Why Can’t You Just Leave Us Alone?

This is good: Rand Paul confronts Kathleen Hogan, the Deputy Assistant Energy Secretary for Efficiency, on light bulbs, toilets, and bureaucratic busybodies.

Please note, by the way, as an example of how terrifyingly deep the nanny-state mindset goes, that when it comes to the crappy toilets the government has forced us all to use, the best defense Ms. Hogan can offer for the decision to impose them on us is that it was “bipartisan”.

33 Comments

  1. the one eyed man says

    Rand Paul reveals the fatuity in his petulant rant when, after repeatedly professing how much he supports conservation, says that “it ought to be voluntary.”

    The fact is that voluntary conservation does not work. Absent disincentives or prohibitions, people will buy Hummers, incandescent light bulbs, and energy hogging appliances until we’ve depleted all of our resources, while enriching despots with our petrodollars.

    There are two choices. You can do something about global warming, polluted air, and reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, but it requires taking away some things which people like. Or you can testify how much you like conservation, but do nothing about it, which is the option Paul takes. The problem with this option, of course, is that our generation will leave a poorer, dirtier, and warmer planet for future generations, with far fewer natural resources. But hey: at least the government didn’t mess with my freedom to drive a Ford Explorer.

    When we have a drought here, you can’t water your lawn. Presumably Rand Paul would whine about the big, bad government taking away his freedom to decide on his own whether or not he should water his lawn. Needless to say, if enough people insisted on watering their lawn, the reservoir would run dry. But hey: you could sink a putt on my lawn.

    A true conservative would realize that society has an interest in conserving its resources, and it is a legitimate use of government power to use its regulatory power to do so. Reasonable people can disagree about where to draw the line, and regulation can be wise or it can be onerous. However, I can’t take anyone seriously who complains in Congress about having to change his light bulbs.

    Rand’s suggestion that regulations which require energy efficiency in appliances have something to do with freedom is a canard (and his equation of regulation with a woman’s right to an abortion is offensive beyond words). It is only a restriction of freedom in the sense that laws against child labor, heroin, or unsafe drugs restrict freedom. The government has a legitimate interest in protecting its environment and resources, and regulations such as those which require energy standards for appliances are both necessary and wise.

    Posted March 10, 2011 at 7:18 pm | Permalink
  2. JK says

    Peter, you’re not a salesman for those composting crappers by any chance are you?

    Incidentally, I personally do my part conserving resources – I’ve not thrown an empty beer can in the trash in years.

    Posted March 10, 2011 at 9:51 pm | Permalink
  3. the one eyed man says

    No sir. Personally, I have no idea what Rand Paul is talking about when he says his toilets don’t work because of government regulation. I have low-flow toilets and they work just fine. I have two thirds of Earl Butz’s trifecta, as I also have loose shoes.

    Posted March 10, 2011 at 9:53 pm | Permalink
  4. Malcolm says

    Pete, I’m disappointed, but not surprised, by your comments.

    As for your first point, you’re just wrong. There is an enormous groundswell of concern about environmental issues, and many, if not most, industries that depend on large-scale resource management — notably the mining, fishing, and lumber industries — have created independent agencies (for example the Marine Stewardship Council) to certify that they are doing so in a renewable manner. Their voluntary compliance with the standards so established has not only been good for the environment, but good for their bottom line, because public sentiment now prefers doing business with companies that practice environmentally responsible resource management.

    As for those bloody bulbs — they don’t work with dimmers, they cost more, they send jobs overseas, and when you break them you practically need a Superfund team in hazmat suits to clean them up. The good old Edison bulbs are cheap, they work fine, they make a nice light, and we like them. We should be able to have them if we want.

    And as for those toilets: people hate them. (There is a black market now in toilets smuggled in from Canada — yet another unintended consequence of nanny-state meddling.) As Rand Paul points out, people just end up flushing them several times, which completely defeats the purpose of the regulation.

    As for your lawn, how about just letting market principles apply to water distribution? You want to lavish excess water on your big fancy lawn, you pay a stiff premium. Supply and demand. You could even privatize it.

    Shining through in your comment is the archetypal arrogant liberal mindset:

    “Yes, you rabble may want your familiar lightbulbs and toilets — and may even imagine, in the depths of your ignorance, that living in a supposedly free country entitles you to make such choices for yourselves! — but we, your intellectual and moral superiors, know better, and we’re going to TELL you what’s good for you, and you’d bloody well better just shut up and learn to like it.”

