Recently the California Energy Commission announced that as
of the year 2020 all houses built in California must include rooftop solar
panels to generate electricity. Now I
know that most people favor conservation and the environment, but this mandate has
three big problems. In the first place,
how can non-elected bureaucrats have the authority to dictate such an
order? If at all, this should be done by elected legislators. Secondly, this will add somewhere between
$10,000 and $30,000 to the cost of each house – which will violently exacerbate
our housing shortage. Thirdly, if the
overall goal is to reduce mankind’s pollution of the environment, we must take
into account that most solar panels are now being manufactured in China with
the use of coal-fired electric plants.
So that certainly works against the overall conservation efforts. What group supports this dictatorial
measure? Well, the solar panel industry
certainly likes it and, you can be sure, lobbied hard for this result. (Of course, this only underscores the ancient
truth that if you want to rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on the
help of Paul.)
--> But, fundamentally, how can we in a Republic have the government dictating which consumer products we must purchase? Not only does this not make sense from a Liberty standpoint, it also is bankrupt from an economic one. With the current state of solar panel technology, it will take about 20 years for a typical homeowner financially to break even. Of course over time, as the technology improves – which it certainly will – many homeowners will logically choose to purchase the solar panels on their own. But artificially requiring them to do so now with today’s technology will not only result in them being punished economically, it will also logically result in fewer more efficient solar panels being used in the future. Once again, Liberty and the Free Market System provide a far better approach. So we must stop this and other bureaucratic mandates. They simply don’t work, either from a theoretical or a practical sense!
Judge Jim Gray (Ret.)
2012 Libertarian candidate for Vice President, along with Governor Gary Johnson as the candidate for President
Quote of the
Week: “The sexiest thing I ever saw was a blank paper and a pencil.” Frank Lloyd Wright
By
the way, these columns are now on Facebook and LinkedIn at judgejimgray,
Twitter at judgejamesgray, and wordpress at judgejimgray@wordpress.com.
Please visit these sites for past editions, and do your part to spread the word
about the importance of Liberty!
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Recently at the annual California Libertarian Convention, a friend of mine gave me a copy of The Haiku Economist, which she had helped to edit. In this work, author Jim Cox gives us 101 poems he wrote in the Haiku form that discuss economic principles. Of course, Haiku is an ancient form of Japanese poetry that uses three lines, with five syllables in the first and third lines, and seven syllables in the second. As most people would agree, it is certainly unusual to summarize economic principles at all, much less in 17 syllables. But, amazingly enough, Cox is successful. So, regretfully if not tragically, since economics is understood by few people, much less our younger generations, I hereby impart the existence of this book to our “2 Paragraphs” family, along with the continuing request that we all share it with others, particularly students.
According to the Prison Policy Initiative, on any given day there are about 630,000 people confined in local jails around our country and, of those, 443,000 are in pre-trial confinement. That is 70 percent! And why are they in custody before trial? Yes, because some are considered either to be dangerous to others or a flight risk, but the strong majority stay confined because they don’t have access to enough money to make bail. What difference does that make? Tragically, many of them will unnecessarily lose their jobs, which means that their families will not be able to make their rent payments which, in turn, frequently contributes to the break-up of families. The law says that there are only two factors in determining whether people should be held in custody before trial. The first is whether they likely will appear at court for their trial, and the second is whether, in the meantime, they are a threat to other people. Straightforwardly, and speaking from first-hand experience, judges live in fear of releasing someone who then goes on to harm witnesses or other people. So is the answer never to release anyone? Well no, not only is that not Constitutional or even fair, it is also impractical because we don’t have the jail space. So this puts us into a situation in which risks must be assessed. So is money a good indicator of either of these two issues? Not really. The main indicators instead are the type of charges that people are facing, and whether they have close ties to the community, such as a job, a family with children in school, and the person’s past history of convictions and/or failures to appear in court.
Without the rights of everyone being enforced, no one’s rights can really exist. In that regard, it is important to understand that our country is not a Democracy, which was defined by Benjamin Franklin as two wolves and a lamb voting upon what to have for dinner. No, we are a Republic, where the rights of lambs can be protected. And how can our rights best be protected? We must have institutions which are based upon the Rule of Law and which enshrine our Liberty.
I am proud to say that my Father remains one of my biggest heroes. As an example, a long time ago when I was a prosecutor and he was a judge in the Los Angeles Federal Courthouse, I would continually see him not only greeting the custodians in the hallways, but even asking about their children – all by name! And they would literally glow in response. It was not his way to speak to me about things like this, instead he led by example. So I started doing the same thing. Amazingly enough, the first time I did this was to the custodian who was cleaning my office. When I greeted him by name, which I knew from the label on his shirt, he literally stopped in his tracks. Then told me that he had been working here for ten years, and I was the first attorney ever to address him by name. The irony of this was that I eventually learned that he was the father of one of the stars on the UCLA Basketball team. So that was my unneeded tangible reward for treating people as people.
One of the most flaming breaches of contract I know about is still being perpetrated by our own federal government (namely, by us all) upon some of our military Veterans. For example, it is estimated that about 30 percent the homeless population both in Los Angeles and Orange Counties are Vets. And the statistics for Veterans committing suicide are similarly disturbing. There must be a connection! But the problem is that today that, although Veterans are formally entitled to receive healthcare services, a myriad of obstacles are put in their way before that is realized. That simply must be changed! Being in war creates many scars, many not visible, and those conditions can result in almost permanent disabilities.
Where Liberty is not connected with accountability, the results can turn ugly. For example, in a study about how people act first when they can be identified as opposed to anonymously, some observations were made on the same people first when they were on an elevator and then later when they were driving their cars. While on the elevator, most would say “After you,” and the responses would be “No, after you.” But when the same people were driving their cars, and thus anonymous, they would normally try to cut off the other drivers. That’s what anonymity can do. To sum up this thought, the great UCLA Basketball Coach Johnny Wooden put it best by saying that “Your reputation is the way others perceive you, but your character is how you act when no one else is looking.” Under this definition, we all know that some people’s character when they have the Liberty to act anonymously can be ugly.
As has been affirmed numbers of times during this series, a Free Society must not count upon “good people” to ensure Liberty and good results for its members. Why? Because we can neither count upon those good people always to do the right thing or, even if we could, we cannot count upon having a continuing succession of good people to replace them. So a free society instead must rely upon the “Rule of Law.” But what does that mean? It means that, although they don’t have to be perfect, the same rules must apply to everyone. But where there are exceptions, whether based upon wealth, power, “holiness” or fame, the Rule of Law collapses.
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