Many left-wing “economists” shower the term “natural monopoly” on their students when describing its exact opposite: a government-granted or government-controlled product or service that politicians claim cannot be provided by peaceful, competitive forces in the private sector and has been monopolized by politicians. Under these anti-freedom circumstances, the government forces everyone to pay, there is no competition, and if one tries to use the “service” in a manner not allowed, or tries to use an alternative, one often runs the risk of breaching numerous, oh-so-friendly statutes.
Roads, municipal water, and state and regional electric power “utilities,” are perfect examples, on that ever-growing list.
In fact, NJ Governor Phil Murphy last year began pushing his “Energy Master Plan,” which would force the 75 percent of homes currently heated with natural gas to switch to electric heat (said electricity mostly provided by burning coal or… natural gas, QED) by 2050.
It also would leave them at the mercy of the central authority, and all the command-and-control nightmares that connotes.
Likewise, politicians and corporate mouthpieces recently have been spouting the seemingly magical word, “autonomy.”
We hear about “autonomous cars,” “autonomous trucks,” “autonomous drones,” and the mega-whopper, “individual autonomy,” when, in fact, central authorities will control them, increase control over our lives, and assail real autonomy, at every turn.
Which brings us to Great Britain…
For the past couple of years, the UK has been a step ahead of the US when it comes to COVID19 tyranny, and a new story from England hints at what might be on tap for Americans if collectivist authoritarians get their way.
Nicholas Hellen reports for the Times:
Electric car charging points in people’s homes will be preset to switch off for nine hours each weekday at times of peak demand because ministers fear blackouts on the National Grid.
Under regulations that will come into force in May, new chargers in the home and workplace will be automatically set not to function from 8am to 11am and 4pm to 10pm. Public chargers and rapid chargers, on motorways and A-roads, will be exempt.
Awesome.
Imagine if, back in the 13th through 17th Centuries, the Crown not only had taken over many of the local cattle paths and roads that Anglo-Saxon commoners had developed and, for centuries, run themselves (the Normans did this, by the way, and there were protests over it), but that they then claimed that, in order to “protect” and “provide for” everyone, they took royal control of the things people could feed their horses, the amount the commoners could feed them, and the times of day.
That helps put into perspective the long-standing, long-ratcheting, growth of authoritarianism and political control over human movement that has occurred in England since that time. The principle was breached long ago there – and in the US.
In fact, the European Union (EU) helped set England on the deeper, darker path to Electric Vehicle (EV) insanity with its ever-increasing “emissions standards” that pretty-much began to exclude fossil fuel vehicles from useability (even as EU members continue to push for an all-electric mandate by 2035). But British leftists, corporate shysters, and media mono-cultists have picked up the baton from their EU pals and now frame “EVs” as the future, even as they have to know their power-grids can’t handle such a demand and weather can strand EV users without the ability to move fuel TO them the way gas can be carried to stranded motorists.
And this development ought to come as a wakeup call to Americans.
In addition to the invasion of privacy and the sleight-of-hand way the UK and EU charlatans have used climate alarmism to foist their plans for EV nirvana on citizens, one can see the even darker portent in all this when looking at things like Governor Murphy’s push to centralize home heating, the Bidenista plan to push electric vehicles and “charging stations” nationwide, and the normalcy bias today’s generation has that it’s perfectly acceptable for politicians and bureaucrats to tell car makers what they can make, and to tell buyers what we can buy or drive.
It brings us back to autonomy – which is precisely what politicians and their cozy corporate friends do NOT want you to have.
When they can not only claim control of the roads, but also the manufacturing standards of the vehicles you buy (akin to the illogic and immorality of Royals telling ancient Brits that they could only buy pigmy ponies, or only buy horses from their royally-tied breeders), and then they add on the claim to monitor your energy consumption and to tell you when and how long you can use said government-monopolized power?
You’re on a virtual plantation.
And you’re not the one in control of your own life.
Related: It's Not Just Buttigieg Behind Shortages And Port Problems -- It's Collectivism | MRCTV
The hits keep coming for Biden's supply chain failures - this time farmers are struggling to deal with massive price increases and shortages in chemical fertilizers. pic.twitter.com/tAi77gmIwh
— MRCTV (@mrctv) January 26, 2022