One More Levin Post (Someone stop me.)
Posted on July 1st, 2009
by Nathan P. Origer |
|
MINT-AND-CORN COUNTRY, INDIANA — Maybe Dan Riehl is right, and I am a moron: I may have to be if I’m posting yet another anti-Levin screed. But here’s the thing: I broke down and decided actually to listen to Levin; actually, I have last night’s broadcast playing as I type this.
He spent most of the first ten minutes raving about President Obama, crony capitalism, and fluorescent light bulbs. Now, I sympathize with his (presumably selective) attack on crony capitalism, but I am positively astonished by something that he said:
[Y]our liberties are now being repressed. Oh, and they are. WHEN A GOVERNMENT TELLS YOU THAT YOU CANNOT PURCHASE A CERTAIN KIND OF A LIGHT BULB, WHERE THE HELL DOES IT END? There’s a reason why they push these little things and torment us: Because they lead to bigger things. And they also distract you.
I’m not going to disagree that lightbulb policy really isn’t a Federal matter (although God knows someone could probably proffer an ICC-based defense of this), but the cognitive dissonance this evinces is just something else. How the hell do you equate limitations on the light bulbs that we are allowed to purchase (for arguably good reasons) with the repression of liberty while supporting the USA PATRIOT Act?
Also, for anyone who is interested in taking a listen, this is quite the handy guide to the hilarious nicknames (à la “Nathan P. Mental Case”) Mr. Levin employs whilst referring to the evil-doers of American politics.
Finally, this, I promise, is my last Levin post. I’m refraining, hereafter, from posting about him without actually listening to his show, and I can’t endure much more of this. “Statist” and “tyranny” (which Obama was “raised to embrace”) start to lose their scariness when he utters them as frequently as Homer Simpson resorts to “D’oh!”
P.s. Levin is so heavily publicizing his book Liberty and Tyranny, via commercials and on-air self-(aggrandizing self-)promotion, that I’m tempted to buy it. Tempted, but not yet convinced. But I reckon I’d be better off picking something up from ISI Books.
Filed under: politics, pop culture
For Levin and those like him, foreign policy is an overriding issue. Anything and everything is ok so long as it supports the war on terror. All his liberty shtick may sound nice, but it doesn’t take precedence for him and so is meaningless.
Whatever about Levin,
light bulbs seem a good example of the New America….
All lighting devices have different advantages and give out different types of light.
That’s why they exist for people to choose.
The ordinary simple light bulb responds quickly with bright broad spectrum light, is
easy to use with dimmers and other equipment, can come in small sizes, and has safely been used for over 100 years.
For some that is a reason for banning it:
Why keep simple old technology?
Because if modern lights were better, people would buy more of them instead.
Consumers don’t avoid products only because they are expensive - or no other expensive products would be sold.
Nor do they keep buying cheap but poor products.
There are - for example- well known batteries and washing up liquids that are expensive but sell well because they “last longer” - as they show in their advertising.
Fluorescent light manufacturers and distributors are very happy to let governments promote their case,
and happy that they ban the lights that people are buying, so the fluorescent (and/or LED) light manufacturers can win market share
- why should they bother making better products and advertise them?
They can clean up the market and charge what they like when those cheap competing light bulb rivals keeping down prices are gone.
Is this the New America?
You can buy any car, as long as it is an Obama car?
You can buy any light bulb, as long as it is an Obama light bulb?
Put it this way:
New LED lamps are on the way.
If they are good, people will buy them - no need to ban ordinary light bulbs (little point).
If they are not good, people will not buy tham - no need to ban ordinary light bulbs (no point).
Why Light bulb bans are wrong (list of reasons with references)
http://www.ceolas.net/#li1x
About why all efficiency regulation is wrong,
and how they affect performance, construction, appearance, price and savings on buildings, disheashers, cars, light bulbs etc
http://ceolas.net/#cc2x
Instead of worrying about a talk radio host and the hilarious names he gives his (mostly deranged) detractors, perhaps this blip-on-the-radar-screen of a blog could instead focus on the ruinous and deceitful president’s tyrannical abuse of our executive branch?
Ceolas, though, for conservationist reasons, I’m inclined to use and to support the use of newer, better light bulbs, et cetera, as I note, I don’t think it is the Federal government’s business — certainly not the president’s.
William, I’m sure plenty of that will happen. It’s an eclectic Weblog, which you may have noticed; this Levin thing just has happened to blow up. I’m just trying to decide to which aspect of Obamaism I want to direct my animadversion first.
Nathan, now is the time. Lightbulbs being directed from the oval office… does this not freak you out?
Do you happen to know anyone who has lived through a Communist Rebellion? Say, Cuba? Hungary? Egypt (under Nassar)? If you do, I suggest asking them about it. This is how these things start.
Yes, William, it does freak me out. That’s not my point in the post. My point is that there’s a serious disconnection between fearing this and supporting the much more liberty-restricting USA PATRIOT Act.
You mean the legislation that gave our intelligence services the same abilities that civil law enforcement had been using for decades against the mob? In what instance has this been abused? I cannot recall any, and for all the left’s whining and screaming about it, I’m sure if there were an available poster child he’d be all over the news.
Join the ACLU if you’re not already a member. Geez, you’d think we were all being listened to by big brother.
Oh wait, that was under Clinton and Echelon.