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Knight is Right
by Knight Allen, NSC Director of Legislation
Published on  August 11, 2011 - reprinted with permission

  One last (hopefully?) revisit to the 2011 legislative session.

Following up on my principle that sometimes what doesn't happen in a legislative session is at least as or even more important than what does there are a couple more items I'd like to report to you.

The first is AB578 which would have created nine Joint Standing Committees of the legislature between regular sessions. This bill, which actually got through both houses, was particularly pernicious because it would have created a De Facto system of annual legislative sessions. It was another example of elected officials who want what they want and if the Constitution gets in their way then the Constitution be damned. Fortunately for us when the bill got to Governor Sandoval's desk he picked up his pen and vetoed it. In his veto message the Governor clearly saw through the subterfuge and made it clear that until We, the People vote to change to annual sessions he was not going' to allow any back door runs around the Constitution to slip through. Second is the series of bills on "Home Rule" that died in the Assembly Government Affairs Committee (kudos again to Ms. Kirkpatrick). It is true that government is best when it's closest to the people but only if, IF, that government functions under a system of checks and balances. Our county and municipal governments do not. Instead, their: governing system says, "Can you count to four?" This system· is not in our best interests politically, socially or economically.. The check possessed by the Legislature on local government authority (it's called Dillon's Rule) is vital and should be supported by everyone who believes in our core principles of governance..

Of Nails, Shoes, Horses, Riders and Nations  
“For want of a nail the shoe is lost.” 
“For want of a shoe the horse is lost.” 
“For want of a horse the rider is lost.”
                George Herbert

 How about adding, For want of the rider the nation is lost? I got to thinking about the Herbert quote in reference to the light bulb battle. What really intrigued me was a comment by Energy Secretary Steven Chu justifying the government's compulsory elimination of 100W incandescent bulbs: "We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money." If any of us have any belief left on the value of individual human liberty that quote has got to be one of the most frightening statements of outright tyranny to ever come out of the mouth of any smug, arrogant bureaucrat - ever.

 Make no mistake, this light bulb business is not a major thing. It's not wars, bailouts, Social Security, Medicare, fourteen trillion in debt or one hundred fifty trillion in unfunded liabilities. Light bulbs are nothing more than a nail. That's all. Just one unimportant nail. Nothing in the overall scheme of things. They're like toilet bowls, or seat belts, or helmets, or draconian smoking laws, or on line poker playing, or a host of other choices taken from the people in the name of the greater good and the general welfare. 

 I know that some of you will look at the items listed and are very glad the government has taken away some of those choices. There are items there I care nothing about myself. But that's how it works isn't it? Break people into groups, take their choices away, move on to another group, take their choices away and pretty soon you have taken everybody's choices away. 

 If we don't have the right to be wrong then the only freedom we really have is the freedom to obey. Even Kunta Kinte had that freedom. 

Nails, shoes, horses, riders and nations.

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