On Thursday 10 December 2009 07:49:59 am ch...@blask.org wrote: > So, in large part you are correct: pure-partisan political roots don't elect major politicians, the rational center does. But the roots do elect the candidates and set the tone of the debate, and I remain at least cranky about - if not entirely baffled by - this issue becoming politicized to the extent that it does.
I think it's because global warming/cooling/save the whales has two groups of people supporting it. The first group are people who are genuinely worried about the environment and are less worried about the politics involved. They can be self-righteous, and they can make huge mistakes (think the anti- nuclear-power movement from the 70s until..well...the last few years) but they largely ignored politics for most of the movements' history. These would be the Roosevelt (Teddy) environmentalists. Consider the Sierra Club, the Isaac Walton League, WWF, and others before they mostly became PACs. Actual grass- roots kind of organizations. The second half are the ones that most conservatives see as "enemies" because their environmentalism is viewed as disingenuous. The conservative view point, if there is a common one, is that the political active environment groups now are the socialist and Great Society movements of the mid 1900s. When socialism in the US finally "failed" and the USSR fell, the mindshare and power of socialist movements took a huge hit. But if you are a dedicated anticapitalist, you just need to revitalize your message and target a new audience. And those folks found a ready, wiling audience in "new" environmentalism. So most conservatives, perhaps limited mostly to fiscal conservatives, see political environmentalism not as trying to save the earth, but as trying to destroy capitalism and free markets through a back door. And it's kind of hard to disagree with that assessment when trash like the Kyoto Protocols are paraded around as the best the environmentalist movement can produce. New-Environmentalism is the political-environmentalist's McCarthyism. "Have you ever used, or have you ever know anybody who has used, fossil fuels?" They indoctrinate children with it in elementary school; they create entire branches of government with unregulated power (such as the EPA SuperFund program). Under the guises of saving the environment and repairing externalities, they can get cooperative support for policies that were pipe dreams thirty years ago: massive wealth "equalization", removal of property rights, and stigmatizing the politically incorrect. That's why conservatives don't trust the Global Warming movement and many clamor for more data. I don't think anybody I know, conservative or liberal, Repulican, Democrat, or LIbertarian, wants to overfish tuna, or dump toxic waste in the oceans. I'm ready for non-fossil fuels *right now*, because it makes sense. But Climate Change has become a moral movement masquerading as science. The Global Warming folks have set the agenda and have convinced much of the world that the only way to save the earth is to repent of our exploitive, sinful, free-market, consumerist ways. The attack vector may be new, but the ultimate goals look awfully familiar. Wes > > -chris > > > > _______________________________________________ > Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts. > https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec > Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list. > _______________________________________________ Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts. https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list.