Politicians in Connecticut Want To Save You From Loud Movies

The state's politicians slithered their way back into the state capitol building, in Hartford, last month, convening the regular legislative session for 2014.  Every working day, these politicians are proposing dozens of new laws, all with the potential of directly effecting our lives, and most of us will never hear about it, until we are required to obey the new regulation/law.  That is why I encourage everyone to go to cga.ct.gov, the official website of the Connecticut General Assembly, and take a look at the daily "list of bills", presented by the House and Senate.  You will come across all types of legislation, from the tyrannically frightening, to the ignorantly absurd.  While I view the vast majority of government action to be, at best, useless, and, at worst, extremely detrimental, I find that there are certain pieces of legislation, such as Raised Bill Number 287, "AN ACT CONCERNING THE MAXIMUM DECIBEL LEVEL AT MOVIE THEATRES", that really help show the idea of how absurd government really is.

The proposed bill states:

(a) No person holding a license under the provisions of section 29-117 of the general statutes shall exhibit or show any moving picture film or preview film that exceeds eighty-five decibels. The Commissioner of Administrative Services shall establish the procedure for checking maximum decibel levels to determine compliance with this section.

The information to this bill does not show exactly which member of the Public Safety and Security Committee actually presented this bill, but somewhere in Connecticut, there is a politician that thinks it is a good idea to use the force of the state to make movie theater owners comply with what he feels is a safe movie watching experience.

To understand the absurdity of this potential law, place yourself in the shoes of a movie theater owner.  As the owner, you want as many people as possible to come watch a movie at your place of business, be satisfied with the experience, and eventually return.  To ensure this happens, you do everything in your power to eliminate any aspect of the movie watching experience, that may be detrimental to the viewer, such as the sound level of the movies being too loud, or too low.  If your movie theater begins to develop a reputation for showing movies at a displeasing sound level, then people will stop going to your movie theater.  Therefore, the person who cares most about running a safe, enjoyable, business operation, is the business owner.  Now that we understand this, we must ask; why would a politician involve himself in this process?  The politician is either completely ignorant to how economics works, and truly thinks that problems are best solved by government force, or is corrupt at some level.

Political corruption, a willingness to be dishonest in return for money or personal gain, takes many forms.  Most often, a politician is forced to hide his insincerity, and present a reasonable sounding excuse for using the force of the state to increase the power of government, increase his own power, and/or take a person's money.

In this case of the movie theater decibels, the details are not given, but surely the state will create some sort-of "decibel-rating certification" process, that will, of course, require movie theater owners to pay a "state certified inspector" to verify that the sound level is safe in their theater.  It can be expected that the cost of obtaining this certificate will increase over time, forcing the owner to pass on this extra cost of running a movie theater, onto the customers, in the form of increased ticket prices.  The customers will notice, and may get upset at, the rising prices, but most people will never make the connection that it was their local politician that caused this increase in the price of their movie ticket.

A rising cost in the price of a movie ticket is only one problem of this type of government intervention.  With new laws, come more bureaucracy, and more government created positions to ensure the fulfillment of the new mandates.  As government grows, so do taxes, and government fees, causing many tax-payers to become angry, frustrated, and in want of government to become smaller.  Politicians then tell you how difficult it is to cut government expenses, because they don't want anyone to lose their job, or cut the budget of any "important programs".  The people are told that cutting government services would effect important societal functions, like schools (think of the children!), and road construction.  Of course never mentioned by the politicians, is the various, newly-created, programs, and positions, such as the "decibel-rating" bureaucracy, that appear to be minor in cost now, but will slowly grow, and become more expensive over time.

How does a politician come up with a law like this anyway?  Maybe he/she was sitting in a movie theater, when it got to loud, in their opinion, and they thought to themselves "there should be a law against this!".  That is possible, but much legislation gets proposed by influences other than the politician himself.  Let's take a look at a list of possible people who may want to see legislation like this:

• Concerned citizens
• Sound "experts"
• Big movie theater owners
• Tyrannical government 

A Critical Analysis of Agenda 21 - United Nations Program of Action

To some people, Agenda 21 is an evil plan for the further creation, and control, of a world government, by the non-elected bureaucrats at the United Nations. To other people, Agenda 21 is a just well-meaning, harmless, non-binding set of recommendations, created by a group of men, and women, at the United Nations, that care about the preservation of the world's environment.

Before debating the true intentions, or effects, of Agenda 21, we must first understand the details of this document.

In can be difficult, and confusing, for the average person who hears about Agenda 21, to really understand it, through a simple search.  The program is hundreds of pages, and not too many people will take the time to read all of it.  An internet search of UN Agenda 21 will lead to a lot of information, but much of it is without reference to the actual document, thus seemingly just an opinion.  I have took the time to read the document myself, and will chronicle my findings, and thoughts, here.

(It should be noted that I am not going into this examination completely ignorant of Agenda 21.  I have, in the past, written critically about events taking place in my local community, that are connected to United Nations Agenda 21.)

The full document is 351 pages, however Agenda 21 is much more complex than just what is written in this action plan, due to the fact that there are numerous other resolutions referenced, and recommended, for further implementation, such as the Healthy Cities Programme of WHO, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and many more.  I have yet to read all of these other resolutions, conventions, and programs, but as I do, I will document, and update, my research, at TheGoodmanChronicle.com.  For now, I will just examine the text of this specific document, which can be viewed, in full, online here.

Let us start with the front cover of the hard copy version of Agenda 21 (picture below), which reads:

"EARTH SUMMIT - AGENDA 21 - THE UNITED NATIONS PROGRAMME OF ACTION FROM RIO".  

Agenda 21, Front Cover

By using the words "programme of action", the creators of this document are informing the reader that this is a plan, or program, that they intend to have performed, or put into action, and not just some ideas that they hope for people to consider.

Agenda 21 is broken up into forty chapters, divided into three sections, and nearly every part of this document revolves around the idea of creating, what they refer to as, "a new global partnership for sustainable development." (Chapter 1, Section 1).  Though the adjective "sustainable" is used numerous times, and in conjunction with various other pleasant sounding nouns, to create ideas like "sustainable livelihood" (Ch. 3, Sec. 4-a), and "sustainable city networks" (Ch. 7, Sec. 20-d), throughout Agenda 21, what is meant by "sustainable" is never really made clear, or specifically defined.

The opening preamble of Agenda 21 alludes to the idea that the term "sustainable development" means an "integration of environment and development concerns", which, according to the United Nations, will lead to "the fulfilment of basic needs, improved living standards for all, better protected and managed ecosystems and a safer, more prosperous future." (Ch. 1, Sec. 1)  This sounds nice, but again, is not specific, and could mean anything.

As the reader progresses through the document, a more sinister, controlling, agenda seems to emerge, that is ingrained in this plan, but it is masked with nice sounding phrases, and friendly language.  The United Nations claims to want to create a sort-of utopia, where the environment is clean, nobody is hungry, everyone has a home, etc., but to do this, they need to have the power to create laws, or recommendations, that effect changes in your local community.