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    Let’s Not Forget This

    Posted by David Foster on July 10th, 2011 (All posts by )

    Steven Chu, Obama’s astonishingly arrogant (Nobel-prize-winning!) energy secretary, defends the Edison-bulb ban:

    We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money.

    Read the PowerLine post at the link, and continue to the Mark Steyn post….Steyn is, as usual, in fine form. But I’m mainly posting this because we need to remember Chu’s comment at election time, to be added to the very long list of statements and actions that show just how disconnected this administration is from traditional American ideas of liberty. I don’t think most Americans yet understand just how extreme this disconnect is, and we need to help ensure that it is made visible.

    This is an administration, as I’ve noted before, that is comprised of two kinds of people: theorists and agitators. They do not value individual freedom, and they are not interested in problem-solving.

     

    This entry was posted on Sunday, July 10th, 2011 at 9:46 am and is filed under Economics & Finance, Energy & Power Generation, Environment, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

    6 Responses to “Let’s Not Forget This”

    1. Robert Schwartz Says:
      July 10th, 2011 at 2:36 pm

      Mr Chu committed the act described by Adam Smith 235 years ago, as the highest impertinence and presumption”:

      But though the profusion of government must, undoubtedly, have retarded the natural progress of England towards wealth and improvement, it has not been able to stop it. The annual produce of its land and labour is, undoubtedly, much greater at present than it was either at the Restoration or at the Revolution. The capital, therefore, annually employed in cultivating this land, and in maintaining this labour, must likewise be much greater. In the midst of all the exactions of government, this capital has been silently and gradually accumulated by the private frugality and good conduct of individuals, by their universal, continual, and uninterrupted effort to better their own condition. It is this effort, protected by law and allowed by liberty to exert itself in the manner that is most advantageous, which has maintained the progress of England towards opulence and improvement in almost all former times, and which, it is to be hoped, will do so in all future times. England, however, as it has never been blessed with a very parsimonious government, so parsimony has at no time been the characteristical virtue of its inhabitants. It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense, either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own expense, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the state, that of their subjects never will.


      An Inquiry Into The Nature And Causes Of The Wealth Of Nations;
      By Adam Smith, LL.D. and F.R.S. of London And Edinburgh:
      Formerly Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University Of Glasgow
      Edinburgh: 1776

      BOOK II. Of the Nature, Accumulation, and Employment Of Stock.

      CHAPTER III. Of the Accumulation of Capital, Or Of Productive and
      Unproductive Labour.

      To translate “highest impertinence and presumption” into cruder and more modern language:

      Who the fuck do those Bozos think they are, lecturing us about our electric bills when they are about to send us all into a financial collapse the like of which the world has never seen. Chu should STFU, and we should shut him and his whole useless department down. Fucking bunch of clowns.

      Let’s face it, I can’t write nearly as well as Adam Smith.

    2. David Foster Says:
      July 10th, 2011 at 2:49 pm

      Robert…good find!

      What you said is probably just what Adam Smith would have said if he’d been exposed to 2011-style writing conventions.

    3. dearieme Says:
      July 10th, 2011 at 5:37 pm

      “Edison-bulb”: Edison lost his patent case on it.

    4. Robert Schwartz Says:
      July 11th, 2011 at 8:22 pm

      They don’t stop:

      “Michelle Obama orders 1,700-calorie meal at Shake Shack” By Natalie Jennings:

      First lady Michelle Obama ordered a whopper of a meal at the newly opened Washington diner Shake Shack during lunch on Monday.

      A Washington Post journalist on the scene confirmed the first lady, who’s made a cause out of child nutrition, ordered a ShackBurger, fries, chocolate shake and a Diet Coke while the street and sidewalk in front of the usually-packed Shake Shack were closed by security during her visit.

      According to nutritional information on Shake Shack’s Web site, the meal amounted to 1,700 calories.

      Obama, who launched the “Let’s Move” campaign to combat childhood obesity last year, has previously admitted to having an “obsession with french fries,” which she says are fine to indulge in occasionally. “It’s all about moderation,” Obama told reporters.

      The Fat Girl From Chicago has a bigger caboose than anything on the Union Pacific. For her to say anything about food or diet is “the highest impertinence and presumption”, and she should STFU.

    5. Robert Schwartz Says:
      July 11th, 2011 at 11:27 pm

      The hits just keep coming:

      “I do not want, and I will not accept, a deal in which I am asked to do nothing. In fact, I am able to keep hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional income that I don’t need, while, uh, a parent out there who is struggling to figure out how to send their kid to college suddenly finds, uh, that they’ve got a couple thousand dollars less in grants or student loans. That’s what the revenue debate is about.”

      Barack Obama, July 11, 2011

      repeat after me:

      “It is the highest impertinence and presumption”

      or

      STFU, bunghole. It is not your fucking money. We don’t need you to tell us what to with it. BTW, we have already set up two scholarship funds, so the needy parent is covered.

    6. Sigivald Says:
      July 15th, 2011 at 12:54 pm

      Dearieme: Patent kept or lost, the screw-base is still called an “Edison socket”, so “Edison bulb” by extension.

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