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Environmental Pol Pots
FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | October 9, 2002 | Walter Williams

Posted on 01/30/2004 4:37:53 AM PST by samtheman

Activists in the environmentalist movement have a callous disregard for people. You say: "What do you mean, Williams? We can't think of a more caring people." First, I'm not talking about sensible people who're concerned about clean air and water. I'm talking about the movement leaders and the politicians they have under their thumbs. Let's look at it.

The New York Green Party said in its opposition to pesticide spraying to halt the spread of West Nile disease, "These diseases only kill the old and people whose health is already poor." In East Meadow and Hempstead, N.Y., local officials, following the advice of environmental activists, decided not to spray. Nassau County's Health Commissioner said, "We believe the risk of infection for residents remains quite low." Two county residents became infected with West Nile disease and died. Environment activist Lynn Landes says, "West Nile may be a nasty experience for a very few, fatal for an exceedingly rare number, but as diseases go it's no big deal." According to the most recent Centers for Disease Control statistics, 2,530 Americans have been infected with West Nile disease and 125 died, but to environmentalists that's "no big deal."

American deaths due to environmental activist callousness pale in comparison to other countries. How about a few statistics? In 1972, the activist-controlled Environmental Protection Agency banned DDT, a pesticide once considered a "miracle" for all of the lives it saved by killing the mosquitoes that carried malaria. The ban went into effect despite the evidence that with proper use it posed no health hazard to humans and only little substantial harm to animals. The EPA ban led to diminished DDT production, making the pesticide less available to the world.

What were the effects? In what is now Sri Lanka, there were 2,800,000 malaria cases and 7,300 malaria deaths in 1948; with the use of DDT there were only 17 cases and no deaths in 1964. After DDT use was discontinued, Sri Lankan malaria cases rose to 500,000 in 1969.

Worldwide, malaria's devastating effects all but ended during the time that DDT use was widespread, roughly from 1950 to 1970. DDT was seen as such a miracle that it earned Dr. Paul Muller the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1948. In 1970, a committee of the National Academy of Sciences wrote: "To only a few chemicals does man owe as great a debt as to DDT. In a little more than two decades, DDT has prevented 500 million deaths due to malaria that otherwise would have been inevitable."

According to the World Health Organization, now about 2.5 million people die of malaria each year. Most of the victims are in Africa and are children. According to the American Council on Science and Health's president, Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, some 60 million or more lives have been needlessly lost since the ban on DDT took effect. Whelan says, "It's a real tragedy that DDT has been so demonized over the years by activist organizations such as Environmental Defense and the regulatory bodies that they have duped."

C.S. Lewis made an observation applicable to do-gooders everywhere: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: carson; ddt; ecoimperialism; environment; environmentalism; greenparty; walterwilliams
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I searched. Couldn't find this article, at least under it's actual name: Environmental Pol Pots.

Sorry if it's a repeat. But not that sorry. Deserves a careful re-reading. Especially now, in this election cycle, when the label "environmental criminal" is being applied to President Bush. This is a still-timely article about some of the real environmental criminals.

1 posted on 01/30/2004 4:37:53 AM PST by samtheman
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To: samtheman
What's a pol pot? It's a long pole for handling pots. Remember most people have no education in history so the title will throw them into a state of confusion. Perhaps a modern day villain would have made a better title " Environmental Martha Stewarts"
2 posted on 01/30/2004 4:48:20 AM PST by Defendingliberty (www.defendingliberty.com)
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To: samtheman
Consider that most environmentalists subscribe to the notion that overpopulation is a major threat for the future of the planet, combined with their enthusiasm for abortion, it's not too hard to conclude that most probably see the millions of people dying from malaria and see it as either a good thing, or at least view it neutrally, as if that's just nature taking it's course and we shouldn't interfere. Talk about callous.
3 posted on 01/30/2004 4:55:53 AM PST by tdadams
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To: Defendingliberty
You're right. Pol Pot is old news. Long forgotten by Americans.

But the basic fact of environmental do-gooders sentencing millions to die horrible malarial deaths should be picked up by the Republicans this season and fed into the campaign. I think it's hugely relevant.

The RATS are working from the assumption that all environmental regulations are divine and all rollbacks of environmental regulations are evil.

Time to set the record straight. Starting with --- for lack of a better phrase: the case of The Environmental Pol Pots.

4 posted on 01/30/2004 4:57:40 AM PST by samtheman
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To: samtheman
Giuliani wanted to spray the sh!t out of the city back in '99. We could have stopped West Nile here, if there hadn't been such a loud, cordinated, and ceaseless outcry from the enviros and the media and the politicians.
5 posted on 01/30/2004 5:03:28 AM PST by hellinahandcart
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To: Defendingliberty
Remember most people have no education in history

Isn't that the sad truth. I was traveling is southeast Asia a couple of months ago, including Cambodia. You run into a lot of leftist westerners there. One young lady I talked to, who was very opinionated and neo-fascist in her enthusiasm for leftist ideology, had heard the name of the Khmer Rouge, but had no idea of who they were, what they stood for, or what they did to the Cambodians.

My immediate conclusion what that her leftist professors had to have deliberately omitted the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge from her education simply because it would have exposed the ugly ends that Communist ideology leads to.

