Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
My Government, My Election System, and My Kitchen
Charles C.W. Cooke, writing in today’s National Review about the Biden Administration’s plan to ban gas stoves, quoted the apparatchik in charge of the relevant agency as making the following, remarkably stupid, statement:
Justifying the administration’s proposed move, CPSC commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. explained that “products that can’t be made safe can be banned.” What, I wonder, would be excluded from that definition?
Very good question, Charles. A few years ago one of my elderly patients was parking her car at a grocery store and bonked into something. She said she was barely moving, but her airbag deployed, breaking her arm. So airbags are dangerous, right? Well, yes they are, but they can also save your life. But since they “can’t be made safe” we should ban them, right, Comrade Trumka Jr?
Richard Trumka Jr. was appointed Commissioner of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission by President Biden. You might think that Mr. Trumka Jr. might be uncomfortable with tyrannical power structures, controlling people through the threat of force. You would be mistaken. His father, Richard Trumka Sr., was the president of The United Mine Workers, and later he was president of the AFL-CIO. So it runs in the family, I guess.
Which means that a Democrat president owed a favor to a union thug who helped him get elected, so now I have to change how I cook supper.
Our government is simply out of control.
Just imagine what our founders would think of this. Heck, imagine what FDR would think of this. This is bonkers.
Our government is so insane that it’s hard to envision what it was before, or how we got here.
This is absolutely bonkers.
Published in General
That’s the thing, they won’t have to. You can keep the ones you have. But no more will be manufactured or sold.
Don’t look now, but do you have gas heat?
If there’s anything we should ban, it’s Democrats from holding office . . .
If items that are unsafe should be banned, why do we still drive cars (any deaths from motor vehicles?), sky dive (any deaths there?), use ladders (has anybody fallen off and died?, swim (any drownings last year) or work in blue collar jobs?
She has such a reduced level already that I can see how that would concern her.
I think the better language is the government needs to stick to stopping force and fraud. Maybe the concept of safety is more constructive under that wording. I’m not going to get into a big argument about it.
I suspect that building codes for new homes reflect that. But there are plenty of older homes – I live in one, an 1897 home – that are not tightly “sealed” and so are not likely to be a concern. Not that this is really about safety anyway – this is a swipe at the natural gas industry by the climistas.
I’m really surprised that this is coming up so soon after the last major storms in which thousands of people went without electricity for days.
You have a flashlight in case the power goes out. You have a fireplace in case the power goes out. You have a gas stove in case the power goes out. That said, I realize that modern gas stoves are lit by an electric charge. Which was a dumb innovation in the first place. The reason to have a gas stove used to be so you could have another source of heat in case the power went out. And you could light the stove with a match and make yourself some coffee.
It’s weird. It’s like they are trying to funnel everyone onto the single centrally controlled and managed “electric grid.” When I was a kid, the thinking was the opposite: wealth gave people independence. That meant redundancy. Two or three sources of heat in case one went out. Two or three cars in case one didn’t work. The wealthier a person was, the more likely he or she had well water in addition to the town’s water supply.
During the last storm, I was worried about my kids in Vermont because they don’t have a fireplace in their home. I got to thinking about this while I was unable to sleep because I was worried: what idiot came up with the idea of building any home in New England without a fireplace or woodburning stove? Why would anyone even think that was a good idea?
It’s a way of life and a way of thinking that seems to be gone now. Independence. Living on your own. Not being dependent on the “grid.” Who even came up with that idea in the first place? I have never understood this. In my little town north of Boston when I was growing up, we had our own small electricity generator. Every town did. We provided for our own water too. Now they are trying to put people into centrally controlled water “grids.”
This is just plain stupid. And dangerous. I recently watched the 2019 movie Mr. Jones about the Holodomor. If I were a Republican in Congress this week, I’d be pitching independence for individuals in terms of energy needs. We’ve always proceeded along that path. Time to find it again. Sure, the government works pretty well most of the time . . . until it doesn’t and there’s a massive baby formula shortage or the hospitals close or take your pick.
Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts used to be all about that. How to take care of yourself. That was how I grew up: be prepared. Everything in my childhood was geared to helping me survive independently of others.
I just can’t process the madness sweeping through our government.
It’s the gun control thing. It’s the “When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.”
This was the subject of one of the first articles I remember reading in National Review, probably 1992/93. IIRC, the article addressed the trade-offs for a ban on asbestos, especially as it pertained to vehicle brakes. With the ban, we got marginally better air quality (who was going to contract lung problems from their brakes?!) in exchange for demonstrably inferior brake quality. Probably one life saved from asbestosis for every 10 additional deaths from brake failure. Federal regulator math at its finest.
