Now that Mayor Bloomberg has decided we, all 8 million of us New Yorkers, should all go through our garbage to separate out the biodegradable stuff and “compost” it, the time has come to retire a favorite designation for him.
He’s not Nanny Bloomberg, he’s Bully Bloomberg.
Now, a mayor of New York has to be a bully to succeed. This is an obnoxious place; any person who governs it with some success has to be inured to obnoxiousness from others and capable of doling out more obnoxiousness than his rivals and enemies ever imagined possible.
It was ever thus, from Walker to La Guardia to Wagner to Koch to Rudy. Whenever a mayor lacked the bullying gene (John Lindsay, David Dinkins, Abe Beame), he’s been a disaster.
Where Michael Bloomberg differs from his obnoxious predecessors is how and whom he bullies.
With his rivals and enemies, he’s of a mind to try and find common ground. He is mostly mild and cooperative. Either that, or he writes a check to the Carnegie Corporation so that it, in turn, can write a check to one of those liberal groups that so bedeviled Rudy Giuliani — and, lo, there is peace and joy throughout the five boroughs.
Except if you criticize his ludicrous pet cab, the Taxi of Tomorrow, which he insists against all reason should be the only yellow hack on the streets of New York. Don’t criticize the man’s desired tax — a man who probably hasn’t been in a taxi in 20 years at least.
Oppose that bizarre imposition on your industry if you’re in the taxi business, and the mayor will inform you that, come the day of his retirement, he will dedicate himself to “destroy[ing] all you f–king guys.” Not an idle threat from the city’s richest man.
Who are taxi drivers and taxi executives? Small-business men and proprietors of small businesses in a city that desperately needs them. Them, he’s happy to bully.
Them — and the voters. Meaning you.
Bloomberg doesn’t like the way voters act, and he wants to change it — and the fact that they’re his bosses, not his employees, has never quite gotten through to him.
He doesn’t want them to smoke, he doesn’t want them to eat salt or drink large beverages or eat trans fats — and with a wave of his arm and a compliant City Council, his will is done.
Those who believe the role of government is to regulate all behavior save sexual behavior — which is to say, the entirety of present-day American liberalism — are thrilled.
They believe that private behavior — again, except sexual behavior — has public costs, and because there are public costs, it’s the government’s responsibility to direct and control it. That’s the nicest explanation. There’s a pettier one. It’s this: It’s fun to tell people what to do.
Trust me. I write a column and edit a magazine. I tell people what to do all the time, not that they listen. But I don’t have the power to make them do what I think they should.
Not Michael Bloomberg. For him, telling people what to do isn’t enough. The real fun is in making
them
change through compulsion — laws and regulations explicitly designed to redirect behavior.
Composting is really the last straw here.
The city says its initial plans to make you go through your garbage and separate the banana peels from the sticker on the banana peel and the bones of chicken from the chicken packet are voluntary. But that’s nonsense.
The only purpose in beginning a composting regime is for it to become mandatory for all once all the tools are in place — a larger composting plant, trucks to pick up the compost material and so on.
Here’s what I say: You want composting? Fine? Here’s how the law should be written: Composting will be mandatory, but no household servant can be allowed to do it.
Only the owner of the household. You know, like the beautiful townhouse on East 79th Street. Where, my guess is, a lot of garbage is produced.
Your checkbook doesn’t get you out of this one, Mike. Roll up your sleeves and go through your garbage, pal. See how you like that, you big bully.