Dim Bulbs (The Sequel)

I did a post last November about the surprising tea party anger regarding energy-efficient light bulbs.  The furor seems to be continuing.  Here are some quotes from Republican Senators courtesy of EE News:

“People in Idaho are just astonished that the federal government is telling them what kind of light bulb to put in their home,” Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) said.

“You busybodies always want to do something that tell us how to make our lives better,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told a DOE official. “Now, it’s not that I’m against conservation; I’m all for energy conservation,” Paul added. But enforcing standards is an “affront to the sensibility, idea, notion of free marketplace, of capitalism, of freedom of choice.”

Rand also said it was “appalling and hypocritical” that the Obama Administration favored choice in the context of abortion but not in the context of buying lightbulbs or appliances.

I suppose the definition of a libertarian is someone who doesn’t see any distinction between freedom to choose a light bulb and freedom to choose whether to have a child — or for that matter between freedom to choose a light bulb and freedom of speech or religion.

energy efficiency, libertarians, light bulbs