The Green Gestapo Is Coming to My House...

Thought you might like this.

This week I got a letter from the provincial government telling me they are sending an inspector to my house to check my heating system. At first I thought “this is strange!”, because I had a government-sanctioned technician running the mandatory test at the end of October and came out clean. Then I asked around: you don’t actually have a government employee coming to your house. These are contractors; they come around your house, run a test and even if you are clean they say you need a new heater or else… my central heater was built in 1983, I took it over from the previous home owner and as the technician said in October “it’s in top condition, as clean as it can be” (I run on natural gas). Being a large unit it’s an obvious target for government-sanctioned privateers. Free money in the name of the environment!

Yes, I intend to fight back. My lawyer is already on stand-by: he already told me there’s no law forcing you to change the heater, all you have to do is pass the same test I had in October, something that can be achieved by doing routine maintenance. Now he’s working to see if I can face any penalty for not letting this leech into my house. If I am forced to let him into the house he’ll have to write down everything: no veiled threats or “friendly advice”. I already had to deal with government thugs in the past and I know everything must written down… then we’ll have some fun in court!

Best of luck, Kakugo. I didn’t know they had such annoying public-private partnerships in Italy as well.

Proof that government is above the law. No government official can enter your premise without permission unless he obtains a warrant from a judge.

So government goes and passes a law that mandates you to cooperate with a government inspection inside your house. Now, they can enter your house with no warrant. If you refuse to cooperate, then they can seek a court warrant on the basis of the law they created.

This is like the clause about the “freedom of the press” in the Iraqi constitution recently posted here. T__here shall be no censorship of newspapers unless by law (paraphrase)

And we think we are better. Give me a break.