You know, it's amazing the number of times you commit the same offenses I get accused of so often.

I submit that it's asinine to make selling incandescent light bulbs a crime, and all of a sudden I'm in favor of allowing twelve-year-olds to own bazookas?

I was far ahead of the curve in switching over to the energy efficient bulbs. I didn't need government telling me they were a good idea. I would wish we were in a country where babysitting is not required but look around you every once in awhile. There are times when leadership must play tough love with the uneducated masses for the greater good. In some cases it's a slippery slope but it's usually pretty obvious when the laws have nothing to do with common sense.

This just crystallizes what I wrote. "Babysitting?" "Uneducated masses?" Good God. How marvelous that you're so much smarter than everyone else. Why, I bet the intellectual titans on "Daily Kos" think you're a genius.

Of course, you're smart enough to make the right choices, but those peons? They need the whip.

The main objection I have to putting an "elite" in charge of my life is that these idiots are anything but "elite." Most of the people who come up with this stuff are as dumb as a box of rocks, totally butt-ignorant about economics, never mind technology, and come from the same long line of pontificating boobs that thought you could legislate "pi" to be exactly equal to "3," or that the only thing needed to create a car that runs on water is to pass a law declaring that all cars need to run on water by 2012.

This, combined with their firm and unshakable conviction that their intellectual brilliance outshines the sun, makes for a dangerous combination.

The sales of fluorescent bulbs have been rising slowly and steadily, and the technology has responded to increased sales by improving year by year. All without guns.

The only reason stupid laws like this are passed is to allow the idiots in Washington to jump in front of yet another parade and start flipping the baton around. After all, the last thing they want us to realize is that the price of energy, market forces, and the response of industry, are largely taking care of the problem without them. God forbid America finds out that the gods in Washington aren't actually the ones turning the crank of the economy, although they and their allies certainly spare no effort trying to convince us they are. In reality, they're usually more of an obstacle to economic progress than anything else.

If this particular idea doesn't get shot down, the next twenty years after that are going to be filled with the kludges this kind of ham-handed regulation invariably spawns. Bulbs too expensive for the poor? Well, now we need a "light bulb welfare" program. Mercury waste? Fund Federal recycling centers and hazardous materials crews. Corporations making too much money on a government-engineered technical monopoly? Well, maybe we need a penalty tax on their greedy asses.