THUMB SUCKING

The nanny state is well and growing. On Friday, President Obama’s ‘Jobs Plan,’ or government make-work plan, was revealed. Great claims were made about the government ‘putting Americans to work.’ Carolyn said, "How would they do that?" I said, "Simple, they will just send government workers out to change everyone’s light bulbs." You think I jest? Saturday brings three, new similar plans from the government. The city of Boulder, Colorado’s plan is revealed in the Wall Street Journal. I heard Chillicothe’s plan on local radio and the Cash 4 Appliances plan on national news. Am I a genius or what!


Boulder, Colorado will send workers to every home and business to change all light bulbs to new energy efficient fluorescent bulbs. All labor and bulbs FREE from THE GOVERNMENT. Chillicothe, Ohio will send fire department personnel to your home to give you a smoke detector and install it. They will also provide ‘free’ batteries for existing smoke detectors and/or come out and install the new battery for those in ‘need.’ Cash-4-Appliances program will give a government rebate to citizens to buy top of line energy efficient refrigerators and dish washers. This program is modeled upon the disastrous Cash For Clunkers that wasted billions of dollars in 2009 and put more people in debt. Some states are limiting Cash-4-Appliances rebates to low income people so they can buy high end appliances that regular schmucks, common workers, cannot afford. Only to nanny government can this make sense; much work, big cost and little value to citizens.

I propose that all citizens who receive such aid be required to wear diapers ( or nappies) and suck their thumbs during the installation of bulbs or batteries. Only by striking a proper, subservient posture will the ‘citizen’ truly understand his position in relation to the nanny state.

In Boulder, they will forcibly replace bulbs that give real light for the yucky ‘green’ dimmer bulbs that leave everyone in semi-darkness. Will armed guards hold the Boulder millionaire population at bay while the bulbs are forcibly changed? As Boulder sinks into twilight, the rest of the nation should not laugh because federal law already mandates that we all march into the new dark age of efficient but useless ‘green’ bulbs by 2012. In Chillcothe, the government says many cannot afford smoke detectors; but I see smoke detectors for $5 and batteries 2 for $1. How low on the food chain is Chillicothe? Regarding, Cash-4-Appliances, I wonder about the effect on normal workers when they see some layabouts getting deluxe appliances as a reward for being non-workers. Outrage?

In New York, we also see how union and government logic, as shown above, can be carried to illogical conclusion. Capitalists see the consumer as the beneficiary of the capitalist system but statists see the worker guarantee of a job as the goal of their statist system. Statists believe consumers are second class citizens. As the free market Blog, Café Hayek, reports: "Labor-union official Vincent Fyfe wants the state of New York to continue prohibiting supermarkets from selling wine. His reason? Supermarket wine sales

will put some liquor-store owners out of business and their employees out of work. Note to Mr. Fyfe: the purpose of the wine trade – like every other trade – is to serve consumers, not to create jobs for producers. If job creation were paramount, then government should not only continue to prohibit supermarkets from selling wine, but should require that bottles of beer, wine, and spirits be hand-delivered to retailers, one at a time, while cradled in the arms of carriers each pulled though the streets in a rickshaw. Of course, such a requirement would harm consumers, but it would also create lots of jobs."

Nanny statists believe we are helpless children who need government and elites to guide and protects us. They know that wealth and happiness are gifts from the government. Since they know best they will tell us how to work, when to work and what our reward for working will be according to their deeper insights into what is best for us and society. If you need guidance in changing a light bulb you certainly need guidance in every other aspect of your life. The opposite view, expressed in the many TEA ( Taxed Enough Already) parties sweeping the nation, holds that freedom generates wealth by individuals acting in their own interests and not being sheep of the state. Freedom and wealth for the many is linked to capitalism, the economic system most likely to give the good life to all.


2012 will mark the centenary of Milton Friedman’s birth and the 50th anniversary of the publication of his important bookCapitalism and Freedom." My copy of this slim 200 page work is from Washington High School (1963) but I doubt University Graduate Students today could read and comprehend this work (snide remark about quality of our education system).

If freedom is too much work, you will always let someone come to change your light bulb. But you will still be in the dark.