    An awful lot of people in America are really, seriously, running out of patience with this kind of shit, Peter — and when it finally hits the fan, it isn’t going to be pretty.

    Posted March 10, 2011 at 10:53 pm | Permalink
  5. chris g says

    I put Toto drake toilet in. It was $250, uses under 2 gallons, and it can take down some serious “material.”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmuzFve6O4k

    wash your hands after you watch this…

    Posted March 10, 2011 at 11:34 pm | Permalink
  6. Government regulation does for conservation of resources what rent control does for affordable housing. The latter has the perverse effect of creating less affordable housing, as most economists have been pointing out for years.

    As for those low-flow toilets which are meant to conserve water? They end up using more water, for the simple reason that people have to flush multiple times to get the shit on it’s way to shit heaven. But perhaps the liberals don’t realize this, since they are in the habit of eating their shit.

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 2:03 am | Permalink
  7. the one eyed man says

    I’m always amused at those who lionize previous generations of Americans as sturdy, rugged, self-reliant individuals who unblinkingly sacrificed for the common good, but ask these guys to change their light bulbs: NFW. Their love of country and its resources ceases at personal inconvenience.

    What a flabby, whiny, self-indulgent nation we have become.

    This business about an “archetypical arrogant liberal mindset” is nonsense. The fact is that incandescent light bulbs are highly inefficient and waste a lot of energy, as do some appliances. Producing energy to operate them depletes natural resources and produces pollution. We can continue the status quo, with its deleterious effects on the environment, our trade balance, and global warming. Or we can make minor changes in our lives to mitigate this trend. It’s that simple. It has nothing to do with “intellectual and moral superiors” telling the masses what is best for them, and everything to do with finding a reasonable solution to an enormous problem.

    Outside of Rand Paul and those who share his pathological hatred of government, I think most people would happily make that trade-off. What I do know is that most Californians would, as we routinely approve propositions which enforce strict environmental regulations (including in the last election, when round-the-clock advertising supported by Koch Industries to enfeeble air quality standards was decisively defeated).

    Rand Paul can complain until the cows come home that the government is taking away his precious freedom to use energy hogging light bulbs and appliances. What about my freedom to breathe clean air? Why should I be forced to live in a country which is increasingly dependent on Middle East oil, or live on a planet which is steadily warming, so Rand Paul can have his full choice of light bulbs?

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 4:20 am | Permalink
  8. Dom says

    If the new light bulbs are really cheaper and better, then people will buy them without government regulation.

    The problem with “green technology” is that it is not really supposed to make people wealthier or make the environment cleaner. It has the opposite intent — to make people poorer. The New Yorker pointed this out, and you can’t miss the fact that they approve this approach:

    “… the world’s principal source of man-made greenhouse gases has always been prosperity. The recession makes that relationship easy to see: shuttered factories don’t spew carbon dioxide; the unemployed drive fewer miles and turn down their furnaces, air-conditioners, and swimming-pool heaters; struggling corporations and families cut back on air travel; even affluent people buy less throwaway junk.”

    Elsewhere in the article you learn that any attempt to make things more energy efficient (and make us all wealthier) will ultimately hurt the environment — If I save money on light bulbs, I am more likely to fly to Greece on vacation. Thus energy-efficiency will increase CO2 output. The true environmentalist wants government regulations because it will make us all poorer.

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 8:24 am | Permalink
  9. Yes, we have become a nation of entitlementalia, without any compunction for personal accountability.

    What do we want? [Fill in the blank]. When do we want it? Now!

    What a disgraceful, self-indulgent mantra that is. “It’s all for the little children …” But first, “Show me the money.” Obnoxious, leering scum.

    “If we cannot put solar-power plants in the Mojave desert, I don’t know where the hell we can put them,” said Schwarzenegger at Yale.

    Well, you can put them where the sun don’t shine, you ass-hole.

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 8:38 am | Permalink
  10. Malcolm says

    I’m always amused at those who lionize previous generations of Americans as sturdy, rugged, self-reliant individuals who unblinkingly sacrificed for the common good, but ask these guys to change their light bulbs: NFW. Their love of country and its resources ceases at personal inconvenience.

    Ask the American people to change their light bulbs, and if it’s a good idea, millions of us will do it, and cheerfully so.