Ask a chef. They have generally demanded gas cooktops.
All the better to manage “rolling blackouts.”
I don’t have statistics one way or another, but here’s one anecdote. Since 1976 (when my parents built the home I spent most of my childhood in), I’ve lived in 10 different houses or apartments in Virginia or Pennsylvania. Only one of those had a gas stove (a very old one that actually didn’t work great). The rest had either the old spiral elements or the flat glass-top electric stoves. As someone who loves to cook, I would love to get a good gas stove, but regrettably, our home is not connected to natural gas, so I’ll just have to wait for now.
The sheer mediocrity of the Biden administration from top to bottom is stunning. America has gone Full Retard and you never go Full Retard.
The sudden discovery of risk for a technology that has been successfully managed for two centuries, the mind-boggling costs involved, the total lack of research, preparation, coalition-building, or messaging… This is not even substantive enough to be characterized as incompetence.
This almost sounds like the idea is dumb enough not to merit a response. But Jerry said that’s a dumb thing to say, so…
I think Jerry still believes that we have a good and moral government.
I think our government is evil. I think the U.S. Government is anti-American.
So put a sticker on it.
Although it’s on our list of things to change in the kitchen. I think there’s a line behind the stove because there’s a capped line in the laundry room for a dryer. Haven’t pulled the stove out to verify because a gas stove isn’t a priority now but this might change it.
If you are forced to have electric, I think it’s kind of nice to have an induction cookplate to augment. 50% faster and 80% cheaper. It’s better for some things, but not everything. If you have gas, the only advantage is it comes with a timer.
We never should have let dumb people vote. The average man is incapable of maintaining democracy. As Lee Kwan Yew said,
As it has been observed that higher I.Q. people tend to believe in capitalism, more I hypothesize that you need to have an I.Q. of around 105 to understand that capitalism works. Lee Kuan Yew and Domisa Moyo are right that democracy can lead to economic and political tyranny with a corrupt or ignorant majority.
That’s discriminatory against Chinese unicorns who don’t fart.
Lee Kwan Yew is definitely a good source for perspective. That’s a Confucian culture or whatever you call it, so you can’t exactly do what they did in Singapore.
Where does Confucius come out as a competent authoritarian? Would he have accepted the feudal lord’s rule had he lived in modern times?
You know more about this than me.
My only point is it’s worth studying that guy and there is no way in hell you can do what they did in Singapore in many places.
When George W. Bush and his Republican congress banned incandescent light bulbs, I bought a gross (144) of 100-watt incandescent bulbs. I still have about 75 or 80 of them. First, the ban only lasted about a year, and second, LED bulbs became so good, with the ability to dim and choose the warmth of the color and the length of time that they last and the inexpensive initial cost and the lower cost of use, I don’t even want to use those incandescent bulbs. I don’t see that happening with gas ranges. I much prefer cooking with my gas cooktop. But way back in the mid-1050’s when my parents built a new house, my mother installed electric ovens in her new kitchen because they baked with more even heat, but she still used a gas cooktop.
In any event, gas cooking has been around for over two centuries. Mr. Trumpka better have some real hard data as to how many serious injuries are directly the result of gas ranges relative to how many millions have been in use. Do people really want this kind of a nanny government? I find it thoroughly disgusting.
Yes. Some people really do.
I know, I don’t get it either.
I have friends who love this kind of stuff, BECAUSE SCIENCE! (Whether it’s actual science or pseudoscience doesn’t matter. If they wave the wand of science over it, it’s been blessed. Particularly if the goal is to SAVE THE PLANET! They’re a pair of college profs with the proscribed One Child, who is being raised to also worship The Science.
They soak in this stuff all day. I don’t know if they know of any other way to think.)
That’s what I see.
So, they are concerned about our lungs? With cigarettes they just added a label. And now I see governors actively encouraging pot smoking because they want the revenue.
I don’t believe this has anything to do with healthy lungs. This is part of a larger war on natural gas. New York’s governor is trying to ban gas hook ups to any new construction, so no gas heat, stove, or back up generator. Natural gas is clean, efficient, and readily available. Just a few years ago, natural gas was being promoted as the clean alternative by the very same environmentalists who want to ban it now. Evidently, natural gas is a (insert scary music) “fossil fuel” and thus always bad. Electricity has no carbon footprint at the point of use, never mind about how that electricity gets generated (in most cases thru gas and coal) just pretend it is better.