The Golden Gate Bridge authority is spending $142 million on a net surrounding both sides of the bridge to prevent people from jumping off and killing themselves.  For $142 million, the net must be spun of gold.  But it's an incredible waste of money that will probably end up saving few if any lives.

The first problem with the net is that once people jump into it, they can climb out and jump again.  All they are doing is making suicide a two-jump process.  Will some people reconsider taking the second jump after taking the first?  It is impossible to know.

But what we do know is that the net will become an "attractive nuisance," driving crazy, drunk, or drugged people to jump into it for the "thrill" of it, risking injuries, all in an effort to experience a deadly thrill or make a viral YouTube video.

Furthermore, even if this net worked perfectly and deterred 100% of suicides from the bridge, there are other bridges people can jump off of, like the nearby Bay Bridge.  Actually, a favorite method of suicide in the Bay Area is death by Caltrains.  If someone wants to kill himself, making the Golden Gate Bridge off limits to suicide is not going to help very much.

It's also going to make the bridge look ugly, with big nets hanging from the sides, like a giant fishing boat.

It's interesting to see how much liberals are willing to spend to save lives in some situations but not others.  When leftists mandate that cars must be more and more energy efficient, and thus lighter and lighter, they make cars more lethal in crashes.  When leftists outlaw the incandescent light bulb and the most available alternative has toxic mercury in it, they don't seem concerned about human lives.  And they certainly aren't concerned about human lives when they try to import unvetted illegal aliens from Central and South America and "refugees" from Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, some of whom go on to kill.

What makes the lives of people who want to kill themselves more valuable than the lives of people who don't – people who just want to be safe in their cars and in their country?

Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com.