Thurston plastic bag ban suits only the ruling few

The burgeoning authoritarian government of Thurston County, bolstered by The Olympian, is testing credulity in the matter of the bag ban.

Because the outcome of an online opinion survey available for all residents’ input did not agree with the ruling few’s wishes, they decry the survey as being “very unscientific” and insufficiently representative of the county’s residents. When were opinion surveys every expected to be a scientific measure? This whole process has been unscientific.

What were the scientific measures used to necessitate this bag ban in the first place? The whim of an offended councilwoman by a plastic bag found while walking a local trail was sufficient to impose rule – very scientific. What are the baseline statistics against which success or failure are being measured? How much garbage has actually been eliminated since instituting this ban? Surely the ruling few know. How many acres of land required cleanup prior to the ban?

At what cost to the taxpayers? How many have shown measurable cleanup since implementation? How many animals were negatively impacted prior? What species were most onerously impacted? How many have been saved since implementation?

This whole debacle has been nothing more than the personal values of the ruling few being imposed on the larger society; those few will not be deterred by the citizenry’s opposing view. This matter should be brought before the voters of Thurston County. The concept was once known as democracy in our republic; we the people vs. we the government.

This story was originally published August 1, 2015 at 5:01 PM with the headline "Thurston plastic bag ban suits only the ruling few."