A lot of the right (and some of the left) is outraged over the impending passage of the heath care bill it it’s current form (whatever that actually is).
As I said to my old friend the rightwinggamer in comments:
This doesn’t actually bother me all that much in the sense that I didn’t expect better from this congress and that as a nation we made the foolish decision to elect them. We did this to ourselves so we have to take our medicine.
I’m actually much more outraged by this:
Private recycling programs weren’t good enough because the city wants to monitor our compliance. If there are all sorts of different recycling bins, placed where shopkeepers want them, how will the people — AKA the government — know if the mandate is boosting our bag-related virtue over the 10% level? The unenforced mandate, mind you. Now, not only will the people know how many bags are recycled, the people will know how much the mere idea of being supposed to do something produces the intended result. Think there will be a decline from the current 10%? You don’t know Madison.
My beef is really with this line from the actual story Ann References:
Fines for failing to recycle bags range from $100 to $400 a year, but city recycling coordinator George Dreckmann stressed that the city had no intention of enforcing the law emphasis mine
There is nothing that irritates me more than passing a law you aren’t going to enforce, it is a waste of resources and time. Even worse such laws can be selectively enforced to pressure or punish people if the desire arises. And this is local government, a national government might neglect or overlook some things due to its sheer size but a local government is close to the people it should know better.
I know very little about Madison, nothing from direct experience, I live in a city that is broke and where violence and drugs are a real problem.
If these are the people I’d be dealing with rather given the choice I think I’ll stay here.
In both cases the voters put these people in, and in both cases we the voters will get what’s coming to us.