During my travels Friday morning, I caught a piece of Sykes' show. He was griping about a proposed law in California that would limit how much power a TV would be allowed to use.
The gist of his argument was that as long as he paid for the TV, he could do whatever he wanted and run it as much as he liked, and no one should have the right to tell him otherwise. He tried to paint it that the people with the large energy-sucking TVs were the oppressed ones.
However, the article linked to above tells us only 13% of the TVs wouldn't meet the standards if they were in effect now.
But more importantly, it seems that Sykes, and those that would agree with him, think that they have the right to screw over the public for their own gratitude. When Charlie runs his power sucking TV, it creates a higher demand for the electricity. The higher the demand, the higher the cost it is for the electricity, not just for Sykes, but for everyone. So if the old lady down the street is on a fixed income, she will be forced to decide between buying food, paying for her increasingly expensive medicine, or having the lights on, well, according to Sykes, that's just too bad for her.
If Sykes was really interested in being fair, he would be willing to pay a larger tax to subsidize his higher consumption.
And, of course, none of this even mentions what it would be doing to the environment.
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