Bay Area air regulators consider ban on wood fires

San Francisco Bay area air quality regulators are proposing a mandatory ban on wood fires in fireplaces and stoves when the air is bad.

Under the proposed rules, wood fires would be prohibited in the nine-county Bay Area on "Spare the Air" days — when air quality is expected to reach unhealthy levels.

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District Board has asked its staff to draft rule options so it can hold hearings on a proposed ban this summer.

I'm pretty depressed about the lack of conservative posters on this site.

I hear you. Loud and clear.

But, part of the challenge we have lies in how we determine whether someone is, or is not, "a conservative". How 'pure' is our labling requirement?

Despite the large numbers of truly conservative people throughout these United States, if you talk to any one of them long enough, you will often discover some area in which they are NOT, in fact, conservative at all. Are they, then, NOT a conservative? In how many areas does one have to hold a moderate or liberal view in order to be considered "not a conservative"?

This is a very core issue because it drives at the heart of the "big tent" mentality that seeks to embrace as many as possible in a bid to gin up more votes for those on the ballot who have an "R" after their names. We are forced head-on into the cold reality that through-and-through conservatives -- those people who are conservative in all aspects -- are not, in fact a majority at all. Many who seem to be through-and-through conservatives seem to be so only because we've never had occasion to engage them in the subject areas where they do not hold conservative views.

The calculus for each person is this: "What of my non-conservative views am I willing to reorder to a lower priority because of the value I ascribe to my conservative views."

In that mental assessment, you find the gamut: pro-choice views get shelved in favor of conservative economic policy; or socially liberal views get shoved to the back of the line in favor of a conservative stance in the war of terror. All kinds of these values clarifications occur, and they produce individuals who, on certain subjects in which they hold the conservative view, sound no different in their advocacy of those views than bona fide through-and-through conservatives. Take the pro-choice fiscal conservative and talk economics with them and you'll find yourself in the same camp enjoying some fine camaraderie. But broach the subject of Roe v. Wade, and they instantly become some kind of alien being; sometimes one with whom you can no longer even reason.

All of this points up the foundational error that we have made in asserting the label "conservative", and it is exactly this: PEOPLE are NOT "conservative". Our error is one of category. We have attempted to evaluate a container in which are held a collection of diverse views on myriad subjects, and assess whether this collection is conservative or not. The truth is, we may likely find individual views within the collection that are diametrically opposed to conservative principle. Still, we take a collection of 100 opionions on 100 subjects and call it "conservative" if 65 or more of those opionions are in concert with conservative principles. Nevermind that the other 35 may be Marxist to the core. And what of the collection wherein only 51 of the views is conservative? Numerically, the person holding those views is still more conservative than not, but do we let them wear the label? Why or why not?

This is the nature of the conservative labeling error, and it applies equally to other such labels.

In truth we ought not label people; we ought rightly to label the views themselves. People are containers that hold a huge collection of views, and it is improper to take that which is a property inherent to that which is contained, and ascribe that property to the container itself.

If I take a large bowl and fill it with a mix of red and blue marbles -- 137 red, and 363 blue -- am I correct in asserting that the bowl is blue? No, of course not. The bowl could be chartruse, but it's color is NOT impacted by the particulare blend of its contents. Yet, our present methods of political assessment would assert that the chartruse bowl is, in fact, blue by virtue of the fact that over 70% of it's contents are blue. This is an absurdity, and it must stop.

When we no longer make a similar error in assessing people, then we will less freqeuntly find ourselves diappointed.

Yeah, I do. THAT is really desheartening. It makes you wonder "Who's scammin' who?"

I really believe that the heart of all of this is that, in this day and age, fewer and fewer people are capable of tracing their views back to root principles; whatever the reason for that may be. Begin with bad principle -- or no principle at all -- and one ends up with bad values, which translate to bad views that, if implemented, will be bad policy.

That reasoning from principle is not core to education at all levels is, I believe, the greatest single damnation of our present system of public instruction. For it is one thing to say, "So-and-so believed this," but it is quite another thing entirely to continue from there and to explain, "And this is why So-and-so believed this."

As a sort of coda to my previous post, although it is thought sufficient to identify a view as "conservative" or "not conservative" -- to see that the marble is red or blue -- it is more wise to ask the follow-up question, "Why?"

The Christian and the cannibal may both express opinions against abortion, but only by asking, "Why," can we discriminate which expression is admirable and which is damnable. In the arena of politics, however, we assert that such differentiations are unnecessary; petty, even, in the face of garnering a few more political allies. So, since the cannibals are against abortion; we are to jump up, glad-handing all around, clap them on the back and welcome them to the "conservative" big tent.

Aside from the actual number of people expressing conservative v. liberal views, it is the pooh-poohing of the significance of underlying values that most concerns me.

I would far rather meet an honest liberal, than a card-carrying conservative with views predicated on damnable values.

In sum, there is no expressed view either admirable or infernal, but what the underlying value and the foundational principle make it so.

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