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Rampaging Regulators

Quoting from an e-mail sent out by the good people at Free Market Environmentalism Roundtable (a project of PERC):

As some of you may
already know, the California Energy Commission has proposed amendments to its
standards for building energy efficiency. These standards include a requirement
that any new or modified heating or air conditioning system will have to include
a thermostat whose set point can be remotely controlled by government
authorities who would be empowered to lower (in winter) or raise (in summer)
your thermostat’s temperature set point during "emergency events." The comment
period closes on January 30th for those of you (especially California residents)
who would like to register your ire and opposition.

Here’s the document: CEC-400-2007-017-45DAY.PDF

.  Check out pages 63-64 of this document for the offensive section.  (HT Roger Meiners)

I understand that any clever economist or philosopher can build models or offer coherent arguments "proving" that giving government power to control the thermostats in private buildings will improve "social welfare."  But no one can explain how such power does not diminish human freedom — and is not a huge leap down the road to serfdom.

I quote again the final lines of Thomas Sowell’s greatest book: Knowledge and Decisions:

[Freedom] is, above all, the right of ordinary people to find elbow rooms for themselves and a refuge from the rampaging presumptions of their "betters."

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