Government enjoys bribing us with our money

I’ve always had a soft spot for anarchists, ever since a record rep passed along an advance copy of this new group’s debut single back in 1976.

It’s scratched and worn these days, but I’ve still got it tucked away — probably worth a few bucks as well, though you can’t put a price on memories. Anyhow, the crackling adds to the effect and nobody ever accused Johnny Rotten of requiring the acoustic integrity of a Pavarotti recording.

So if our environment minister happens to turn up at my door giving away her light bulbs and shower heads in months to come, she’s welcome to pop in and listen to the Sex Pistols snarl their way through Anarchy In The U.K. We can even do the pogo together, and I promise — no gobbing.

After all, Shannon Phillips has quite the soft spot for anarchists herself. So much so she helped write the introduction to a self-help book advising those same folk on civil disobedience.

An Action a Day Keeps Global Capitalism Away, penned by her old buddy and Greenpeace poster-boy Mike Hudema, may get a sales boost when the protest movement over the Kinder Morgan pipeline gets back in full swing — once the weather warms up, of course.

But things look different once you get your tootsies under a cabinet table and the taxpayers start footing the bill for some nice jaunts overseas. Yes, anarchy isn’t as appealing when you’ve something to lose in any resulting kerfuffle.

So, instead of consulting on ways to stick it to the man, as the old hippies would blather, Phillips, as environment minister, is now in charge of a door-to-door handout of light bulbs. (One wonders if those nasty Bolivians hadn’t executed

Phillips … is now in charge of a door-to-door handout of light bulbs.

him, whether Che Guevara would eventually have ended up handing out free-sample cigars to tourists in Havana.)

But enough of the sad realities of growing up — we’ve all packed away dreams of some sort into that psychological bottom drawer.

No, there are more than enough questions to be asked in the here and now about this latest type of activism — the government-backed, door-to-door “free stuff” campaign — without worrying what anyone did a dozen years ago.

This giveaway program is in aid of environmental protection, and is yet another example of the mission creep that’s turning us into drooling slaves of the state, hypnotized by being bribed with our own money if we surrender yet one more dollop of free will.

Stripped of all the do-goodie rhetoric, what the province is doing is taxing Albertans via a carbon levy to the tune of an extra $3 billion a year. Then they give some back in rebate cheques, while more spare change goes toward picking industrial winners — a sure recipe for waste — as another chunk goes to Phillips and her department to buy and distribute energy-saving light bulbs and lowflow shower heads.

No doubt lots of people will be hired to administer this plan, plus there are the folks to be paid to door-knock and hand over products. Now we know what diversification really is — a secret plan to put everyone on the provincial payroll.

But this is what happens when we increasingly rely upon big government to solve every problem. Of course they’ll try, after they’ve taken more of your money up front.

What’s next? If we are going to pay more taxes so government can buy our household fittings, then how about we hand over a bigger slice of cash so the Health Department can do our shopping? From a Big Brother point of view, that makes perfect sense — we don’t eat healthily enough, so put up taxes and allow government to pick the brand of granola for our consumption and drop it off at the doorstep. It’s for our own good, don’t you know.

See, that’s why I prefer anarchists. They just want to smash stuff up — they don’t want to rule your life.