Leaded gasoline was phased out as an actual health hazard, not because some politician had a brain fart.

Kerosene lanterns were never outlawed for use in homes. It's not illegal to use it for routine indoor lighting, but it is stupid, due to CO issues and others. In the Third World, it's used a lot. Some 60 percent of homes in India use it exclusively for lighting.

Through 200 years of technological progress and increasing standards of living in America, alternatives to existing ways of doing things simply became cheaper and more efficient, and people moved over to the new technology. No Federal agency made it a crime to use whale oil, and mandated petroleum. There are countless other examples.

As I explained elsewhere, it's quite likely that given the progress in lighting technology, America will move naturally to alternatives as it becomes feasible and economical. As I explained elsewhere, this has been happening naturally for several years before some government boob decided he needed to pull a gun. The only rationale for doing this now is that:

A) It allows politicians to take credit for the process, like a rooster taking credit for the sunrise

B) Some politicians just get off on controlling people's lives, necessary or not.

Nobody's going to the barricades just for the incandescent light bulb. It's one of many straws on the camel's back, one of many idiotic ball-peen-hammer solutions coming out of government every day. Outlaw trans-fats? Plastic bags? Box stores? All of these laws and many more have been proposed. In some places, they've been enacted. Fortunately, to date, most of the imbecility has been at local and state levels.

One of many fatal flaws in the socialist fantasy is the idea that somehow those in our government are infallibly suited to tell us what your "greater good" is. One of the most amazing things about your run-of-the-mill liberal is that they constantly gripe about corruption and stupidity in government, yet at the same time demand giving them ever-more authority over our lives.