Can You Spare a Square?

    First, it was the SUV. Then it was the incandescent light bulb. Now, if the extreme environmentalists have their way, you will no longer be able to secretly squeeze the Charmin as you pass through the grocery aisle.
This week, The Washington Post reported that environmental groups are now up in arms about… toilet paper. More specifically, the kind that’s 2 and 3-ply–you know, the GOOD kind.
    Calling it a “menace” and a “dark-comedy example of American excess”, enviro-kooks say that the softer paper most people prefer is made by chopping down and grinding up old trees, many of which are VERY old trees. They feel this is an indignity to these old trees to end up in such a lowly state.
    Wouldn’t it be better—they say—if we could just be more like the Europeans, who use toilet paper made from recycled paper products?
    Well, we do use that kind of thing, but for other purposes. We call it sandpaper, and you can buy it pretty cheaply at the dollar store.
    This is just another example of an extremist minority trying to dictate to the many how we should all be living. It’s bad enough that they want our future to be filled with “Smart” cars (which don’t look all that smart- or safe- to me), sitting in dark cave-like dwellings, eating only bean curds and rice.
    What’s worse is that lawmakers are listening to them because of their considerable cash contributions that they willingly give to any candidate who will do as they ask.
    For example, after 2012, you’ll have to go to the black market to buy incandescent light bulbs. That’s a shame, since they’ve worked so well for us for so long. But now, thanks to President Bush quietly signing a bill in 2007 to demand they be taken off the market, the only choice we’ll soon have are those fabulous curly-cue light bulbs (CFL’s). Oh yeah, and they contain mercury, which is hazardous to children, pets and pregnant women if they break.
    But, don’t worry. I mean, people hardly ever break light bulbs, right? Not to mention the unintended consequences of the improper disposal of such light bulbs. However, I’m sure everyone who uses them knows what the “proper” disposal of them is so that the mercury from them doesn’t end up polluting our soil and ground water.
    So, in a few years, we may all be searching Ebay for the “old fashioned” light bulbs—and 2-ply toilet paper. Surely, there are entrepreneurs-in-waiting that are stocking up on both even now. Either that, or we’ll be like the character of Elaine in a very memorable episode of “Seinfeld” begging someone, “Can you spare a square?”
    A government powerful enough to reach into your bathroom and force you to change your toilet tissue to a lesser product, is a government too big indeed.