Posted on 02/19/2007 5:53:51 PM PST by neverdem
I'm busy for the next couple of days but I do want to continue.
Go to leftist sites and you'll find they are all bitterly complaining about how they are unfairly treated by the rich right. The unhappy reality is that as soon as an issue becomes political discussion of it descends into the gutter. Screaming, accusations, smear-tactics, blatant self-interest, etc., all become the norm.
It's best for reasonable people to seek each other out and try to ignore the noise.
Overall the air and water in this country is considerably cleaner than it was 35-40 years ago.
This shows an awareness of the problem and an attempt to remedy the situation. The facts, however, are a little different than you present them. It's true that municipal water is usually of better quality, and some rivers and streams in better condition than formerly. But aquifers are more polluted and over-pumped than formerly...and, generally, world environment shows more signs of stress. As you would expect from a hugely expanded population and concommitant energy use.
Well, everything is politics in a manner of speaking. I think the left descends into the gutter immediately upon being disagreed with. I have seen no palpable evidence that the left is even willing to consider compromise on anything. Don't consider that a blanket statement extolling the virtuous right's ability to hold dialog. But, frankly, I am weary of everything put forth by conservatives being responded to with ad hominum attacks. I don't have a different view on how to respond to our energy needs, I can't just be considered wrong. I have to be accused of having bad results as a goal. Dirty air, melting ice caps, illegal aliens, lead content in water, drilling in the gulf. It goes on and on.
I have a very good friend (whom I refer to often in these types of discussions) that is intelligent, very well educated, responsible and self sufficient. We are polar opposites on these matters. But it's really funny, when I presented evidence that government health care in Great Britain is not the panacea he thinks it is, I got a response not worth of someone of his caliber. He says "well, Bush has done so well in Iraq, let him go over there and fix it". That is a typical type of response.
With him, as most liberals, it is not a battle of competing ideas, it is a holy war between good and evil. And those that disagree are evil.
For example, he went apoplectic when Bush suggested letting wage earners invest 2% of their SS taxes. It was a plot to steal from us with the intent to destroy SS and retirement. It was nearly everything except what it was; another idea of how to deal with a very serious problem. The Democrats responded the same way, also without an alternative. The result is a festering boil that is guaranteed to get worse.
As you would expect from a hugely expanded population and concommitant energy use.
The aquifers in the west are a serious long term problem that are being ignored. No question there. But the air and waterways are cleaner- a lot of areas, not just some. There has been a lot of headway over 4 decades. But the population related pollution and energy use you refer to is much more of a third world problem.
Look, here is an example regarding the US. Since the mid 70s the US has improved energy efficiency to the point that it requires 50% of the energy to produce the same unit of goods/services that was needed then. That is a huge leap. Well beyond what any reasonable person hoped for then. And yet that is never acknowledged by the environmental and energy extremists. One reason for that is simple irrationality. But another reason, and I think the main one, is that to admit we've have improvements of this magnitude is to also admit that we have refused to deal with the realities of the supply side of the energy equation. It would be an admission that we can't conserve our way into growth. And I don't believe that the guiding forces of the left would ever make that admission.
For the acolytes of the left, IMO, the issue of environment/energy has long since ceased to be about actually dealing with real problems, but instead has become a sort of holy war, never give an inch. Not every single aspect of environment/energy is a crisis of apocalyptic proportions. Some things are not really problems, others are, but of varying degrees and urgency.
When your car has a flat tire,it does not rate the same level of hand wringing that throwing a rod does on the same day you lose your job. If your teen-aged son reacted to every incidence of car maintenance and repair as if it were a blown engine on the day of the prom, you'd say, whoa, get a grip on things.
Here"s an article and discussion which you'll find interesting...and funny (I hope). Al Gore's been caught in a situation equivalent to Clinton's Monica moment and citizens of various persuasions try to come to terms with it. The divisions - to my mind - are not between left and right but between honest and rational...and totally deranged.
I might add that some of the discussions of global warming I find on FR seem much the same to me. On the one hand are those who point out that global warming - if real - poses an enormous threat to economic stability...and on the other there are those who think they've found the equivalent of an error in Einstein's arithmetic.
There has been a lot of headway over 4 decades. But the population related pollution and energy use you refer to is much more of a third world problem.
Yes and not really. We've made tremendous technological progress but that and exploding populations have led to a world-wide society and economic system where problems in one sector almost immediately spill over into another.
