David

Karki

Read David's bio and previous columns here

April 15, 2009

The Tyranny of the Carbon Control Freaks

An absolute monstrosity of a climate bill was introduced in Congress last week, in the name of saving us all from the “danger” that is carbon. It clocks in at a massive 648 pages, a veritable phone book-sized paean to totalitarian micromanagement of every last detail of all of our lives.

This legislative Frankenstein rewrites building codes to affect every single thing in your home, from the type of shingles on the roof (have to meet "solar reflectance standards," whatever the hell those are) to furnaces, washers/dryers, dishwashers, showerheads, faucets, toilets, lamps, light bulbs . . . you name it, if self-appointed energy dictator Rep. Henry "Nosferatu" Waxman thinks it uses one tiny bit too much, it's banned.

And if you defy the dictators on the Potomac and dare to hoard or obtain on an impromptu black market all the household items they would ban (which has already begun happening with incandescent light bulbs, since they stupidly mandated compact fluorescents), the bill calls for the feds to bring legal charges in U.S. District Court against "any person possessing or distributing in commerce any covered product which does not comply." We will all be criminals, simply for using common household devices that the enviro-loonies declare to be "wasteful."

If you like the War on Drugs, you'll love the War on All Non-Green Energy Consuming Devices. Ready to go to jail for doing laundry? Or bathing? Or keeping your thermostat set one degree too high? Or, if you live in California (the original liberal la-la land), own a black vehicle or plasma TV?

We've zoomed right past George Orwell's 1984 and into something even more invasive and controlling and evil than Big Brother.
 

On what planet could any of this possibly be constitutional? There is no way that the interstate commerce clause – a co-favorite of the socialist left, along with the equal protection clause, when it comes to falsely justifying infinite government – allows for intrusiveness so vast that it obliterates the rest of the document in which it resides.

And that's only the half of it; the breathtaking arrogance and hubris continues with a mandate that 25 percent of electricity come from solar, wind, geothermal and biomass by 2025. To hell with the laws of physics. Congress has declared it, waved its magic wand, and evermore it shall be so. Do they honestly think they have the power of God? Not to mention that this is the direct outlawing of coal, oil and nuclear power, but in a slower piecemeal fashion that they hope no one will notice.

Lastly, there's the EPA's re-classifying of carbon as a “dangerous pollutant” – never mind that CO₂ is naturally 4 percent of the atmosphere and all plants breathe it as we do oxygen – which will prompt a second avalanche of new freedom-crushing regulations, covering everything from lawn mowers to livestock flatulence (“enteric fermentation”).

The end result of all this will be economic destruction. The gargantuan tax increase all this represents – as everyone will have to throw out all their old stuff and buy and install new, much more expensive stuff that complies with this insanity – will ruin this country. The lifestyle and standard of living to which we've become accustomed will be lowered for everyone, as the basics of modern existence consume a much larger share of our income.

But even more than that, this bill will be the complete destruction of personal liberty. These green fascists want to control everyone and everything, down to the most minute and trivial detail of our lives. Or, to quote one of the charges against King George III in the Declaration of Independence:

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

The one who is a criminal here isn't an average person with older light bulbs or whose showerhead doesn't meet with the enviro-wackos' approval, but Rep. Waxman and his fellow despots in Congress and the EPA. They are using environmentalism as a front for the most thuggish dictatorial control imaginable. This must be fought with every fiber of our being and stopped any way it can.

For those patriotic Americans attending Tea Party protests across the nation today, I'd suggest you forget the little bags of Lipton. Incandescent light bulbs and three-gallon flush toilets should be the symbols of this nascent revolution.

They would represent the clue government doesn't have, and the place where this bill needs to go.  

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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