CPSIA - Must Read in the Denver Post

Let me say, here and now, that if I am chosen for next year's committee, THIS GUY gets my vote for Nobel Peace Prize in 2010!


Opinion

Harsanyi: They're tragically delicious

By David Harsanyi

Posted: 10/14/2009 01:00:00 AM MDT

How can Americans be expected to wrestle with the myriad of dangers that confront them each day? Insalubrious cereal? Unregulated garage sales? Pools of death? Sometimes it's too much to process.

You know what we are desperately crying out for? An army of crusading federal regulatory agents with unfettered power. Who else has the fortitude and foresight to keep us all safe?

Mercifully, as The Washington Post recently reported, many of President Barack Obama's appointees "have been quietly exercising their power over the trappings of daily life . . . awakening a vast regulatory apparatus with authority over nearly every U.S. workplace, 15,000 consumer products and most items found in pantries and medicine cabinets."

If there's anything Americans are hankering for in their everyday lives, it's a vast regulatory apparatus. Hey, it's dangerous out there.

That's why the new chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission recently unleashed 100 agency inspectors to investigate whether or not swimming pools in America were equipped with a drain cover to prevent children from entrapment.

Nearly 0.9 children fall prey to this sadistic killer each year. With the compassionate guidance of federal officials, we will almost surely see this number plunge to 0.8 children per year.

It should be noted that each tragic year that passes by, an estimated 300 children under the age of 4 drown in swimming pools. Why our government sits idly by as this watery assassin targets
the most vulnerable among us is a mystery.

Don't get me started on food. Washington will not rest until every one of our children is forcing down some gravel-based Mueslix after morning calisthenics in the name of a glorious preventive care revolution. I get it. They're fat.

This is why I am grateful that one courageous soul has finally stood up to the menacing influence of Big Cereal. Yes, Food and Drug Administration commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg has had enough of deceitful infiltration of Cheerios, demanding that General Mills cease and desist a marketing campaign that peddles the fallacious claim that the oat-based cereal can lower cholesterol.

Why stop with oats? Trix are not only for kids, you know. Lucky Charms are nowhere close to being "magically" delicious.

What Lucky Charms does do is perpetuate the stereotype that the Irish are a bunch of oft-inebriated jerks — which everyone knows is only true about 70 percent of the time.

Isn't there a statute we can pass in Congress to end the hate?

Then again, it's not only those scheming Irish that are hawking their wares — unregulated — on concrete suburban driveways and inner city thrift stores across this country.

The "Resale Round-up," launched by the CPSC, finally limits the power of these merchants of death who recklessly barter second-hand toys to unsuspecting civilians at low prices. Consider that Tonka truck — the one that you somehow outlasted — contraband. If not, you could be fined thousands of dollars.

The only question now is how did any of us survive this long?

Michael Livermore, executive director of the Institute for the Study of Regulation at New York University Law School, points out that "In the Bush administration, the problem was that the political folks were hostile to the mission."

It is no surprise that Bush administration — a close second to Big Cereal in wickedness — was hostile to regulating the rhinestones on your kids' denim jackets. Apparently the depths of its depravity knew no bounds.

The mission? Simple. Keeping you safe. Because everyone knows that parents aren't equipped to keep their children safe until a bureaucrat explains exactly how it's done.

And those parents who are neglecting their children's safety, well, they always care more once government gets involved. Right?

E-mail David Harsanyi at dharsanyi@denverpost.com.