Making me turn off my lights does not turn me on!

At Dr. Helen’s blog  I found yet another reminder (as if I needed one) of what I especially loathe about the left.

The other night they declared lights out night in California, and Amy Alkon defied it.

It’s turn out the lights night in the daffy state of California — from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. tonight (It’s 9:16 pm as I’m posting this). Ridiculous people are doing this in celebration of a ridiculous event called “Earth Hour,” much like those silly “put on a red ribbon to stop some disease” days.

[…]

this is just a bullshit idea that will make people feel like they’re doing something — for an hour — while making the Santa Monica Pier gloomy and unspectacular and making it less cool to go onto Lincoln and drive north from the airport. Meanwhile, I’ve got the lights on here, and the computer all aglow, and I am in no mood to churn butter, spin wool into a sweater if I’m cold, or go milk a cow when I want a piece of cheese.

It is typical of their bullshit, and it is an especially sinister form of bullshit. The idea is to socially engineer self-enforcing peer pressure among the apes that leftists believe humans are. It’s the same sort of moral communitarianism that once drove busybody puritans to force people to go to church, humiliate them if they were caught dozing, and even execute non-conforming types as witches. The same busybody mindset is inextricably linked to prohibition, carbon-footprint policing, useless “recycling” programs involving garbage can inspections, making people cut their dogs’ balls off, etc. It almost invariably pressures people to “get involved” and “do something” — ideally in the form of spying on, policing, and ultimately denouncing their neighbors.

Above all, people must be constantly on guard watching for signs of heresy. No doubt Amy Alkon’s non-conformity has been noted by some self appointed leftist snitch, for they love to keep score.

The left is far better at doing this than the right, which is why their bumperstickers outnumber those from the other side. A right wing bumpersticker limits mobility; park in the wrong neighborhood and you might get keyed, or worse. Think it would be cool to visit that artsy neighborhood? Better take another car. Think it’s safe to say you’re a Republican? Better look around first to see who’s listening.

This is not to say that there aren’t people on the right searching for heresy and non-conformity, but there is simply no comparison. Not only is the tent on the right too large, but small government advocacy is by its nature less compatible with invading people’s privacy and rooting out heresy. Plus, being on the right side of the spectrum in any capacity — whether as a conservative, a libertarian or a Republican — means already being a heretic to the left. So maybe right wing heretics would simply be double heretics.

But heresy to what? In a coalition such as that which exists between libertarians and conservatives, what is heresy? A conservative cannot fairly be called a heretic to libertarianism, any more than a libertarian can fairly be called a heretic to conservatism. Last night I wrote a post lamenting my inability to be a proper conservative — at least, if proper conservatism is that defined by Steve King. And so what? Where did I ever agree to be a conservative? I cannot be a conservative heretic, any more than I can be a Baptist heretic. I guess I could be a libertarian heretic, for my libertarianism is anything but pure. However, I never said I was a large-L libertarian, so the whole idea is a stretch. Besides libertarians disagree with each other a lot. Disagreement is not heresy.

The point is, it’s a lot easier to be guilty of heresy to the left than of heresy to the right. Whether it’s tolerance of intolerance or intolerance of tolerance, the left is always on the lookout for violators. Far more than the right.

To put it simply, people on the right are far more likely to believe in leaving people alone.

Even if they leave the lights on.