6 posted on 01/30/2004 5:12:05 AM PST by tdadams
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To: samtheman
Pol Pot and the radical environmentalists have a similar philosophy. Pol Pot wanted to ban all learning, all science, all technology (except for the technology required for his death squads), and have people live as subsistence farmers in some huge collective. He wanted to force people to return to the stone age, and he didn't care how many people died in the process.

The radical environmentalists want the same things -- to return humanity to the stone age. These people are in revolt against 5,000 years of civilization. There is a certain mentality that does not know how to create, so instead it craves destruction for destruction's sake. In their world, 99% of people will live in prehistoric misery while the ruling class will live in luxury -- they will live in palaces and jet all over the world to environmental conferences and plan which group of humans is "overpopulated" and needs to be exterminated.

7 posted on 01/30/2004 5:17:03 AM PST by Wilhelm Tell (Lurking since 1997!)
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To: Wilhelm Tell
Read Pournelle's "Fallen Angels". He and his publisher have put it online for free. You can read it on their website, or, download it in a variety of formats.

http://www.baen.com/library/jpournelle.htm
8 posted on 01/30/2004 6:06:30 AM PST by Don Joe ("Bush owes the 'base' nothing." --Texasforever, 01/28/2004)
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Pol Pot was the dictator who ruled Cambodia after the US left SE Asia. His troops killed over 1 million people in a Mao-like effort to reshape their society.
9 posted on 01/30/2004 6:51:16 AM PST by BadAndy
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To: samtheman
Some of the cruelist, most sadistic people I have ever met have been "environmentalists".

They have the same sort of cruelty and sadism that fundamentalist religious fanatics have--the kind that is ruthless, brutal, merciless, self-righteous, and joyful in its cruelty.

At first, like most people, I supported them and this movement, but I now have nothing but disgust for them and their actions.

As a rule of thumb, if "environmentalists" are for something, I oppose it. If they are against something, I support it. I still think each thing through--let me hasten to say--but experience and careful observation have taught me that these people are not to be encouraged or supported.

"Environmentalists" are not harmless do-gooders. They must not be supported. Do not give money to "environmentalist charities". Do not support politicians who support these "environmentalists" and their organizations.

10 posted on 01/30/2004 7:10:25 AM PST by Savage Beast (Whom will the terrorists vote for? Not George Bush--that's for sure! ~Happy2BMe)
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To: Defendingliberty
Equating Pol Pot to Martha Stewart is ridiculous.

Try it this way; Pol Pot as the head of the Khmer Rouge was responsible for the death of 25% of the population of Cambodia during his short reign (well in excess of 2.5 million people).

To equal that number in this country, you would have to kill about 75 million Americans.

Hillary has that sort of political outlook and ruthlessness, but not Martha Stewart.

Regards,

11 posted on 01/30/2004 7:15:55 AM PST by Jimmy Valentine (DemocRATS - when they speak, they lie; when they are silent, they are stealing the American Dream)
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To: Savage Beast
"Environmentalists" are not harmless do-gooders. They must not be supported. Do not give money to "environmentalist charities". Do not support politicians who support these "environmentalists" and their organizations.

A few months ago an attractive young lady showed up on my doorstep to enlighten me about all the good works of the Sierra Club and to solicite a donation. I proceded to give her a lecture she will not likely forget. It ended with "so you see, there is not a chance in hell that I will give Sierra Club even so much as one dime." She was one of the evil ones, I could see it in her eye.

12 posted on 01/30/2004 7:21:30 AM PST by lafroste
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To: farmfriend
ping
13 posted on 01/30/2004 7:41:08 AM PST by Libertarianize the GOP (Ideas have consequences)
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To: Jimmy Valentine
Not to quibble, but just for historical accuracy... the best estimate, and most agreed upon, number of deaths during the Khmer Rouge years was 1.7 million.
14 posted on 01/30/2004 9:06:55 AM PST by tdadams
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To: Jimmy Valentine
"equating Pol Pot to Martha is redicilous"

That right, that's why I said it. The averave American thinks Martha Stewart is evil and give real evil a pass....
15 posted on 01/30/2004 9:19:07 AM PST by Defendingliberty (www.defendingliberty.com)
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To: samtheman; Ace2U; Alamo-Girl; Alas; alfons; alphadog; amom; AndreaZingg; Anonymous2; ...
Rights, farms, environment ping.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.
16 posted on 01/30/2004 10:03:50 AM PST by farmfriend ( Isaiah 55:10,11)
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To: farmfriend
BTTT!!!!!!
17 posted on 01/30/2004 10:04:14 AM PST by E.G.C.
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To: farmfriend
Hello,

Could you please remove me from your ping lists? I am on line infrequently anymore and I am primarily interested in pings from the Hobbit Hole. My son is in Iraq and has just joined F.R. and is being "supported" by members at the Hobbit Hole.

Thank you.
18 posted on 01/30/2004 10:13:56 AM PST by Graybeard58
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To: hellinahandcart; NYC GOP Chick; alisasny; firebrand; Dutchy; metalboy; Oschisms; Clemenza; ...
An I < heart> NY ping!
19 posted on 01/30/2004 10:57:59 AM PST by sauropod (Better to have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy!)
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To: Graybeard58
Consider yourself removed. Prayers for your son. God's protection on all in Iraq.
20 posted on 01/30/2004 11:01:29 AM PST by farmfriend ( Isaiah 55:10,11)
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