-By Warner Todd Huston
Democrat State Representative Kathy Webb of Arkansas is so alarmed that she says she needs “emergency powers” to make sure her stupid, thoughtless citizens do the right thing. Nanny Webb, you see, is upset at sink grease and wants those nitwit citizens to make sure they don’t wash it down their sink drains and she wants to use the iron boot heel of government to make sure they obey her will.
James Taylor, the writer not the singer, of Forbes magazine tells us of Nanny Webb who wants “to declare an emergency” over the offending goop, noting that “Frying hamburgers is now The People’s Business of the Highest Order” in the razorback’s state. Webb has introduced a bill to make sure her serfs toe her line.
Webb’s bill claims food grease presents an emergency risk of sewer overflows that threatens the environment. “It is in the public interest to establish a Fat, Oil, and Grease Advisory Committee to study the recommended measures to better ensure that the collection, transportation, disposal, and recycling of fat, oil, and grease are done in a manner that is protective of the environment,” reads the bill.
Oh, but this isn’t just a bill meant to punish the stupid, stupid people. It’s also a jobs bill. Why, 14 of Webb’s closest pals will get a nice cushy state job on the 14 member panel she intends to create with her new law, not to mention the “adequate staff and facilities” she wants to afford them… at the expense of those stupid, grease-dumping taxpayers, of course.
If this isn’t the perfect example of the nanny state writ large, what is? Here we have this powermad woman imagining that she has the power to compel citizens even to the point of intruding in how they do their dishes? And then she imagines she should be allowed to give all her little pals cushy state jobs to make sure those monsters she calls voters in line.
As Taylor says, “government 101, folks.” Indeed it is.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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