Power Line Was There First!

From our April story

The “B-Hed” feature article in today’s Wall Street Journal is “Proposed Ban on Public Nudity Offends Some in San Francisco.”  But Power Line reported this story way back in April!

Nevertheless, the Journal story today helps highlight some aspects of contemporary liberalism, especially how liberalism is all about “lifestyle”and “personal autonomy” for everything except commerce.  Liberals are all for freedom for acts between consenting adults–except commercial transactions.  Or as Irving Kristol memorably put it, a liberal defends the right of a teenage girl to dance naked so long as she is paid the minimum wage.

San Francisco thinks nothing of banning lots of things: plastic bags, toys in kid happy meals at fast food restaurants, etc. As the story notes:

Lately, some in San Francisco have been worrying about this city banning too many things. In 2004, for instance, the board of supervisors voted to ban the city’s zoo from keeping elephants in enclosures smaller than 15 acres, a move that effectively banned elephants in the city. A 2009 law made composting food waste mandatory, banning residents from throwing out dinner scraps. A year later, the city prohibited restaurants from handing out free toys along with meals that didn’t meet certain nutrition standards.

Harmeet Dhillon, the chairwoman of the San Francisco Republican Party, said San Francisco bans too much, and she opposed some city bans, including one on plastic bags that went into effect this week. “These are all unwarranted extensions of government,” she said.

The Hayward plastic bag recycling program, now abolished.

About that plastic bag ban: The same idiocy went into effect in San Luis Obispo county on October 1st, and in the usual fashion it will have the unintended consequence of reducing recycling in the Hayward household.  Because, you see, we have been in the habit of recycling plastic bags by making them into really big plastic bags useful for collecting shells on the beach, etc. (See photo.) Now, I’m going to take it with me to the store and ask that they bag my groceries in my plastic bags bag, and see whether some greenie checkout clerk calls the sheriff.

P.S. And yes, I’m thinking I’ll start shipping my food waste to San Francisco, since they are so keen on having it around.

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