Santa Barbara's city government recently criminalized the use of plastic straws.  This is a minor annoyance, something we're all used to from nanny-state politicians.

But one city councilman, Jesse Dominguez, had a totally honest explanation for why the council thought it necessary to micro-manage our lives: "Unfortunately, common sense is just not common. We have to regulate every aspect of people's lives."

As Steven Hawyward points out at Powerline, the statement "expresses the core impulse of liberalism today."

Dominguez, perhaps realizing he had said too much, tried to walk back the statement:

The comment sparked an immediate backlash from people who read the quote in Noozhawk and other local media, wondering "did he really say that?"  Yes, he did, and on Tuesday, Dominguez apologized for the comment.

"I just wanted to apologize," Dominguez said at the beginning of the meeting.  "A few weeks ago I made a string of words in a rhetorical fashion about regulation and they were not taken as rhetorical and that's my fault so I want to apologize."

Got that?  You dummies took me far too literally.  I didn't really mean what I said, even though the "rhetoric" was clear, concise, and unambiguous.

The left isn't usually this blunt in stating its objectives.  Leftists couch their tyrannical ideas in soothing words like "family" and "community."  It's for your own good, don't you see?  We don't like to say it out loud, but in truth, you all have the brains and maturity of five-year-olds and need a mommy and daddy to tell you exactly what you can do, how you can behave.

It used to be that there was a strong belief in individual liberty.  It was understood by all that with that liberty came an obligation to accept personal responsibility for your own life and the lives of your family members. 

But far too many Americans don't want that responsibility anymore.  They actually want the state to take complete care of them.  Not all Americans, and perhaps not even a majority, think that – yet.  But Dominguez and his socialist allies know that their day is coming soon.

When it does, it will be greeted with "thunderous applause."