Riding the bus this week, one of the patrons was reading aloud a story about a US Senator complaining about onerous governmental regulations. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) suggested that businesses should be allowed to “opt out” of requiring employees to wash their hands after using the restroom. “The senator said he’d be fine with it, so long as businesses made this clear in ‘advertising’ and ’employment literature.'” See the video.
The jaw of one of the listeners dropped. Sure, most of us surmised that he was exaggerating to make a point, but it’s SUCH an unsavory image.
The right-wing website HotAir defended Tillis: “The idea is that, even in the most extreme or absurd situations, the common sense of Americans and the self-correcting nature of the free market take care of many woes. There are exceptions, of course, where the government can and should step in to ensure the general welfare, but that doesn’t mean that every single aspect of waking life for normal Americans requires Big Brother to rush in and hold their hands.”
Accepting that premise, one might want to come up with an example of real government overreach, rather than challenging a simple but effective rule to protect the public health.