The Middle is Always Evil

Since starting this blog, I’ve blogged about environmentalism a little more than I’d like to.

There are other issues out there; issues that are more pressing, that affect our country and our world much more directly– like Iran’s nuclear program, or the fact that they’ve been launching test missiles capable of striking Israel. But so often I choose to write about the Environmentalist Movement over other things for a very specific reason, which is:

The choice to accept environmentalism or not is the choice between industry and inactivity, civilization and primitivism, comfortability and suffering; it is the choice between life and death. Many may disagree with this claim, citing the good intentions of the environmentalists: taking care of the earth couldn’t be bad, could it? After all, not all environmentalists are nut jobs like Eric Pianka, a noted ecologist who wants to kill off 90% of human life; most are in fact quite moderate, and simply believe that humans have a responsibility to look after the earth.

Such people are not evil, but they are misguided. They accept the two basic premises of environmentalism: that the environment is good because it is the environment, and that the smallest human interference in the natural ecological structure is a desirable goal. The logical conclusion of these premises, of course, is that human activity must be restricted as much as possible in order to prevent such interference. If you accept these premises, chances are good that you would not be in favor of a mass culling of the human population. The danger is that men like Pianka also accept them, and they desire to see their logical ends carried out. Since you’ve already accepted their premises, they can use the power of guilt to get you to accept a gradually more oppressive environmental policy. Case in point:

Yesterday, the leaders at the G8 Summit agreed to cut their countries’ carbon emissions by 50% by 2050, a radically anti-industrial move that will dismember the economy and stunt the standard of living for the global population. No one can claim that such an act was motivated by anything other than a hatred for mankind. Last week, a measure was put up for conideration in the British Parliament that would institute a personal cap-and-trade policy for every resident of England. Was this act considered because its proponents love the earth, or because they hate humanity? You be the judge.

With the basic premises of environmentalism so common today, it won’t be long before such cap-and-trade proposals are made in the United States. Do you really believe that such a measure would be beyond the scope of a Barack Obama environmental policy? Maybe not now, but what about four years from now? This is why the environmentalism issue is so important to me.

But there is another reason I frequently choose environmentalism over other topics. Throughout history, the war against man’s productive faculty has been waged under the banner of countless different names and movements; tribalism, monarchism, feudalism– more recently communism, socialism, and fascism– and of course, there’s always been the monstrosity that is organized religion. All of these have been a part of an overarching war on Individualism and a hatred of humanity; environmentalism is no exception here– it is merely the newest leader in the same war, the latest manifestation of the same hatred. However, environmentalism is different from its ideological ancestors in one, very important way.

In the past, movements that sought to destroy humanity (the modern ones anyway) have disguised their hatred for man’s virtues, proclaiming them to be the immoral while holding up their own standards as the moral alternative. With the broad base of society accepting altruism, their unpracticeable moral code, they guilted people into embracing their own self-destruction in the name of the love of mankind. Environmentalism is different because it makes no attempt to disguise its contempt for humanity.

Now, I won’t run through my whole spiel on environmentalism again because I’ve already blogged on it and have stated my opposition to it in as clear terms as I can, both here and in other places. But I will say this:

I just read Liberty Tree Lantern’s most recent post, which posed the question: Do liberal environmentalist senators care about your family? After a quick read of the post, I was unsurprised to learn that they most certainly do not …Not that I would expect them to– that would be a ridiculous expectation; after all, they don’t even know my family. What I was surprised to learn on Liberty Tree’s blog is this: apparently, they don’t care about their own families either.

Liberty Tree sent Senator Herb Kohl an e-mail admonishing him to relinquish land for oil drilling that has been delegated by the government (without any constitutional authority) for the “National Wildlife Refuge,” thus stripping it of any productive use that it may have.

Liberals will often dismiss drilling on this land, which was stolen from us by the government for the sake of polar bears, as well as offshore oil drilling, on the grounds that it does not have enough resources in it to even put a dent in our dependence on foreign oil. I am tired of hearing this. They don’t know how much oil is on that land– no one knows; there are estimates that range from hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil per year to hundreds of millions. All that anyone can be sure of at this point, is that these men are artificially restricting our supply of crude oil.

Traditional conservatives and most libertarians view this as a mere political difference, just another case of dumbliberalitis.

I know better than that. The following is an excerpt from Senator Khol’s automated response to Liberty Tree’s email:

I oppose drilling for oil and gas in the ANWR because of the irreparable damage that would be done to its fragile ecosystem.

Senator Khol, it seems, is a true believer in environmentalism, a topic I blogged on just the other day. But that is not all! Kohl continues:

I co-sponsored Senator Lieberman’s (I-CT) bill, S. 2316, which was introduced on November 7, 2007 that would designate a portion of the ANWR as a wilderness, placing a permanent ban on development (italics mine)

Sounds to me like Senator Kohl is a humanity hater in the first degree. Heaven help us if we actually developed something– we might interfere with an ecosystem! Sounds like we need a permanent ban to make sure no productive individuals slip through the cracks and start… developing… (insert Senator Kohl’s evil laugh…)

By now, you the reader must be wondering: what about Kohl could be so bad that I would desecrate his name with a post title? Well, Kohl has earned my ire just by virtue of the fact that he is the chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights. Kohl’s contribution to the business of government mainly consists of wrecking the American economy with harmful regulations of business, while attempting to justify his useless, bureaucratic position by holding hearings on things that few care about, but for which all have to pay. Kohl’s record is so long, and shows so much promise for continued growth, that I’m starting a category dedicated solely to him called Kohl Watch; every time he does or says something stupid, I’ll be sure to blog on it. I’ve got my work cut out for me.

Some of you are probably aware that last month, Senator Kohl, along with the rest of his gang of thugs, publicly made a mockery of the United States Government when they demanded to know what oil company executives had to say for themselves, insisting that they defend their right to their own, freely earned profits, what George Reisman, noted economist, called an interrogation of the innocent by the guilty. The high point of this sham of a proceeding was by far and away when Khol made an utter fool of himself, lashing out at the VP of Chevron, screeching:

People listening just don’t get it … when demand isn’t going crazy, why are prices going crazy?

The stupidity is almost palpable. Demand is not the problem at all; just ask David O’Reilly, chairman of Chevron:

On the supply side, there’s still a lot of concern. The world isn’t running out of resources — the biggest risk for expanding production is restricting access to new developments.

Herbert Kohl has been complaining about the profits of Big Oil for years– since he was elected in 1989. Talk about a hatred of the good for being good. What he doesn’t mention– what nobody cares to mention, in fact– is that with all the tax on oil in the United States, the government actually gets more money per gallon than oil companies. Unbelievable, but true, and it doesn’t stop there. Congress has also slowed the import of clean ethanol by imposing hefty tariffs on the imports from Brazil in order to “protect American jobs.” If by “protecting American jobs” you mean eliminating market competitors for fossil fuels, thereby forcing us all to pay more for gas, then you’re doing a great job, Congress. What about nuclear energy? You know, the cleanest, safest form of energy ever discovered by man? No, no serious talk of that in 20 years… I know! We can really stick it to the evil oil companies by riding our bikes to work like we live in Columbia! Come on, people.

If they really wanted to lower gas prices, they’d cut the taxes, and open up the restricted areas. But they won’t. They want the prices to be high so they can foster a positive public sentiment about their Marxist agenda to nationalize the US oil refineries.

You see. In the end, its all about empowering the weak at the expense of the productive. Don’t buy into their nonsense. If you’re an oil company executive, and you’re reading this, please shrug.