I’m about to link to a happy tidbit: The lightbulb mandate has been reeled in. Here’s my personal reaction to this small improvement in liberty.

Hurray!

Now for some bullet points:

1. Any liberty, even one that’s minor and irrelevant… makes me happy. I like liberty. Much of the population loves building cages and a significant part likes living in them. I’m not of that ilk. I can choose among lightbulbs all on my own, thank you very much.
2. I almost always buy efficient objects of my own accord as soon as the ROI pencils out. Of my own accord is a key factor. Choice matters to me. Getting bitched at about how you illuminate your house isn’t a train ride to Auschwitz but every choice lost and indignity accepted is teaching you to peacefully comply on that day.
3. Nobody writing EPA regulations has a clue what my life is like. They haven’t hammered a frozen water can with a block of wood while half blind in a dimly lit chicken coop. Regulators have no idea what lights are best for a chicken coop but here’s the punchline… they don’t know about any other part of any person’s life either. Nobody knows what’s best for you but you… and half the time you don’t know either.

Finally one last bullet point which outweighs all others.

• It was never intended that things go this far! English colonies didn’t defeat a king and form a Federation of States just so they could control the citizen’s lives from afar. We are citizens. We are not widgets to be managed or subjects born to serve. Whenever a jackass in an office building in another timezone decrees how we should live our life, they’ve gone too far. We ought to say “fuck you” and kick the self-righteous asshole in the balls. They’ve only become bold in response to our unwise reluctance to administer the ass kicking they deserve. It’s almost like they’re poorly raised toddlers in need of discipline; they’re begging for a time out. They need it and perhaps subliminally want it.

I enjoy every liberty, no matter how small. Regaining one that was recently lost is extra tasty. It’s what winning feels like.

A.C.

P.S. If you’re reading this and think I’m somehow opposed to LEDs you’re missing it. Unplug from the matrix, spit out the kool-aid, and shake off the propaganda. Efficient lighting is awesome. When it’s my choice and when it works I’m all about new gadgets. I happily installed two new LED fixtures in Curmudgeon compound just this year. I like both. The point is that I chose them. Duh!