A Bright Idea?

Congress in its wisdom passed legislation in 2007 which will eliminate standard light bulbs by 2014. Supporters say it will save energy and money for consumers. Opponents say it is an infringement on personla freedom.

We'll side with the latter. The Michigan legislature is grappling with the question of allowing Michigan residents to be exempt from the law, providing citizens use older style bulbs made in the state. Even that can be seen as little more than feel good, as it appeals to the segment of the voting public who believe that the government, especially at the federal level, has become a monster set only on trampling personal rights.

It has, of course, and that's why even if it is merely feel good lawmaking on the part of Lansing it is nonetheless set on a higher plane. The defense of legitimate individual rights is always on the better moral ground than anything the leftist environmental assault on liberty can offer. It doesn't matter whether the newer style bulbs save energy or not: there is no great sin in using the older type for lighting, while such micromanaging of the individual's life as Washington is attempting to do here is at the least merely annoying, while at the worst, a genuine threat to personal freedom.

Hyperbole? Perhaps. But it is in precisely the kind of incrementalism displayed with the bulb ban that We, the People, lose our freedom. The slow erosion of respect for individual liberty is embodied quite well in laws such as these. Under the guise of the general welfare Washington tramples personal rights. The left wing tends not to notice that as it tells us what to do in the privacy of our homes.

The Founders of our nation did nor fight and die for the sake of the Federal establishment telling us how to illuminate our dwellings. Whether the attempt by Lansing to circumvent that particular law is successful or not will not, in the long, matter. But the fact that the Michigan legislature along with many other state lawmaking bodies are taking on this question and others (think about the lawsuits against Obamacare) hopefully signals that the petty tyranny of Washington is on the decline. The best use of local government may just be in telling the larger government where to get off.