Stan Geiger

Gubment Gone Mad

It gets worse every year. Every year a bunch of idiots get together and pass a bunch of new laws that intrude on people's lives. They are wiser than the ignorant masses, so they propose to tell us all how to act.

On a day last year, I don't recall which, I caught a little news blurb on TV that mentioned 200 new state laws had gone into effect. Two hundred freakin' new laws in one day.

I read somewhere, a couple of months back, that over 1,500 bills were set to be introduced in the current session of the Oklahoma Legislature.

Do we need 200 new laws a year? Do we need lawmakers coming into a session proposing 1,500 new laws?

No, we don't.

The word "gridlock" gets thrown around a lot these days. I like gridlock. We need more gridlock. Government is at its best when government is doing nothing.

Let's just take a look a few items floating around in the news right now.

It appears there is a proposed Oklahoma law that will allow cops to drive around town with some super scanner so they can decide whether or not you have insurance. If you don't, you don't get a ticket. The cops will confiscate your car and throw your family out on the street to fend for itself.

Marvelous. In a country that goes around the world preaching the value of personal choice, this is a law that gets proposed.

There is a jackass politician in Oklahoma City looking to pass a law mandating that anyone that wants to get married has to go see some "marriage expert" first. The same rules would apply to people looking to split up.

I've never been married. But if I ever decided to make that leap of faith, I don't figure I'd need some so-called "expert" getting involved with it. Nor do I figure I'd need some so-called "expert" involved if I decided I had married the wrong chick.

How about fat kids? I mean we've got government that says, on the one hand, that childhood obesity is a problem. On the other, it says public schools need to give free food to kids. The percentages of student populations getting free or reduced-priced meals is huge. And it goes beyond lunch these days. Breakfast is offered up as well.

You can't have it both ways. You can't argue we are a nation full of fat kids then argue the fat kids will starve without gubment food.

Speaking of fat, politicians are all about taxing soda pop these days. Too much sugar, they say. We need a "sugar tax."

The federal government has subsidized sugar production for decades. It continues to do so. Does it make any sense at all for the government to subsidize the production of something and then tax you for consuming it?

I'm waiting for the day when the politicians decide I need a personal keeper, I need a gubment employee to come and live with me. Said gubment employ would tell me when to eat and what to eat, tell me when to turn on the TV and what to watch, tell me when to go to bed and when to get up, tell me what clothes to wear and tell me when to go to the crapper and how much I could dump.

I've got a better idea: Maybe the pricks in politics should take a shot at doing the jobs they were hired to do (managing government) and spend less time and energy trying to manage my life. Does that work for you?

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