The end of the lightbulb?

“Build a better mouse trap, and the world will beat a path to your door”

This phrase used to be a call to arms for Americans to develop their creative potential, embrace the entrepreneurial spirit, and accept a great amount of personal financial risk. The reward for their risk and sacrifice, is profit, the amount of which to be determined by the value of their inventiveness in a free marketplace. I can’t remember the last time I actually heard someone use that old phrase. I wouldn’t be surprised if a significant percentage of today’s graduating High School students have never heard it.

This is an age of political correctness, when everyone is a hyphenated-American, our elected officials have the time to rename the “Global War on Terror” to something a bit softer and less politically abrasive, and our personal decisions are guided as much by liability and the fear of litigation as they are sound judgment and experience. I believe the original phrase can accurately be updated as such:

“Build an environmentally-friendly, fully recyclable, humane “mouse detainment device” at five times the price, and then hire lobbyists to influence legislators to pass laws to outlaw the use of your competition, hand you a near monopoly, and guarantee the future profitability of your corporation for years to come.”

The “Mouse Detainment Device” which I would like to specifically address comes in the shape of the compact fluorescent light bulb. In form true to the updated and politically correct version of the original phrase, both unscrupulous Legislators and equally unscrupulous Corporations are involved. In addition, we have a fanatical pseudo-religious environmental movement, hell bent on having the ultimate say so on everything we build, manufacture, and purchase. (If the acronyms NIMBY, and BANANA, aren’t familiar to you, ask a Californian.)

The person most directly responsible for this pending abuse of power is Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), who has introduced legislation that would prohibit the sale of incandescent light bulbs in the United States after 2012. In her words, “This legislation, while a small step, could have an enormous impact,” (via the Huffington Post) She continued, saying, “And hopefully, it can help transform America into an energy-efficient and energy-independent nation.” What she should have said was that “The money spent by Americans on these $5(at least) light bulbs will ensure the profitability of the Phillips Corporation, secure the continued employment of lobbyists and make political campaign contributions a certainty for many years to come. In addition, you can you can feel good about yourself for having done virtually nothing beneficial for the environment, as well as for having a mercury containing device in every room of your home.”

But will it actually have an impact as she says? A fairly blasphemous statement, I know, but one that I feel is necessary considering that the future of the Earth itself rests on this very question. (The ability to analyze an issue in an objective manner is soooooo right wing.) One of my fellow bloggers observed correctly that peak hours, as they relate to energy production, occur in the daytime when air conditioning, industrial machinery, and office equipment are in highest usage.(ask anyone who ever had to endure a brown-out what time of day it was.) It isn’t until night time that light bulbs are most needed, and it is at this time that the demands placed on the power grids are at their lowest. Does it make any sense to reduce the electrical load at a time of day when there’s already a surplus of capacity? And don’t forget, we already institute daylight savings time, which means that during summer hours we have an additional measure of reduced evening usage.

While it’s difficult to forecast whether the legislation has a chance at becoming law or not, it is obvious that as long as we the taxpayers continue to allow corporate interests to profit via legislation, rather than compete in an open and free marketplace, we will continue to have our decisions made for us at the highest levels of government. These decisions will be made by people we have never met, who we will never know, and who place their own opportunities above ours. These people are more than happy to accept a small measure of political profit from their supporters in their home district, in exchange for our freedom to apply our own judgment as we see fit.

As song as we allow them to put political profit, and the oh-so subjective measure of the “common good” above our rights and freedoms, we will continue to have less and less choice in our daily lives, and a great deal more responsibility to comply with the regulations set forth for our “best interest”.