Fad lovers - Reason Foundation

Forget junior high students, politicians may be the most fad-following people around. Like those 8th and 9th graders, the peer pressure politicos face often encourages them to do the wrong thing. If you’re an elected official and you want to be “with it,” there is of course the issue of big box retailers. Here you have two choices: ban them or clear the way for them by using eminent domain. In other words, don’t just stand on the sidelines like a dope. You have to show your love for hybrids by offering them special perks, you have to show that you’re hip to the technology scene by wi-fiing your town. Speaking of hip, you should offer tax breaks to performance artists or do anything possible to attract the “creative class” to your city or state. Of course, you have to ban smoking, but that never goes out of style. You should get yourself a light rail system, a sports stadium, convention center, and possibly even a convention center hotel. How else are you going to make your home town “world class”? And of course you have to push for anti-outsourcing laws like this one:

A hotly contested bill to stop Colorado from using offshore workers to perform state services won bipartisan approval from a Senate panel yesterday, triggering sharp criticism from Gov. Bill Owens. Over the strong objections of business groups, the Senate Business, Labor and Technology Committee approved the anti-outsourcing measure 5-2. Senate Bill 23 now goes to the full Senate. Under the bill, companies contracted by the state to provide a service – such as a call-center operation – would have to ensure workers in the U.S. do the job.

And don’t let anyone tell you that the purpose of government is to protect rights. The purpose of government is to raise as much revenue as possible by any means necessary.