As a Libertarian with anarchist sympathies I must always tread carefully when suggesting government intrusion into our lives. Afterall, government is force and force ultimately gets used for evil. However, there are some missed spots in our society where I would welcome the use of force to bring out greater civility, common sense and economic efficiency. So here is my list of what ought to be curbed, altered or stopped by the use of the law.
1. Universal voting rights. It should be illegal for people to be allowed to vote just because they are 18 and are non-felons. The new law would make it legal to vote once you can cite the 27 grievances the Founders listed in the Declaration of Independence; explain, with at least 90% accuracy the original intent of the Founders as declared in our Constitution and pass with a grade of at least 80% an economics exam the covers the basics of cost-benefit analysis, the various economic systems and the workings of supply and demand. If this means that only 419 Americans would be allowed to vote in the next election so be it.
2. Public education. Taking money from one person (who might be childless) to give it to someone else that that the party receiving the forced aid can send their kids to a government school is not only receipt of stolen goods but a recipe for a stupid nation. Along with abolishing taxpayer-financed education would come the elimination of school districts. All education should be privately run and a parent living in Orlando should be allowed to drive their kid to Memphis every day if they want to. The poor would no go without an education any more than they go without food, shoes or toothpaste. The market would find a way to cheaply sell a better product than the garbage schools we have now.
3. Train horns on automobiles. Every time I am driving down the road and hear one of these go off I almost wreck my car. Trucks are not trains and should not sound like them. These rednecks who must announce their existence to the world with train horns are creating a negative externality that poses a hazard to the rest of us. They should be forced to have horns that go "toot toot".
4. Athletes wearing pink. O.K., I am hoping breast cancer is eliminated some day just like everyone else. But, having football players in particular and other athletes in general wearing pink socks and wristbands or swinging pink bats is absurd and only accelerates the sissification of America. The new law would allow female athletes to wear pink. Men would be stoned with blue rocks if they do so.
5. Using the phrase, "At the end of the day...." If I hear this one more time I am going to take a pink train horn and smash the offending person in the head. How in the name of God's green Earth can people keep using this maddening phrase in every paragraph?? "So and so is facing a tough decision about blah, blah, blah, but at the end of the day he has to...." New law: $1 tax for every time this phrase gets used. Use the money to pay China to slow down the rate at which her citizens take away the math and science jobs in America.
6. The word "like". There should be a law stating that if you use the word "like" inappropriately (for example, "My professor told me to read 2 pages to get ready for the next class, and I was like, you know, texting at the time so I did not hear him.") you would pay a $5 tax. This should be enough to pay off the Obama/Bush debt in about a week and a half. All remaining money would be used to create offsetting cuts in income taxes.
7. Back to cars for a moment. It should be illegal for cars driven by non-police officers to be made to look like unmarked cars. You know what mean - the extra spot light mounted near the driver's window, no hubcaps and plain white or black in color. For those of us who need to get to where we are going by fudging on the speed limit and squeezing yellow lights we don't need fake cops behind us preventing us from productively arriving at our destinations.
8. Light beer. Even women should not drink light beer and no man should. How can we expect to defend our nation from future attacks if we drink light beer while wearing pink wristbands?
9. Texting. I do not mean texting while driving. I mean texting. To do that I want the texting devices banned to. That means no cell phones. But cell phones are mutations of regular phones so those need to go to. New law: Smoke signals. That would reduce all human contact to only the most important interactions. Everything else is overrated and needs to go away.
10. Lastly, there should be a law that requires all environmentalists to walk everywhere they go without the use of any clothing except for fig leaves and/or the bark from dead trees. The first law of Thermodynamics states that energy is neither created or destroyed. This means all energy creates some form of pollution or negative environmental consequences. Therefore, to avoid being hypocrites, all "Green people" should be banned from using energy. That not only means walking around with oak bark underwear and dried leaf shoes but it also means eating only dirt, never using a light bulb and never again using fuel-powered boats to chase whaling ships. They could swim out to the ships and throw seaweed at the offenders. That would be fine.
I welcome any suggestions to my list. As you can see, I am bored today.
I love Canada. I love the Canadian people and I love Vancouver, British Columbia.
