"Paint Stewardship Program" - look, there's the gun toting Nanny at the paint racks! - Granite Grok

“Paint Stewardship Program” – look, there’s the gun toting Nanny at the paint racks!

  • NH State Rep Leigh Webb (D): “The role of government is to legislate behavior“
  • NH State Rep Laura Pantelakos (D): “I don’t care about protecting peoples’ Liberty

paint colors - - House Paint taxYet another Government mandate in search of a problem.  Democrat Progressives just can’t STAND the idea that they aren’t smarter than everyone else and have to pass legislation to prove it (er, that they aren’t).  Here we go again, kiddies – yes, that’s you, Reader, because unless you all line up like back in kindergarten, well, who KNOWS what you’re liable to do with all that Freedom.

Oh, I’m sure that they will come up with plenty more examples that will show us how much more stupid we, the general public, are than them, but for now, look at the disrespect they show to us all – that regular law abiding folks can’t get rid of a can of old paint.

Sidenote: Shhh, I hate to give props to organizations with whom I’m not enamored with, but don’t the Regional Planning Commission already do this  for old?  And more?  Why else would they hold “Hazardous Waste Day” collections in one’s local towns?

 So, like Steve, I’ve gone through the bill as well ( and we both wrote about it here, here and here) and decided to pass on a few thoughts:

  • As we pointed out, the Democrats broke all the rules, some Constitutional, in passing this.  Good Government is a government that follows process – a well laid out, observable and transparent set of rules and milestones that the ordinary person can follow (even if some studying of the process may be required).  What happens without that is called Tyranny.  Yes, we are a representative government but I believe that this was a special case of “Crony Government” – that the Department of Env. Services had a fix in on this from the get-go.  No hearings, no testimony – a “we want this to grow our bureaucracy” and you get to control more people by taking away their options.
  • This set up another distortion of “Civil Society” on which the Framers depended upon (the other two legs being Individuals and a limited government) – here, a non-profit group solely under the control of Government for its being and sustenance.  I have written before this before: Progressives running Government have crowded the “little platoons” (as Jim DeMint has put it) of civil society.  All of those formerly independent and voluntary groups of citizens coming together due to a common interest in solving a problem and then disbanding when the either the interest waned or the problem was solved.  Charities, mutual aid societies, all sorts of gatherings and groups – one by one Government has acted like Microsoft and its products (or is that the opposite?) in absorbing and taking over those functions.

Do most people think about this?  No – I may be one of the last few that does.  Yet, while Progressive / Environmentalists decry their perception that we are killing “biodiversity”.  Heck, they WORSHIP the idea of diversity!  But in this, why do Progressives insist on killing off civil society’s diversity and proudly hold onto the monoculture of an all instrusive Government?  Even the environmentalists amongst them are forever arguing that we must IMMEDIATELY stop monoculturally ambushing ourselves – so why be hypocritical here?

And Steve outlines a couple real sore points (but of MUCH lesser angst than my first bullet item):

  • (5) A description of how consolidation facilities in the state accepting materials under this chapter will meet all applicable local, state, and federal requirements relative to the consolidation of such materials;

We have seen how one hand of Govt can caress you while the other one slaps you across the room.  This is the obvious one that illustrate the point – in trying to “help” (which has yet to be determined; the over / under is that it will be no better than what is present); how much you wanna bet that some other branch is going to want to do the “check up” and start downchecking on audit visits?  Even the retailers are having angina over this.

  • (7) A description of how collection points will be located in order to have a collection point for every one in 30,000 people and one collection point in 15 miles to achieve 90 percent coverage of the state.

When Government starts mandating distribution (or redistribution), it always makes life more difficult than most.  Don’t you think that they would want to learn from the antics of Obamacare and Anthem’s elimination of half of the hospitals in the State?  That it would force people to travel further than necessary?

But, right in line of Progressive thought – it “creates a more efficient society”!  All of us cogs will be acting the right way. No consideration of more Freedom or decreasing it, not enlarging Liberty or tossing it aside, but that is NEVER their outlook, is it.  In their own words:

NH State Rep  John Mann (D): “liberty” is either an ideology or a gross misrepresentation and oversimplification (accidental or otherwise) of what government is for.”

First Lady Hillary Clinton, 1993: “We need to stop  worrying about the rights of the  individual and start worrying about what is best for society!”

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