FOOD POLICE ON PATROL: Seattle to start inspecting residents' trash and fining them for food waste

Friday, February 26, 2016 by: L.J. Devon, Staff Writer
Tags: trash inspection, food waste, Seattle

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(NaturalNews) The overreaching hands of Big Government extend out from all sides like octopuses surrounding us in a cesspool of murky water. Flailing our arms, we swim to get out of their controlling gaze, but their tentacles reach out to block our path. It's eight to two; for every hand we try to move freely, there are four more tentacles to hold it back. This is the scenario that America is creating today, using government legislation to control one another's movements, behaviors and lifestyles.

These overreaching octopuses crawl under our bedroom sheets. They tell us what we can put in our body. They squirm in our brains, restricting our free speech, what we say and what we type. Now, this nanny state of control is crawling into our trashcans, sorting out what we throw away. Does legislating against each person's trash make the world a better place?

Are government-enforced trash inspections, including food waste fines, a positive strategy to encourage people to change their behavior? Will these fines really make everyone compost more and waste less? What are the unintended consequences of using force to mold and shape behavior in society?

Seattle government turning garbage collectors into trash inspectors with the power to fine

In Seattle, Washington, a new ordinance beginning next July will target residents and businesses for throwing away too much food. The local government there is turning garbage collectors into trash inspectors -- acolytes for government force. If the garbage collector deems that 10 percent of the trash is compostable food waste, then the resident or business is to be fined, the money returned to the state. While recycling trash and composting is an extraordinary idea, using force and fines never accomplishes the goal. It backfires into a nanny state of division, accusations and extortion.

Sadly, the city council approved the measure with a 9-0 vote. Fines begin next July and start at $1.00 for residents and $50.00 for apartment buildings and businesses. According to the The Seattle Times, the city fell short of its recycling goal. They recycled 56 percent of trash in 2013, 4 percent short of citywide goals. Apparently, the council members think that fining their way forward will close the gap.

Legislating behavior and lifestyle always backfires, dividing and perpetuating accusations

If everyone had the power to fine others for behavior that they didn't like, then life would become a giant witch-hunt police state, with people pointing fingers and extorting money from others whom they don't agree with or understand. In this way, society becomes divided into cliques that only fight against one another, opposing each other's lifestyles and decisions. By creating a nanny state government, society devolves into a state of perpetual accusation. Sadly, this is what American government has morphed into today at both the local and federal levels. It has become a pit of glaring octopuses, empowering politicians with eight tentacles that are used to control the free will of human hands.

That's right, liberty is the answer. Instead of empowering a bureaucracy built on fine money and accusations, it's better to empower the individual with information. Why couldn't we encourage educational classes about composting and inspire learning about landfill waste? This would be a better long-term strategy than picking through each other's trash and fining those who throw too much food away. Educating a free people has a more lasting impact. Learning from mistakes, a free people can then move away from what didn't work, opening up to what does work for the progress of mankind. Force can't achieve these goals rightfully.

Through the years, we've suppressed powerful information and controlled the learning process, trying to legislate behavior and mandate compliance using government force. Forcing and fining people's personal lives is never the answer. It causes backlash, and it divides people against one another. In this way, people see their own lifestyle and belief system through egotistical eyes, thinking it's the only right way. We learn to go after people whom we don't understand and don't agree with instead of embracing others for who they are and learning something from them.

Instead of understanding where people come from, we've learned to point out what we think is wrong with others, often accusing them when we don't agree with the way that they are living. In lawmaking, we've emboldened our differences in behavior and lifestyle as a way to target those we don't agree with. These laws, which now target the bad behavior of throwing away food, only perpetuate more bad behavior by dividing and extorting each other as human beings.

What do you think? Is picking through your neighbors' garbage and fining them the way to reduce waste?

Sources for this article include:

http://www.breitbart.com

http://seattletimes.com