California’s considering it..
The state of California is considering a bill that would punish waiters at sit-down restaurants with up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000, for offering customers straws — because straws are bad for the environment.
According to an article in Reason, the bill was introduced by Democratic state-assembly majority leader Ian Calderon. To be fair, it doesn’t ban straws entirely, it just bans waiters from offering straws to customers who have not asked for them — so it’s not like Calderon is being totally totalitarian.
Has California decided that maybe it’s actually a bad thing that it has one of the lower incarceration rates in the country, and wants to do something to bump it up in the rankings a little bit?
It makes absolutely no sense to me that a state that’s worked so hard to lower its prison population would even consider passing a law that might clog its jail population full of people whose only crime was asking “Would you like a straw?” Look. The truth is, straws are awesome. I’m not afraid to admit that I even have a few of my own. They can help protect your teeth from stains when you’re drinking root beer, they help you avoid the germs that can be on cans or on restaurant glasses. They can also reduce the risk of choking — and I’ve got to say, I want to live (for God of course).
If you are a groovy, hippy business that wants to do its hippy part, and maybe set a hippy-dippy in-house policy against offering straws, then fine. In fact, I’m sure you might get a lot of hipster California clientele who’d be more than happy to support your efforts.
But there are many things that the state shouldn’t be involved in, and I feel like a business’s offered drinking tools definitely falls into that category. Could you imagine ordering a smoothie and being expected to mash it into your face instead of drinking from a straw? Good heavens.
Is it bad that a few straws end up in waterways? Sure. Does that mean that people who provide them should end up in jail? No, and the fact that some environmental virtue signaler actually believes that they should makes me want to fire up the old diesel truck for a joyride through the local wetland. The Lord Himself think's it’s pretty important that punishment fits the crime, and if you think that jail time is an appropriate response to straw-offering, then you should probably chew on one — because you’re probably too absurd to allow yourself to be talking.
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"They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen" (Romans 1:25).