C.S. Lewis weighs in on Sen. Ann Rivers' gas tax/tab fee increase vote.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. ...To be 'cured' against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”

This is precisely what I've been saying, although much less artfully.

Sen. Rivers tells us:

“It was a gut-wrenching decision, but when I turned it into a flat-out business decision and took my emotion out of it, it was definitely what I had to do,’’ Rivers said. “They had the votes without me. If people in my district are going to pay real dollars, they are going to get real projects and real reforms.’’

Actually, what she "had" to do... first and foremost... was to keep her word.  Now that we know she values it so little, the default position must be to disbelieve everything she says.

Because when she ran and made those pledges, I believed her.

How wrong I was.

With her vote, which violated her election pledge to vote against a gas tax increase and/or a tab fee increase, she is "tormenting us for our own good."

And that's the crux of the matter.

Let me reiterate:  had Rivers' vote come at the cost of putting this theft to the ballot so that those of us paying for it had the final say, this would be a completely different discussion.  But with her "yes" vote, she was clearly acquiescing to her fellow GOP senators who did not want us to have a say, and with her yes vote she was also agreeing with the emergency clause in the bill, a typically leftist play... that makes it difficult to impossible to gather the needed signatures in time to stop this rape.

 I will never support any politician who views their word to be worth so little.  If the people are to be "tormented," it must be done by our own hands at the ballot box, and not be having a fiscal shiv rammed into our wallets by those who should know better... but who most apparently do not.

The problem is that once you start down that road where you can be.... "bought," or "got to," or "threatened" into breaking your word to those who elected you...

...there's simply no end to it.  And the only thing we'll know for sure is that it will happen again... and again... and again.

And it will cost her nothing.