Santa Barbara Assemblyman: 'We Have to Regulate Every Aspect of Peoples' Lives'

P. Gardner Goldsmith | August 8, 2018
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Santa Barbara City Councilman Jesse Dominguez has officially apologized for saying what any sentient observer knew about collectivists for years: he believes that the state has to control every aspect of your life.

The apology came after Dominquez offered an arrogant remark supporting Santa Barbara’s July 17th law to ban plastic straws, including the compostable kind, in eateries and bars citywide. The only straws allowed are those made from, get this, bamboo, metal, and paper. Plastic stirrers and utensils are also frowned upon, and can be provided by servers only upon customer request.

A first violation will result in a written warning. A second violation of said grand command will lead to a $100 “administrative infraction fine” and prosecution for a misdemeanor crime, punishable with up to six months in prison and a $1,000 criminal fine. And, as Kassy Dillon notes for The Daily Wire, each straw handed out is to be considered a separate violation, so if a server gives four to a family with young kids, that’s $4,000 in fines and years in prison.

And, of course, because statists are so forward-thinking and concerned about others, there is no specific allowance for, say, hospitals and doctors’ offices that need to give straws to patients. Indeed, they will have to apply for exemptions, which, if granted, will last only a year. And there is no mention of the little plastic straws attached to milk and juice boxes that people can buy in stores.

But, regardless of the Swiss cheese thinking and impracticality easily revealed in the law, it’s the principle of the matter that matters.

Assemblyman Dominquez revealed his supposed “principles” while defending the prohibition. As James Barrett reports for The Daily Wire, when a frustrated citizen asked His Greatness, Mr. Dominguez, “what’s next?” he offered a statement that exposed the mindset behind what we have seen the left trying to do for centuries:

"Unfortunately, common sense is just not common. We have to regulate every aspect of people’s lives."

Ka-ching. Please feel free to pocket your intellectual ammunition for reuse at a later date, and thank you for shopping.

Sadly, it appears the mighty Lord Dominguez’s statement didn’t sit well with lots of the “common” people out there, and he apologized.  Of course, he apologized by not really apologizing, by blaming others for misunderstanding his sophisticated words.

Noozhawk’s Joshua Molina reported on July 31 that Dominquez said:

I just wanted to apologize. A few weeks ago I made a string of words in a rhetorical fashion about regulation and they were not taken as rhetorical and that's my fault so I want to apologize.

Yeah, remember that, silly proles. He “made” a string of words in a rhetorical fashion, and you dummies took them the wrong way, and it’s his fault, but, not really, because you’re too thick to have realized they were rhetorical.

But how could they be rhetorical, if offered in support of actual law? That seems a lot more than "rhetorical" to me.

Indeed, Mr. Dominguez, it’s hard to understand how you could possibly believe you are somehow an arbiter for common sense, when, in fact, basic human ethics, basic economics, and simple recognition of property rights tells us that it is the height of conceit to tell someone else what is best for him or tell him how to value anything in his life.

Rhetoric says a lot, and so do the actions connected with that rhetoric.

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