It hurts when I think of how many Americans support communism.
I have been talking to two young adults lately who are drinking from the liberal fire hose. They pride themselves in their idealism. When I bring one of their arguments to a dead end with a question they simple adopt a silly grin as if that is an answer. They will never admit they are wrong, only grin as if to say, "OK, you got me."
They think we should get rid of oil and gas altogether and ride bicycles everywhere. The killer question which evokes the grin is, "How will we move freight around the world?" One recently countered with, "With new clean energy and green technology." The killer there was simply, "Like what?" The suggestion that we should wait until the free market comes up with something better than oil and gas before we cut off our supply makes them stutter.
One thought I was nuts when I disagreed that sharks were almost all gone due to commercial and sports fishing. I produced an article from the BBC about a Discovery Channel presentation, one of their favorite channels, which informed that there are over 440 species of sharks and of those only 11 were even threatened. Most of them were of species most of us had never heard of. Only the Great White, which was classified Threatened, not endangered, was one that we are familiar with.
The earthquake in Japan and the damage to the nuclear plant there was another hot issue. They thought any radiation exposure was deadly and that nuclear power should be banned. They had never even heard of Three Mile Island but they "knew" more than was true about Chernobyl. I told them that certain levels of radiation were actually good for you and they scoffed. I took them an article from the New York Times, of all places, to prove my point.
Another example of the evils of man and free enterprise was the "Dead Zones" in the oceans around river outlets. They had seen a Discovery Channel program about the one around the Mississippi River outlet into the Gulf of Mexico. They thought that was the only one in the world and Evil America was the culprit.
Due to the lack of oxygen in that area, a pretty large area that covered parts of Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, there were no fish or crustaceans. The program blamed that on the runoff of fertilizers and pesticides in the floodplain. The truth is that natural runoff, sans fertilizer and pesticides, would do the same thing. After all, there is plenty of phosphorus and nitrogen available in nature without man adding any. Add to that the naturally occurring organic matter, including the poop of birds and animals, domestic and wild, and rotting plant life in the forests, and the stage is set.
The Dead Zone occurs when the material reaches the ocean and feeds the naturally appearing algae in the ocean. When all that dies and falls to the ocean floor, it is very shallow in those areas, the bacteria which eat it use up the oxygen. The true culprit is the lack of circulation in the ocean in those areas, they call them wetlands, and the water is not aerated to oxygenate it. This occurs naturally from the silt build up from the river flow.
When I gave them charts and world maps showing that occurs all over the world, not just at the mouth of the Mississippi but also in the fjords of Scandinavia not around rivers they had no comment, but this time they had a worried, studied look instead of a stupid grin.
I asked them both if they had ever read the Constitution or if they had studied the beginning of this country and the founders. They had not! Yet, they knew all the wild myths about our mistreatment of the Indians and the slaves.
I agree it is frightening how successful the Communist have been.