Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Sprinkler mandate approved

Adam Smith once wrote about a conceited theorist who "seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board."

The Howard County Council is a collection of conceited theorists who believe that people are too stupid to make their own decisions about residential sprinkler systems, therefore the Council has mandated that all new single family homes must have residential sprinkler systems.

Guess what, County Council? People are not inanimate objects that you can arrange. Unlike chess pieces, people have their own desires, talents, responsibility and resources. They certainly don't need pencil pushing bureaucrats who have no unique skills or insights (other than an ability to win a popularity contest called an election) to make decisions for them. People have numerous competing desires on which they spend their resources. One of those desires is to stay alive. Therefore, people will carefully measure the costs and benefits of a residential sprinkler system without some arrogant guvmint official making the choice for them.

This silly sprinkler mandate comes at the expense of safer cars, better medical care, college savings and numerous other worthy things on which people can choose to allocate their limited resources.

Vote all five of these County Council morons out of office.

9 comments:

Tom Coale (HCR) said...

I feel like this was a measure to appease the unions more than anything else. Although council arrogance is certainly a fair assumption.

Anonymous said...

They ALL have to go.

PZGURU said...

Agreed that this legislation was unnecessary and accomplishes nothing other than to increase the cost of home construction. F-

Anonymous said...

The Horror!!!

What exactly do you mean by "better healthcare"?

Freemarket said...

People would have more resources to allocate to spending on their health (doctor visits, health insurance, even exercise equipment). Hence, better health care. Not a difficult concept.

Anonymous said...

I thought they just voted for the 2009 Building code which was developed over about 3 years with developer and builder input.

Anonymous said...

you really think they should all go based upon 1 vote? do you think anyone ever elected will ever ALWAYS vote the way you want?

Freemarket said...

This is a clear example of the Council mandating something that people are well prepared to decide for themselves. It's government intervention where government has no business being in the first place. Also, I don't ever want to hear a council person speak about affordable housing ever again then they all voted to add several thousand dollars to the cost of new homes on a whim. Vote those clowns out.

PZGURU said...

FREEMARKET - not sure if you're aware of this, but the County is apparently discussing "stair geometry" as part of their review/update of building code requirements. It's on the HBAM agenda for tomorrow. Not sure of any details at this time, but I believe it relates to fire/safety regulations that will specify where stairs can go in homes or commercial buildings.