Not only is this wrong, but it won't actually do much to solve the water crisis afflicting California, which requires less — not more — government intrusion in people's lives.

The standard narrative about California's crisis is that three rainless years have depleted the state's major water reservoirs, thinned the snowpack, and dried up the rivers, causing a massive water shortage that requires mandatory cuts in water use.

However, as the young proverb goes, nature makes droughts, but men make scarcity shortages. In this case, shortages are the result of a cascading series of poor policy decisions by government officials. Chief among the problems is cheap, below-market water prices for everyone — but especially politically favored groups.