    But no — the liberal solution, as always, is to pass yet another law, create yet another layer of suffocating bureaucracy at taxpayer expense, and then send the Deputy Assistant Energy Secretary for Efficiency out there to tell them to do it.

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 9:18 am | Permalink
  11. the one eyed man says

    Not so. Some people will change their light bulbs, and others won’t. Some people drive a Prius because they want to contribute to a better environment, and others will leave the motor of their Ford Explorer running while they are parked so they can listen to the radio. They all breathe the same air. The question is whether the greater good is served by applying regulations universally or by allowing some to have their toys.

    Nor is the switch to energy efficient light bulbs a “liberal solution.” It was enacted by the Bush administration, which was as illiberal as one can imagine.

    Obviously people can disagree about where to draw the line. It’s a matter of quantifying costs and benefits, and people will quantify them differently. I’ve been using CFL bulbs and low flow toilets for years, and can’t tell the difference. To Rand Paul, it’s a big, big deal. I think that inhibiting global warming — just yesterday, the Times had a story on how the Columbian coffee crop is shriveling, with global warming the most likely culprit — but this apparently counts for little to Senator Paul. While his oddball views are at the extreme end of the political spectrum, there are those at the other end who get two ply toilet paper and separate the rolls into individual plies to conserve trees. OK, I exaggerate. But you get the point.

    America once had an ethos of shared sacrifice. In World War II, the government rationed things like oil, butter, and sugar for the war effort. Had Rand Paul been around at the time, doubtless he would have complained loudly that it should be the individual and not the government who decides how much to contribute to the war effort, in the same smarmy, bullying, and hectoring tone he used towards the administration official. (Come to think of it, it is the same smarmy, bullying, and hectoring tone we hear from Chris Christie. Wonder if they were separated at birth.) We now face different perils, and the sacrifices are infinitely more trivial. Nonetheless, they’re just too much for Rand Paul.

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 9:56 am | Permalink
  12. Malcolm says

    Yes, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 was signed into law by George Bush — but if George Bush was as “illiberal as one can imagine”, then one either hasn’t much of an imagination, or has a very active one indeed.

    The question is whether the greater good is served by applying regulations universally or by allowing some to have their toys.

    For “toys”, read “individual liberty”, and we can agree, at least, that this is indeed the question.

    Outside of Rand Paul and those who share his pathological hatred of government, I think most people would happily make that trade-off.

    If so, then why do we need to coerce them? Your point here is self-defeating.

    What I do know is that most Californians would, as we routinely approve propositions which enforce strict environmental regulations…

    If so, then California can carry on as it sees fit, with my blessing; it’s most of the way to perdition already. But if I remember correctly, this nation started off as a republic, comprising individual states.

    We now face different perils…

    Yes, indeed we do. Mustn’t let a “crisis” go to waste. Low-flow toilets! High-speed rail!

    …the sacrifices are … trivial…

    Ah, I think I hear old Tocqueville stirring, somewhere off in the distance…

    The sovereign extends his arms over the whole society; he covers its surface with a web of small, complicated, painstaking, uniform rules through which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls are unable to emerge in order to rise above the crowd; it does not break wills but softens them, bends them, and directs them; it rarely forces men to act, but constantly opposes itself to men’s acting; it does not destroy, it prevents things from coming into being; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, it presses down upon men, it extinguishes, it stupefies, and it finally reduces each nation to no longer being anything but a herd of timid and industrious animals, whose shepherd is the government.

    I have always believed that this sort of regulated, mild, and peaceful servitude, whose picture I have just painted, could be combined better than one imagines with some of the exterior forms of liberty.

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 10:42 am | Permalink
  13. bob koepp says

    Oh, shit! Whether liberal, conservative, free marketer, socialist, or what have you, everybody ought to be able to agree that conservation is much preferable to waste. This ties very nicely, if metaphorically, into Mr. Paul’s concern with toilets, since those who consume excessively generate excessive waste. Any waste is a tragedy. Excessive waste is immoral.

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 10:52 am | Permalink
  14. “Some people will change their light bulbs, and others won’t.”

    Some people will abide by regulations; others will find work-arounds.

    You can never have monolithic response to any incentive or directive (even Stalin knew that). What matters is the preponderance of the responses.

    Free-market capitalism may be a lousy allocation system, but it beats the hell out of all the others that have been tried (and failed miserably).

