George Rebane
Only its numbers make a social issue important. Not understanding its numbers is to not understand the social issue.
[RR is opening a new category of topics – ‘We the Sheeple’ – in which posts that report on how quietly and without a murmur we accept the governments’ relentless ravages on our freedoms and finances. These items are meant to highlight that we, a once fiercely free and independent people, have now become what can only be described as yet another cowardly and compliant cohort pretending that we understand what’s going on, and are willing to stand up for our and our children’s rights as citizens of a once exceptional America. Consider these offerings as a murmur.]
A correspondent sends a report of a local Californian who is planning on changing some light fixtures in his house. Doing the research on the type and price of the new lights available here in the Sacramento area, the price tag came to $1080 for the required hardware. A little more online research disclosed that the identical hardware could be purchased in Reno for $730. The reason – in California such lighting hardware must succumb to, er, conform to California’s ‘Title 24 energy code’ and be certified by CARB (California Air Resources Board) to be in compliance.
In these pages CARB has long been identified as possibly the most vicious agency on the long list of rogue agencies in California, now even surpassing the teachers’ and public service employees unions. CARB is the agency most recently charged with implementing and enforcing compliance with the notorious AB32 (‘clean air’) legislation that has shut down hundreds of businesses or driven them out of state. (Search RR with ‘AB32’)
We recall that California voters attempted to pass Prop23 to remove some of AB32’s fangs. The unions and green kool-aid funded NGOs successfully fought to defeat Prop23. Many of us predicted the economic holocaust that was to come, and now it is here. (As a defiant reminder, Jo Ann and I still have our ‘Prop23, Jobs First’ bumper stickers on our cars. These are the first and only bumper stickers we have ever had on our vehicles on which they now are permanent fixtures.) Recall the local yokels who made the northern California rounds proclaiming a new age of green jobs and industries that AB32 would make bloom and get us out of our dire economic straits. Well, I wonder how all this is working out for them, it sure isn’t working out for the rest of us.
Can you imagine how many everyday items, such destructive laws as AB32’s Title 24, are out there, quietly stealing from us day in day out. The cancer of CARB has metastasized another 50+% tax (yes, that’s a fifty percent new tax added to all the other taxes) on the above described light fixtures and thousands of other items, and we don’t make a peep. Those who do discover it will quietly climb in their cars and go over the hill to save more than $300 on this purchase alone, and in the process deprive California merchants from making such sales locally. Meanwhile, the rest of us just cluck-cluck our tongues, shake our heads, and dig deeper into our wallets to pay the next tranche of tribute to a government that no longer serves. And California's green catastrophe just rolls on.
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