If this isn't the outrage of the day, I don't know what is:

Citi Merchant Services and First Data Corp has decided to implement their own form of gun control, refusing to process credit card transactions between firearms retailers, distributors, and manufacturers, according to a press release issued by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association for the firearms industry (h/t Hot Air).

At worst, this is an attempt at backdoor gun control, preventing manufacturers from shipping firearms to distributors, and from distributors to retailers. In doing so, Citi Merchant Services and First Data Corp seem to assert that it is their responsibility to enforce laws, which is a patently absurd position. They are not the FBI nor the BATF, the two federal agencies tasked with enforcing these laws.

I remember when "Working Assets" started way back when I was initially attracted to the concept -- till I found out that they were contributing to anti-gun groups.

I think mixing of politics into business is a stupid idea. A credit card is supposed to be a way of simply moving your money -- which is yours -- from your account to another. Barring credit card fraud or a bona fide legal investigation, t is simply not the business of the service provider who is paying whom, or for what. If I go and charge a "massage" or pay for an "escort," is it the credit card company's business what might go on in private? And, if they're going to get involved in the morality of my spending habits, why stop with guns and sex? If these companies really care about other people and how they're allegedly ruining their lives or making the world a worse place, then why not prohibit credit cards from being used in casinos, bars, liquor stores, or known junk food providers?

For that matter, many credit card purchases are bad for the earth! Not only do credit cards help facilitate the sale of deadly fossil fuels and air travel -- which cause Global Warming, but they are often used to pay for meat, which is even more deadly. Or the extremely evil genetically engineered food! Countless items are still allowed to be manufactured and sold without regard to their environmental impact or carbon footprint. Shouldn't credit card companies get involved in that? Shouldn't they at least offer "environmentally sensitive" credit cards which automatically debit a carbon offset to counterbalance every environmentally insensitive purchase?

The shocking thing about this is that I could imagine a market for it. Hell, I could even see gas stations having a button you could push at the pump. Now that God has been replaced by Guilt, all these clueless communitarian spirituality seekers in search of the religious high that goes with the human condition are looking for relief everywhere. (I'm tempted to say "there's a sucker born every minute," but that would be insensitive of me....)

The problem is, there's an excess of people who for various reasons want to make the business of other people their business, and they don't want to stop with merely offering choices. Offering choices are only a step towards making things mandatory. Activists who pressure guilty credit card executives to get involved in gun purchases also pressure pediatricians and teachers to ask people whether there are guns in the home. (Or fill in your favorite blank; activists would want to know whether there are aliens or deadbeat dads cutting the grass in your yard, dirty talk on your satellite radio, dogs in your house whose testicles haven't been cut off... All these things and more are targets of the ever-tightening collectivist noose, which has been called "Democratic totalitarianism.")

The mechanism is simple. The more people become beaten down and pressured into going along with restrictions voluntarily, the quicker they are to invoke the "fairness" principle. Natural resentment plays a major role in this; if you are giving up something, you tend to resent those who are not "doing their part," and more inclined to support legislation.

So, while my first reaction may be, "It's not your business," that's pretty lame in the face of people who say "YES IT IS!"

(How much easier life would be if such people were only to be found in the Democratic Party.)

MORE: Speaking of things that ought to be Not Their Business, via Justin I learned about a mandatory plan in California (where else?) which would literally put the nanny state behind the controls of your thermostat:

The rule, set to be adopted January 30th, doesn't give you a choice. It's mandatory. In a section on "Programmable Communicating Thermostats" found on page 64 of this document, it states:

"Upon receiving an emergency signal, the PCT (your thermostat) shall respond to commands contained in the emergency signal, including changing the setpoint by any number of degrees or to a specific temperature setpoint. The PCT shall not allow customer changes to thermostat settings during emergency events."Consumer advocates say the utilities have let the rule be proposed and have not opposed it and it could actually be adopted.

A preview of the Brave New World promised by Algore and the Fundamentalist Church of Gaia.

California is on track to become the first state completely destroyed by it's liberal nanny-state government. No wonder long-time residents are fleeing.

I'm still fuming over the banning of the incandescent light bulb … done, no doubt, because we lowly peoples just can’t be trusted to act in our own interest … regardless of all the real problems with CFL’s, including inducing migraines and causing skin cancer. Now comes word of a proposed change to California Title 24, “236 pages of state-mandated standards for building energy efficiency"

And I'll continue to fume -- right up until the moment they turn off my electricity to stop me from blogging save the environment!