We recently visited a local library in the state of Arizona and were surprised to find opposite the obligatory row of 6 handicapped parking spots, reserved nearest the library entrance, a gratuitous row of 8 Alternative Fuel Parking spaces.
I had to stop and count the reserved parking places in each section to confirm what a quick glance told me — that there were more spaces reserved for alternative fuel vehicles than for handicapped people.
My first observation is that there is a very low threshold for who can obtain a handicapped parking sticker. In the many states I have visited, I have watched as thousands of cars have parked in the reserved handicapped spaces. As I have observed the drivers and their passengers exit the vehicles and head to the bustling places of business, it has been the rare occasion indeed when any of those leaving the handicap-stickered vehicles ever showed any signs of actual handicap. Nary a limp in most cases. Rarely have I watched someone who actually needs to park near the entrance get the wheelchair unloaded and wheel away.
So why does the government mandate that a large number of parking spaces be set aside for handicapped people — especially when so few people actually need close parking spaces? It is for the same reason that so many people are designated as being protected and championed by the government — due to their gender, age, color, nationality, sexual orientation, size, disease, disability — to invent needy constituencies for liberals to give free stuff to, including preferential treatment.
So why are there even more alternative fuel parking spots in the library’s parking lot? For the same reason — to give preferential treatment as a reward for conforming to government desired behavior.
Social engineering is the practice of maneuvering or manipulating citizens into certain desired behaviors through a series of government meted rewards and punishments. This ‘carrot and stick’ psychological technique has been adapted by leftist social engineers to bring about their desired social utopia — which is no utopia at all. The problem is that these programs generally cost taxpayers dearly, as the Alternative Fuels Program did in the state of Arizona, nearly bankrupting the state, but fail to deliver on the promised benefits. Nationally, the bio-fuel craziness has driven up not only fuel prices, but food prices as well. See our article The Ethanol Boondoggle, of May 12, 2012.The bio-fuel boondoggle produces a gallon of fuel only after the investment of 2 gallons of gasoline and 1500 gallons of water, and has increased world starvation by 25% and world food prices by an equal amount.
It is the philosophy of conservatives that governments should not be in the business of telling Americans how to live their lives — whether it be what kind of fuel to put in the tank or in the stomach. Every attempt to manipulate the masses only turns out to cost taxpayers money and liberty, without benefiting the people.
PUBLIUS
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