Big Brother in the Trash Can: It Stinks!

(Paul Jacob/Common Sense) – America, we’re catching up with the British.

For years we’ve trailed when it comes to stifling the medical industry with regulation, rationing and red tape. But thanks to recent legislation this side of the Atlantic, we can expect major gains. When it comes to liberticide, we’re catching up.

Locally, too, thrilling progress in freedom-killing is being made. I’ve reported before about how the British government hounds citizens who fail to lid their garbage properly or who — shame — put out “too much” trash. Now, Cleveland trash monitors are following suit.

Starting in 2011, city residents can expect to be more than hounded for failing to recycle. Is your garbage bin more than 10 percent full of stuff the trash police say you must recycle? Then expect a $100 fine. A spychip embedded in the trash bin will supposedly figure the proportions accurately and send reports on delinquents back to Big Brother.

Cleveland gets $26 for every ton of recyclables it collects. Even ignoring sorting costs, its “loss” from a household that fails to recycle must be much less than a dollar per pickup. So why not, at worst, charge those households an extra $4 a month?

Apparently, the goal is not to nudge people into better behavior. It’s to punish and humiliate those who neglect the rituals of the jihadist wing of the environmentalist religion. Government-mandated recycling isn’t about sensibly conserving our resources; it’s an excuse for obsessively overbearing government.

And it stinks.