Democrats say they want government to stay out of your bedroom.

Actually, they want government in every room of your house and in the ventilation system as well.

By now, you’ve probably heard about the proposal of the California Energy Commission to require that all new homes in the state be outfitted with a “programmable communicating thermostat,” an Orwellian device which would allow the government to control the temperature inside your house. Imagine: a government bureaucracy along the lines of the Department of Motor Vehicles or the U.S. Postal Service controlling the comfort level you are allowed to maintain inside your own home!

You may have read the elitist article in the New York Times which dismissed opponents of the plan as technophobic rubes.

And you might have done a high-five in your mind’s eye when you heard that the Commission was forced to table the idea after an avalanche of protests driven by the internet and talk radio (my talk radio audience was furious). A day later, the Commission dropped the idea entirely.

But this isn’t Yorktown, it’s the Battle of Lexington and Concord, and many hard years of struggle lie ahead.

The Democrats (a.k.a. global warming wimps) have found the rhetorical weapon they will use for at least the next decade to decrease your liberty while increasing their power, and that weapon is the hysteria over global warming.

If you think the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution is interpreted too broadly, if you think governments grab power by regulating anything with a budgetary effect, if you think the notion of public health has become an invitation for bureaucrats to tell you what you can eat or drink, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Environmental doomsaying is one of the most powerful tactics that liberals use to obtain and wield power. At its heart, the Democrat Party is a coalition of interest groups that feed at the trough of the government. The more power the politicians and bureaucrats have, the more contracts and benefits the groups can gobble up.

Notice how the rhetoric of environmental protection has changed over the last decade to justify the expansion of governmental power and rapid erosion of personal freedom. Continued...