By Jack Lee
California is well on its way to being the nation’s #1 Nanny State with Democrats cheering and Republicans going down kicking and screaming.
Evidence one Dave Jones-D, Assemblyman from the 9th District. Dave can’t write laws fast enough to save us from ourselves. His latest “nanny law” would prohibit rafters on the American River from consuming alcoholic beverages, “No Alcohol on the American River – AB 951 bans alcohol on the American River in Sacramento. The prohibition will apply to non-motorized vessels over the same summer holiday periods (Memorial Day, 4th of July and Labor Day weekends) as covered by Sacramento Countys prohibition (covering the shoreline).” Dave has his shorts in bunch on AB 951, it’s so crucial (in his mind) that he has invoked an “Emergency” hearing on the bill so it can be on the Governor’s desk before July 4th when Dave thinks all Hell is going to break loose on the American river with rafters and tubers drinking beer.
Hey, are you college-age liberals listening here? Here’s your boy cutting into your fun time, restricting your freedom and spoiling your 4th of July plans.
That’s not very liberal of him is it? But, this is what liberals do, don’t you get it? They pass lots of Nanny Laws and safety nets and it all comes with a certain loss of freedom, not to mention a loss of your money for taxes to pay for it all. But, I guess that money part doesn’t bother you yet, you’re still in college living off mom and dad, but just you wait till you see your first paycheck being eviscerated by taxes! It will be a rude awakening to the wonderful world of tax and spend liberals. Perhaps then you might begin to understand what Conservatives have been trying to tell you?
Boaters, rafters and the rental companies that make a living on this stretch of the American river say they don’t want or need this new law. It’s just one more unnecessary regulation and government intrusion and they note we already have laws to cover public drunkenness, possession of alcohol by minors, littering, disturbance of the peace, etc.,
However, supporters of the bill, like Mrs.Carmen Flores, the mother of a young man killed in 2006 in a single car accident after drinking and rafting, said, “If we only had this law last year my son would still be alive!” Police said drunk driving was the cause of her son’s death. He apparently missed a turn at high speed and hit a telephone pole. “This is why Dave Jones is rushing to push this bill through!” Said Mrs. Flores.
Mrs. Flores my condolences, but if your son had not been driving too fast while “drunk” he might be alive today and that is the sad fact of it. To blame us for not having a law in place to stop drinking while rafting is understandable given your loss, but it’s misplaced frustration. I’m sorry, but he made that choice and he’s solely responsible for what happened. Consirder: Driving while intoxicated is a much tougher law than drinking while rafting…one would think if a law would be a deterence, it would be the tougher law ( DUI) , not a weaker law (rafting with a beer).
Common sense says if you could close down one area on this river, another area would just spring up. The bottom line here is “personal responsibility”. That drunk driver didn’t get far in life because of his own poor judgement and people like Dave Jones can’t legislate away poor judgement. Oh, of course Dave can pass a law to affect all of us law-abiding folks by taking away our freedom to enjoy the American river as we so choose.
Liberal legislators like Assemblyman Dave Jones-D are always trying to help us by taking things away. They want to protect us from every conceivable risk from cradle to grave, but the very notion of freedom implies risk. So taking this to the most extreme example, when we’re 100% risk free, then I we’ve lost 100% of our freedom. No thanks! I prefer to take some risks. Dave is also pushing hard for socialized medicine with more big government…and it figures. The same goes for another half dozen laws he’s authored in the last 4 months, all enlarging goverment.
We’ve got to stop liberals like Dave Jones from helping us and instead help him . . . .out of office!