LETTER: Kelley is right

Editor: Three cheers for Supervisor Paul Kelley’s opposition to
a law requiring fire sprinklers in all new home building. He says
we are becoming too much a “Nanny Society.” A great
characterization. Fire Sprinklers should be an option for a person
building a house, not a legal requirement. In the making of a
multiplicity of ordinances, rules and regulations we are aping the
communistic system, a concept we are already too far into — maybe
80 percent — especially now that the Homeland Security Agency is a
reality and enforcement becomes a high friction point.
Once neighbor tells on neighbor and a tattle-tale society is
established, and we assign National Guard enforcement, it’s all
over but the shouting — and the tears. Then only another American
Revolution can cure it — a revolution that would be a lot bloodier
and a lot longer than the original.
Who do these government officials think they are in trying to
determine every last detail of our safety? Do you see how easily a
government slips into despotism? And how quickly lowly citizens,
given authority over others, bite for the bait?
The Fire Departments and Police Department are so regulated
federally, that control, in the last analysis, is effectively
complete. These are intimidated local people, taking their orders
from the feds, and states, not from local officials as controlled
by town selectmen, and city councils. A “Soviet” system is a system
of local functionaries taking their orders from above, and forcing
them on all below. That is exactly what soviets are, and what we
are rapidly becoming.
What governments do best is ask for more money. What we need to
do best is say no to governments when they ask. We want our freedom
to choose. I will meet with any who would like to debate the issue.
William Pisenti, president, President and Board Chairman, TRIM
Santa Rosa