The gas stove has requested a powdered wig. In our entirely fictional portrait sitting, it wants to be painted gazing toward the horizon, preferably from its good side, which is the side without the baked-on lasagna. Dinner can wait. Posterity has arrived.
Colorado’s Amendment 82 would constitutionalize natural-gas access, potentially limiting future state and local restrictions, Axios reports. It is a proposal, not a new constitutional settlement. Our imaginary stove has nevertheless begun rehearsing the expression of a man who has just invented liberty.
A Range Of Fundamental Principles
Ordinary kitchen equipment justifies its place by doing something useful. The kettle boils. The refrigerator keeps things cold. The toaster launches bread toward the ceiling with the confidence of a weapons contractor. None has previously insisted that its preferred energy arrangement belongs in the same category of seriousness as the rules by which a state governs itself.
The stove considers this a failure of ambition. A product can be bought, used, criticized and eventually replaced. A sacred principle gets a portrait and a much better opening statement. Why remain equipment when you could become heritage?
The artist asks whether to include the oven mitt. The stove says no. It would cheapen the occasion. The grease stain, however, should be rendered as the burden of leadership.
There is nothing ridiculous about wanting a warm home or liking a particular way to cook. The ridiculous part is the attempted promotion. A useful fuel does not become a founding philosophy merely because somebody is extremely attached to the knob. I like my coffee maker. I have not asked it to design a separation of powers.
In our invented kitchen, the other appliances begin to understand the opportunity. The dishwasher proposes freedom of rinse. The freezer demands that all future generations respect the ice trays selected by the present one. The microwave, which has never respected a potato, offers to chair the convention.
The stove objects. This is a serious constitutional matter, not an invitation for every appliance to start behaving as though its commercial preferences are the natural order of the universe.
Quite.
Please Remove The Price Tag Before Framing
My objection is to using constitutional grandeur as a display stand for one fuel choice. It is possible to defend an option, compare its costs and debate regulation without first dressing the transaction as a scene from the birth of self-government. The wig is doing a suspicious amount of work.
And choice is a peculiar word to engrave so grandly if the point is to make tomorrow’s political choices harder. An argument should still have to persuade the next audience. It should not acquire a velvet rope simply because its current audience enjoys the flame.
Back at the imaginary portrait sitting, the artist has completed a magnificent appliance statesman. The burners possess gravitas. The broiler radiates purpose. The little clock still blinks 12:00, but leadership must not become distracted by every trivial demand for accountability.
The portrait remains a proposal. Voters, unlike the stove, get an actual say.
Underneath, our aspiring founder has suggested a modest inscription. Nothing commercial. Nothing that would spoil the dignity of the moment.
We the people. Also, this burner.