We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
The lightbulb revolution An old friend of mine, now living in Texas, gave me several links on Face Book that show there really is a revolt going on over the Edison bulb issue. It is one of those small things that everyone can easily understand. It is the hand of Big Brother reaching into their own personal space.
The rebellion is catching on at the State government level in Texas and South Carolina and Georgia and Arizona too.
Let the NoGreen war banners unfurl! Onwards to victory!
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
So you still can’t import your bulbs from wherever the Osram factory is. Are any lightbulbs made in Texas?
Dale
Until you pointed it out, I hadn’t grasped the patriotic angle in all this. Edison, etc. I’m not saying you were the first to realise this, merely that you were the first to make me realise it. So thanks.
I seem to recall Instapundit linking to something about how they are thinking again about this in Canada. So at least US patriotism is alive and well there.
I think it is important from an American perspective. Thomas Alva Edison was an all-american hero of rock star proportions during his life. When I was a child his life story was one that was put forth as a classic example of how one man, working alone, could change the world. The story of how he slept only in cat naps and tried material after material, thousand upon thousands of trials, before he hit on the one thing that worked as a filament was something every American child knew.
So go forth! Attack in the name of ALVAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!
Was there a movie about Edison starring Henry Fonda? I vaguely recall this. There was certainly a movie about young Edison, starring Mickey Rooney. I know this because I just found it. But googling for an Edison movie is hard, because Edison himself had such a big hand in the movies, so I got a ton of movie stuff that was not what I was looking for.
Edison is heavily over-hyped as an engineer. Many of “his” inventions were replicative or were often minor improvements in dead-end technologies (like the telegraph).
His try-and-try again approach is all very Horatio Alger but he disdained formalized research, preferred his own technique of guess-work and scattershot development, and persisted with the pursuit of technologies based primarily on his personal jones-es. His persistence with developing DC electrical systems in the face of the overwhelmingly-superior AC technologies developed by Tesla is a case in point.
What he was was an excellent systems designer and businessman. Most of his really-novel developments were actually the work of his employees. His iron-clad habit of being named on the patent application would never fly today.
llater,
llamas
So for the sake of “the environment” everyone is to be forced to buy complex (and mercury containing) light bulbs – that do not even work very well.
And are shipped all the way from China.
It makes me sick – but, being British, my default position is “nothing can be done”.
I am glad a lot of Americans (including State governments – and Presidential candidates such as Michelle B., are fighting back).
Long live the Edison lightbulb.
Down with tyranny!
At what point will these intrastate workarounds bump up against Wickard v Filburn ?
W. v F. is on the very short list for worst SCOTUS decisions in history. Until it is unequivocally struck down, there is no limit on the national power. These light bulb insurrections cannot survive a SCOTUS review unless at least part of W. v F. is rolled back. And it is long past time that should have happened.
Llamas, didn’t you just describe Steve Jobs?:-)
Brian:
You’re probably thinking of Edison, the Man starring Spencer Tracy as Edison.
The linked documentation seems to skip on the most important point of CFLs; that they are only more cost/energy efficient if they last the time they are supposed to, I have upgraded (read: downgraded) to CFLs and as yet a good proportion of them have popped* after three years, thereby wasting my money and using more energy than had I stuck with incandescents.
These initiatives are pointless seeing as LED technology is here already, any money, subsidies or laws should be directed at LED development not wasted on CFLs. This is just another “great leap forward” moment.
* not including the one I bumped my toy helicopter into the other day.
“are any lightbulbs made in Texas?”
I suspect there will be after a few people see this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utY6imwDHoA
I did. There are a number of other how to videos that pop up at the same time. I did not have time to watch them but others may be interested in doing so.
I recommend foils start downloading and stashing their own private copies of these videos and passing them around widely to make it impossible for States to ‘close the barn door’ after the fact by making it illegal to put such informational videos on the net. It might be difficult for them to do so in the US, but not in other places, and beside, do not underestimated how upset an ideological totalitarian, (like a Greenist) can get when others find ways around the enforcement of their religion.
Even better, if you check out the us law itself, there are several exceptions for certain types of incandescent bulb so it will not be hard to get around.
Led or a undiscovered new technology will be the rightful successor and will succeed on its merits. The government is just indulging in needless meddling again.
The government is just indulging in mendacious bullying again.
FTFY
Two things government employees need to keep in mind:
1: They’re outnumbered.
2: They’re surrounded.
Posted by Midwesterner
Look up Gonzales v. Raich. The Supremes said any activity that is completely internal to a state, such as making and selling a light bulb, affects interstate trade and therefore falls under the Feds. Federal law trumps state laws and even though there would be no interstate trade in incandecent bulbs, it would affect trade in all types of light bulbs.
Essentially, any human activity that can be tied to money and trade (in essence all human activites) can be federally regulated.
Something like 1 in 3 Americans are government employees at some level, whether it is federal, state, county, or local (counting university and university hospitals, libraries, road workers, teachers). They’re not that outnumbered or surrounded. And a lot of them willingly go along with all the needless rules and regulations because it gives them a good job and a little bit of power.
A good point, but I was thinking in terms of ‘the pushers’ if push comes to shove. Government in America has maybe a million ‘enforcers’, surrounded by (using your estimate) two hundred million potential resisters. That’s pretty well outnumbered.
Steven,
They were reiterating Wickard. I searched Gonzales v. Raich for “Wickard” and scored 30 hits. Without Wickard, G v. R cannot stand and would need to be redecided.
Wickard itself is a masterful collection of tortuously intricate extractions carefully excised from earlier decisions (many defending not impinging interstate commerce), masked with false context and cemented together with the necessary amount of bullshit.
Wickard includes a spectacularly disingenuous reference to Chief Justice Marshall in Gibbons v. Ogden, that claims Marshall interpreted the Commerce Clause to be unlimited by anything other than the will of Congress. It references the passages at 197. But just above, at 194-195, I quote Marshall’s interpretation of the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution:
I should have bolded this part.
This clearly disallows any argument which, if applied to every question, would “extend the power to every description.” Any claim that an activity within a state can have an effect on something outside of the state, (ie growing wheat and feeding it to your own pigs can effect the price of wheat in other states because you didn’t buy any) is in direct contradiction to Marshall’s very clear words in Gibbons v. Ogden.
At what point does one start to wonder if a judicial opinion can be treasonous?
Wickard v. Filburn is a prime example of a bad statute (idiotic production controls) leading to an abysmal ruling which haunts us to this day. It was wrongly decided and should have been overruled years ago. I agree with Midwesterner’s characterization of the case.
Mid, as to your last question, I doubt that merely violating their oath to “protect and defend the Constitution” constitutes treason (although perhaps it could be grounds for impeachment). It bears noting that Wickard was decided in 1942 by an 8-0 majority. Every justice on that Court but one had been appointed by Roosevelt. Clearly they shared his views on the scope of federal power, else he wouldn’t have appointed them. Furthermore, it was early in the War years and I suspect that the Court, along with everyone else, was willing to defer to the federal government on just about everything while the emergency lasted. Had the case come up 10 years earlier I doubt we would have seen the same result.