In 2011, Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Jr. spoke to the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco. In that speech, he expressed his approval of a potential "smart grid," which would enable the government to remotely control the electrical appliances — and even air conditioning and hot water — of Americans, with the presumed goal of reducing energy usage. The New York Post's campaign reporter Diana Glebova has the details.

In a 2011 video reviewed by The Post, the environmental lawyer and noted vaccine skeptic argued that the $250 billion grid would eliminate peak demand periods and insisted that consumers would “not care” about their devices being rendered inoperable for 15 minutes at a time. 

The smart grid would “allow the utilities to send the signals through the line to turn off the hundred water boilers in a million homes for 15 minutes in order to avoid the peak demand that is the most expensive part of our electrical system,” Kennedy, now 70, said in remarks at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club of California.

This is a perfectly terrible idea; the notion of giving some unelected bureaucrat (because you know that's how it would work) the power to look at the grid, for example, on a hot day and say "Sam and Susan Snuffy are running their air conditioner too much," and shutting that appliance off for an hour — or two — or four. Because once you break this ground, there's no limit to how deep some government functionary may want to dig.

RFK Jr. is running for president as a ticket-splitter, trying to place himself between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. But things like this in his history — not to mention his announced pick of a committed leftie to be his VP — make you wonder: Can a leopard really change its spots that much?

Color me skeptical.

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Here's the onion:

“If you eliminate a peak, you have enough natural gas in our country to power the entire US passenger car fleet,” he went on, adding that “the grid could send a signal to turn off all the electric toothbrush rechargers, to turn off your swimming pool recirculator, all of these things. 

“You don’t care if someone turns them off for 15 minutes,” said Kennedy. “It can go into your car and borrow the stored electricity in your car, in your battery.”

While one might point out that the US passenger car fleet isn't run on natural gas, that's not really the point. The very idea that the government could interfere with our personal lives to this degree is, frankly, horrifying.  Mr. Kennedy, I do care if some faceless bureaucrat shuts off any of my appliances for 15 minutes, because next month it will be 30 minutes, next year it will be 90 minutes, and the year after that, it will be for as long as necessary to meet some nebulously defined "green" goal, in the name of climate change, or something. 

This is not a power with which the government can be trusted.

RFK Jr. is positioning himself as a centrist, as noted, attempting to place himself between the major party candidates. This statement of advocacy has to make you wonder how "centrist" he is; and as of this writing, nobody in either the legacy media or the alternative media has any statement from Kennedy's campaign as to whether he still thinks this is a good idea. The New York Post reached out to his campaign and received no reply.

The old saying about leopards and spots applies.