I know I was not. When the Democrat-run House of Representatives (where the representation ratio is about 1:700,000 people) passed the cap and trade bill, I was not shocked or dismayed by it. When they passed it and added an additional 300 pages to the bill during or after the vote, I was not at shocked by such unethical and undemocratic behavior from the likes of Pelosi. The only thing that really shocked me was that the vote was very close. I would have thought that such a piece of feel-good legislation would have gotten all the Democrats and a few dozen Republicans on board (there were about six or so Republicans who voted in favor of it).
The cap and trade bill, like most legislation, is an abomination to the United States Constitution. It raises the costs of energy use and violates the 5th and 14th amendments (you know, that silly little right to property). But, as Jefferson himself once said, while Congress is in session, no man’s life, liberty, or property is safe from their tyranny. These days, such a saying could not more relevant because when you represent the interests of 700,000+ people, there are bound to be tens of thousands of morons, moral busybodies, and downright jerks who scream the loudest about their selfish desires. And those people want nothing more than the government to provide it to them, even if they have to bite the hand that feeds them.
Congress has actively engaged in tyranny since at least the Sherman Act. They became more prominent in the 1930s with FDR’s New Deal (Stalin had his own five-year-plan and I suspect that if FDR did not have as many restrictions in his own power, the body count would have rivaled Stalin’s) and have continued to try and one-up their predecessors.
The cap and trade bill is really an affront to science, to property rights, and nothing more than a grab for power. Think about it. If you had to have a bureaucrat approve the private sale of your home, do you really think things would go smoothly? Bureaucrats are notorious for messing up people’s lives, not making them better. They paint a broad brush standard and assume that every situation is the same. Before I got married, I had to go a courthouse to get “approval” from the state. Let me rephrase that. Before I got married in a ceremony that honored God and revered Him for the union between my wife and me, I had to get approval from the state of Virginia.
While the process was fairly painless, there were crazy restrictions, such as having to get married within a certain timeframe, certain standards needed to be applied. All of these were doable, but it put the pressure on my wife and I to ensure that everything went smoothly. Also, I had to pay a fee to get a copy of my marriage license in order to take care of legal issues, such as insurance, Social Security name changes for my wife, etc.
Now imagine a bureaucrat telling you how much time you can have your computer turned on, what appliances you are allowed to buy and use, and what time of day you need to turn your lights off. This is effectively what the cap and trade bill will do, regardless of what is actually written. Not even bureaucrats follow the letter of the law and instead do what they feel involves the spirit of the law. And do not expect a bureaucrat enforcing energy standards to use their brains. These kind of bureaucrats will more than likely be environmental fanatics who worship Al Gore and pray to the birds.
So while there is some hope that the Senate will squash it, because it will not be voted on until the fall, I highly doubt it. The microwave mindset of the average voter means that the Senate will pass it under the radar and with even more tyrannical dictates applied to it.
The only good thing that will come out of it is that maybe people will realize what true freedom was and they will struggle against the tyranny of Congress and the Demagoguery of their elected officials to overthrown them. Whether or not that will be a violent overthrow remains to be seen.