Orange County, NC: the global center of liberal fruitcakiness

San Francisco can’t touch them. Asheville can’t touch them.  Oakland can’t touch them. 

Charlotte is a global banking center.  High Point has a globally-renowned furniture market.  Pinehurst has a world-renowned reputation for golf.  Orange County — aside from the college basketball team in Chapel Hill — has developed quite the reputation for leftist moonbattery, kookery and fruitcakiness.

You’re more likely to find Bigfoot, leprechauns, dinosaurs, or pots of gold than an actual Republican within the county’s borders.   They’ve got a state legislator who publicly lamented his “whiteness.”    We’ve just heard about an English teacher there who has actually devoted class time to detailed comparisons between Hitler and Donald Trump.   And then there was the third grade teacher who read his kids a graphic, gay-themed, um, “fairy” tale.  And there was, of course, the “collective response to Anti-Blackness.”   We also heard from Orange County Commissioner — and renowned ACC basketball writer — Barry Jacobs announcing that “it’s very American to be prejudiced.”

Well, Jacobs is back with a vengeance defending the county’s ban on drive-thru windows:

Orange County Commissioner Barry Jacobs says the county has a duty to help Americans lose weight and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, so he wants to preserve a drive-thru business window ban. Other commissioners say the prohibition is anti-business, and a lawyer for a national law firm fighting for economic liberty agrees.[…]

*Hey, just think about all the methane gas the products dispensed through those windows adds to the environment!*  MORE:

[…]  “More than a third of Americans are obese, and nearly half of them including me are overweight,” Jacobs said at the county commissioners’ quarterly public hearing Sept. 12 at which land use plans for the Hillsborough Economic Development District were discussed. “And so every time you just make it easier to stay in a car you’re not helping.”

Jacobs and Commissioners Bernadette Pelissier and Penny Rich spoke in favor of keeping the drive-thru prohibition. Commissioners Mark Dorosin, Renee Price, Mia Burroughs, and Earl McKee spoke against the restriction.

“I think it’s an overly limiting restriction on economic development. I think there’s a lot higher priorities to reduce our carbon footprint, like getting students on buses, for example. So I would be open to removing that prohibition,” Dorosin said.[…]

Jacobs goes on to reveal the real motive at work here: 

[…] Jacobs said granting exceptions on a case-by-case would be preferable to eliminating the restriction.

“I actually like the idea of leaving [the prohibition] in, and having people come to us and request having a drive-thru,” Rich said. “People not getting out of their car just defeats the purpose” of attempts to reduce the county’s carbon footprint, and increase personal health.[…] 

Mmm-kay.  So, it sounds like Barry and the gang really and truly enjoy having control over people and their resources.  Setting up a situation where people have to come beg you for exceptions is just inviting abuses and corruption.  Here’s the real moral of this story:

[…] “It’s insane,” Justin Pearson, managing attorney for the Florida office of the Institute for Justice, told Carolina Journal in response to Jacobs’ justifications for maintaining drive-thru window bans.

Several cities in Canada and the United States have imposed limits on drive-thru facilities, citing a host of reasons, including cutting carbon emissions, reducing obesity, and encouraging more bicycle and pedestrian traffic in central business districts.

“The county has what are called police powers, which are public health and safety. Once they go outside of public health and safety, what they’re doing is unconstitutional,” Pearson said.

“It’s not the government’s job to tell you that you need to walk further, or be healthier. They’re not your parent,” Pearson said. […]