Time to Put a Muzzle on ALEC

In an article titled “Let the Sun Shine In“

we learn the agency known as ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council) has decided that anyone who is using solar panels on their house is a “free rider” and undermining the petrochemical agencies that make millions for (wait for it) the Koch Brothers (surprise!) Go ahead and read the article, it’s short. Then come back for the correct response to the madness.

For those of you who cannot be bothered to jump away (and who can blame you) I will post the money shot right here (Ewwwww):

According to the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative network better known as ALEC, our solar panels make us “free riders.” What?

Yes, according to ALEC, an organization that specializes in getting the right-wing agenda written into state laws, people like me who invest in energy-efficiency and shrinking our carbon footprints ought to be penalized.

Why does ALEC want us punished? Since it’s bankrolled by, among others, the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, it’s hard not to surmise that they’re worried about a threat to fossil fuels businesses. Koch Industries’ operations include refineries, oil and natural gas pipelines, and petrochemicals.

That’s no conspiracy theory. Recently the British newspaper The Guardian wrote about the assault on solar panels as part of a broader exposé on ALEC.

Let me see if I understand this concept correctly…

A powerful cabal of elite corporate agencies want to make solar power for individuals who want to take advantage of our technological developments which include the potential of utilizing the sun and freeing us from the tyranny of Big Oil and its many subsidiaries, and they want to make it illegal.

Make using sunshine to power my home, reducing my use of carbon fuels, reducing my carbon footprint, slowing the drain of money from my pocket, making it possible for me to have more money if I live in a state which pays solar providers for their energy and they want to make this illegal, a form of crime, that would punish me with fines or even prison?

Are you serious? Right now, there should be a coalition to put solar panels on everything in sight. Your house, your car, your driveway roof, your sheds, your dogs, your cats, your freeways, your buildings should be covered in light-absorbing, electricity generating panels. There shouldn’t be a thing that doesn’t send electricity to the new and improved smart grid.

Penalizing people for using technology that may bankrupt Big Oil means those companies will have to become more innovative to keep playing the game. The free lunch of the petrochemically dependent Human race is just about over. Time for you to get your research and development teams doing something useful besides sitting on your asses writing checks.

We have managed to make computers the size of credit cards when they were once the size of buildings. We have managed to send men to the moon with little more than sliderules. We have reduced the size of a camera to the size of a pack of cigarettes and not reduced its capacity at all. We have turned records, tapes, 8-tracks and other music generating technology into something the size of a matchbook.

Are we really still driving around in a vehicle using an engine that was created nearly one hundred years ago and still can’t manage to innovate, develop or improve its capacities in any way? (Besides making them larger, use more fuel, and make more noise…)

Isn’t it about time we make them far more efficient, use even less fuel or an alternative to gasoline all together. And to be honest, I won’t miss the noise either.

Oh wait. Someone did create a replacement for the standard automobile engine. Funny, I be you haven’t heard of it either. Look at this (note the date: 2007):

It is time for people to realize ALEC is nothing more than the lapdog of corporate powers, biting us on the ass whenever big corporations want new ways to break the laws, undermine regulation or outright commit criminal malfeasance and call it business as usual.

ALEC needs to be regulated, muzzled, monitored and if it continues violating human rights, perhaps its time to put a class action suit against the organization and the laws it helps to create.

It’s time to put ALEC down like the rabid dog that it is.