Before you swallow the latest conspiracy theory that the Big Bad Guvmint is going to steal your gas stove, let’s consider what’s happened in the past.
The same people who are fear-mongering about gas stoves previously said that...
... the United States could not survive the abolition of slavery. Yes, it took a civil war, but the United States survived.
... allowing women to vote would destroy the Republic. One hundred years later, it’s still here.
... integrating schools would destroy morals, the economy, and all that is holy. I teach at an integrated school and somehow manage to live a decent life in a country with the lowest unemployment in 50 years, while still attending church. So no to all three premises.
... the government was fluoridating water to make everyone a communist. Which didn’t happen.
... allowing women to enter the workforce would be the end of the American family. Which — despite Republican attacks on the poor, middle- and lower-middle classes — still hasn’t happened.
... the government would establish FEMA concentration camps. This conspiracy theory has existed off and on since the 1980s, and, decades later, we’re still waiting for the first camp.
... President George Bush Sr. had sold us out to the New World Order in some Orwellian deal. Nearly 40 years the world is more divided than ever, making it another failed prediction.
... that same New World Order would be sending black helicopters to surveil average Americans. Still looking up, but it hasn’t happened yet in the decades since the nonsense emerged in the 1990s.
... the government would round up every gun. At this point, the United States has more guns than people, so no to that one, too.
... legalizing recreational marijuana would bring Reefer Madness to life. Alas, 21 states — including red Montana and Missouri — and the District of Columbia have legal weed, and yet there hasn’t been a increase in murder, rape, general criminality, suicide, or insanity linked to increased and widespread cannabis. Fox News and QAnon have made people crazy, not smoking a doobie. So another bad prediction that led to needless incarceration and billions of dollars wasted on enforcement.
... COVID-19 would never come to the United States, thanks to the Messiah in Chief. And, when it did, it would end by Easter, according to Donald Trump and Elon Musk. We know how both those predictions ended.
... the COVID-19 pandemic would end right after the 2020 General Election. It didn’t, although competent government not by cronies did help federalize the response and the rollout of the vaccine, leading to better survival rates.
... the United States would undergo a red tsunami in the 2022 midterm elections. Ahem.
... drag queen story hours would lead to an explosion of pedophilia. That explosion in pedophilia and sexual abuse actually occurred in the Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention. Man, these people are always wrong!
So when these prescient folks tell you that you are in danger of losing your gas stove, I’d say you can rest easy.
Have some cities in California begun phasing out gas stoves and other gas appliances? Sure. California provides affordable health care and cheap in-state tuition, but there’s no chance Republicans will allow those consumer-friendly measures to pass on the federal level, either. So the government will not be getting between you and asthma.
So breathe easily. Oops! Probably not. But you’ll still have your stove.
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