Here we go again.
Every summer now comes with the same sermon from government: this is for the collective good, please comply, and do not ask too many questions while we tell you what you can do with your own property. This time the altar call is your lawn.
Brighton is rolling out drought restrictions, and the sales pitch is the same one bureaucrats always use when they want more control over daily life. It is temporary. It is necessary. It is responsible. It is for all of us. Funny how “for all of us” usually means a handful of officials get to decide, and everybody else gets to obey.
So let me go ahead and stick with the prediction right now. By mid-summer, having a green lawn is going to be treated like some kind of suburban war crime. Not a little tacky. Not maybe wasteful. No, no. It will be framed like you are personally strangling the planet in front of your HOA. Narrative first, truth if there’s room.
And you know who is going to love this? The neighborhood Karens. Oh, they are about to enter their Olympics.
You can already see it. Blinds twitching at 6:12 a.m. Somebody peeking through the shutters with the moral intensity of a junior Soviet hall monitor. A text thread lighting up. “Does anyone know if the Johnsons are allowed to water on Thursdays?” A grainy photo posted in the neighborhood Facebook group like it is Zapruder film. “Just asking questions.” Sure, Karen. And sharks are just curious swimmers.
That is the thing about these rules. They are never just about water. They become social permission slips for people who enjoy telling other people how to live. Government makes the rule, and then the self-appointed deputies show up for free. Different clowns, same circus.
Now look, drought is real. Colorado gets dry. Nobody with a functioning brain thinks water is infinite. Conservation is not the crazy part. The crazy part is how quickly practical stewardship turns into a moralized little power trip. We go from “be careful with resources” to “how dare you own Kentucky bluegrass, you enemy of the people.”
That escalates fast.
And once government gets into the business of treating ordinary lifestyle choices like public sins, it rarely stops at moderation. It never says, “Use common sense and be a good neighbor.” No, it always drifts toward schedule charts, restrictions, enforcement, warnings, penalties, and one more layer of officialdom telling grown adults when they can turn on a sprinkler.
That is where the irritation sets in for a lot of normal people. Because most folks are not trying to drain a reservoir so they can cosplay Augusta National in Brighton. They just want their yard to not look like a failed goat ranch by July. They want their home to look decent. They want to enjoy what they pay for without being treated like suspects.
But the modern governing instinct does not trust normal people. It trusts systems, experts, enforcement mechanisms, and public shaming. It believes freedom is dangerous and management is virtuous. That is the real religion here. Not water conservation. Control.
And once that mindset settles in, everything becomes a justification for more rules. Too dry, more rules. Too hot, more rules. Too green, suspicious. Too comfortable, selfish. Too independent, problematic. There is always a reason. The reason changes. The answer never does. More government.
That is why people roll their eyes at this stuff, even when there is a legitimate problem underneath it. They have seen the movie before. The emergency is always urgent enough to require new restrictions, but somehow never urgent enough for government to skip the lecture. There is always plenty of time for the lecture.
Meanwhile, the people most likely to follow the rules are the same people least likely to deserve being nagged in the first place. The conscientious homeowner gets the memo, adjusts the timer, and worries about compliance. The chronic rule-breaker does whatever he was going to do anyway. And the neighborhood Karen gets a fresh sense of purpose, armed with a Stanley cup and a righteousness complex.
What a country.
The answer here should not be panic, and it sure should not be turning green grass into a felony in the court of public opinion. Stewardship matters. Waste is dumb. But so is pretending every patch of healthy lawn is a crime against humanity. We need fewer hysterics, fewer busybodies, and a whole lot less government acting like it owns your front yard.
Because once politicians and petty enforcers start treating ordinary citizens like the problem, the real drought is not water. It is freedom.
And around here, that dries up way too fast.
Source: The Denver Post
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