail to the State", isn't that what you guys were saying during the Bush administration?
Hail to the United States is what I say.
Good Ole Boy,
The American Revolution wouldn't have happened if I was in charge? Do you have an understanding of the American Revolution beyond what is taught in elementary school textbooks? Jefferson took
the ideas of Voltaire, Locke, and Rouseau used them as the basis of Declaration of Independence. These ideas were very liberal for the time. Some of the same writers and philosophies that inspired the French Revolution also inspired our American Revolution. I will avoid writing a small book on the subject. I can talk all day about if I'm not careful. From what I read over the years, some were conservatives and some were liberals. They agreed that we should go to war. Well, except for the Loyalist. Most liberals want to look at the founding fathers and see themselves and yest some of them were liberal. The same thing with republicans, most of them see themselves in the founding fathers. Some of them were conservative. There were both.
So, if I were living back in those times, I would have been in favor of going to war for our freedoms.

Fenway_Nation said...

My my my....'unintended consequnces' indeed.

Kind of makes me wonder how much 'unintended consequences' are in the Cap & Trade bill....