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 10:53 am | Permalink
  15. Malcolm says

    Bob, I do agree, as I think any reasonable person would, that ceteris paribus, conservation is preferable to waste — and I don’t think that anyone here, or even in Congress, is making an argument to the contrary.

    The devil is in that ceteris paribus part.

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 10:58 am | Permalink
  16. Malcolm says

    And yes, we have been saying “shit” a lot in this thread, haven’t we? It may give us a naughty little flush of excitement, but, I’m afraid this website’s standards are going right down the toilet.

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 11:00 am | Permalink
  17. “I’m afraid this website’s standards are going right down the toilet.”

    Sorry about that, Malcolm. I’ll have to multi-flush it with my slow-flow crapper (that’s a technical term).

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 11:06 am | Permalink
  18. Malcolm says

    It’s OK, Henry. I started it, with my first comment.

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 11:11 am | Permalink
  19. Thanx, Malcolm, but I’ve already wasted precious water by having to multi-flush. I won’t apologize for that, however, having been forced by our nanny-state to abide by those wasteful regulations.

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 11:17 am | Permalink
  20. JK says

    Jeez guys, why can’t we all just get along and start calling it compost?

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 2:03 pm | Permalink
  21. Compote is sweeter, JK.

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 3:28 pm | Permalink
  22. JK says

    TheBigHenry, Shit! I’m from Arkansas, that word isn’t even in our dictionaries.

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 4:09 pm | Permalink
  23. I know, JK, it’s French for “mixture”, and it’s a European-style dessert of fruit in sugar syrup.

    Before we came to America, my Mom gave me compote (on very rare occasion when we had any dessert at all), but only if I was extra good.

    Also, in French I am known as LeGrandHenri. But I’ll answer to “TheBigHenry, Shit!”, if you prefer it.

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 4:30 pm | Permalink
  24. howsurprising says

    I have no problem with low flush toilets. What whiners.

    But the fact is that most water is used by industry. They’re the ones who need to clean up their act. Nuff said.

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 4:36 pm | Permalink
  25. Whose whining? I love wasting water. It gives me a liberal sense of entitlement.

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 4:40 pm | Permalink
  26. the one eyed man says

    Did you mean “Who’s?”

    I love correcting others’ mistakes. It gives me a conservative’s sense of superiority.

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 4:57 pm | Permalink
  27. Busted! I sure did. It really kills me that a leftist finds my typos. I’ll have to be more diligent in editing my comments.

    BTW, Peter, how’s (NOT house) that hopey-dopey workin’ for ya?

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 5:03 pm | Permalink
  28. the one eyed man says

    I’m not sure if you are referring to Obama or Jerry Brown – but I give them both very high marks.

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 5:20 pm | Permalink
  29. Of course you do. But don’t you ever tire of being on the wrong side of common sense?

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 5:25 pm | Permalink
  30. the one eyed man says

    Of course not. I never am.

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 5:27 pm | Permalink
  31. bob koepp says

    howsurprising –
    Not nuff said. The thing is, industry is using all that water in order to make the stuff that you and I and all our fellow consumers are busily consuming. It’s not in their “interest” for us to conserve things, though they will happily supply us with gadgets and services that help us to imagine ourselves as great conservationists. I don’t even want to get started on the hilarity of looking to government for guidance (much less coercion) in the wise stewardship of resources.

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 5:32 pm | Permalink
  32. Your conservative’s sense of superiority, Peter, is an illusion, akin to your delusions of grandeur. Probably caused by your monocular vision.

    If it wasn’t for bad judgement, you’d have no judgement at all.

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 5:58 pm | Permalink
  33. JK says

    Gee Bob, I dunno about this, ” It’s not in their “interest” for us to conserve things, though they will happily supply us with gadgets and services that help us to imagine ourselves as great conservationists….”

    Beer does come to Arkansas in aluminum cans… I recycle both the water and the aluminum. And, in so doing, I keep litter off the landscape and provide ammonia to starving plants.

    The way I see it (and I’m pretty sure Peter will agree) I’m the rara avis of the Conservative ideal – … wait, wait… I’m trying to think of the word… Shit! I’m the sort of Conservative Conservationist even Peter finds attractive.

    Doubleshit. That makes it out to sound so tawdry.

    “LeGrandHenri?”

    Well… maybe not so tawdry.

    Posted March 11, 2011 at 10:06 pm | Permalink

Post a Comment

Your email is never shared. Required fields are marked *

*
*