It would be an admission that we can't conserve our way into growth.
I don't think the Left initially understood the importance of growth. They thought that conservation and zero population growth could be achieved painlessly (or nearly so with only rich white pigs suffering) and would lead to preservation of our environment. When they realized that cutting energy use would lead to a severe downturn in economic activity which would impact the lower classes most heaviliy and that zero population growth would most likely require a genocidal approach to third-world cultures and peoples they descended into a morass of confusion, fantasy, and denial from which they still haven't escaped.
I think you are right, but: "How did they not know that?!"
How come every Great Progressive Idea ends up in The Killing Fields, Euthanasiatoriums and Abortuaries?
It's almost a truism that any utopian leftist idea, if taken to its logical conclusion, always, always ends with shovelling infants into furnaces.
Well, gee, how can I argue if we are agreeing
Later, gotta run. America's tax system being the wonderful thing it is, I'm have to go to the CPA's and find out if I am only getting raped this year, or getting the royal treatment and having my first born confiscated......
Open discussion. But not everyone has come to the same conclusions. Try reading Sam Harris "The End of Faith" for a much different view. The writing and reasoning are very good...although I do not find myself agreeing with him.
How come every Great Progressive Idea ends up in The Killing Fields, Euthanasiatoriums and Abortuaries?
You're way over the top here. Unions, conservation, social insurance, decent working hours and conditions, universal education, outlawing slavery, etc. hardly can so characterized.
Nor can killing be exclusively attributed to Progressives. People have killed each other - often in great numbers - for every reason imaginable and often for no reason other than the sheer joy of it. I'm afraid it's very much a part of human nature
You only wish I was way over the top.
From Unions, social insurance, decent working hours and conditions, universal education, we end up glorifying the proletariat and punishing the owners of capital. Punish the owners of capital, and the means of production, and the factories close, we go back to subsistence farming and we end up in the fields with Revolutionaries pointing guns at us to make sure we meet our government production quotas.
From "conservation" we end up with population control and the abortuaries, as you yourself pointed out above.
"Outlawing slavery" which, for progressives, logically leads to reparations. Don't wanna pay for a crime you didn't commit? You end up in the fields again with Revolutionaries pointing guns at you to make sure you meet your quota.
The progressive dream if taken to its logical conclusion looks like Pol Pot's Cambodia.
Yes, but it took progressives to put it on an industrial scale and kill the "unprogressive" 'for the good of the nation/revolution/fatherland/motherland/'.
"Progressivism" is so profoundly inhuman and against human nature that it can only be enforce at gunpoint, as we have always seen.
Oh well. If you want to see it that way so badly...
It's not just the way I see it, it's historical record.
True, but not as much as the one you wish to replace it.
Hardly.
The historical record shows that millions have benefited from universal education, from decent working conditions, from social insurance, etc. and have NOT gone on to even threaten to overthrow capitalism let alone ACT on such beliefs. The historical record shows that almost all ideas of social organization IN EXTREMIS are awful. Faith turns into theocracy, capitalism into plutocracy or worse, socialism into communism. What's important is toleration of dissent, really listening to opposing points of view, and a willingness to recognize mistakes and take corrective action.
Experience has taught me that guys like you are incapable of that, that you lead lives full of fear and anger; someone might take your stuff, someone might discredit your ideas.
Read on. You'll see that this was just a provacative response to a smug, self-righteous author. The more I read of Sam Harris, however, the better I like him...even though I'm not yet ready to agree with him.
Not so much, but nice try: I'm not a 'guy like that'.
I disagree with your philosophy and you attack me personally. That's just my point: if I'm not a believer in socialist utopian schemes, you demonize me, not just my world view, but me personally.....
Just like a filthy leftist. Thanks for making my point.
Nah.
I let you have your way in an earlier post, didn't even attempt to respond.
But you insisted...
So I replied specifically to your claims, and then told you why I thought you wouldn't listen, couldn't listen...
and you didn't.
To me your extreme claims are no different than proposing that progressives and progressive ideas are the work of evil aliens from Alpha Centauri who hide in electric transmission lines and do their work every time someone turns on a light.
I don't doubt it sounds that way to you: You are a believer. You won't fault the progressive ideas that lead to destruction every time, you fault the non-believers.
Cambodia, in Year Zero, under Pol Pot was dedicated entirely to the most progressive ideas and look what happened. Mao's China, same thing....
Socialism, Progressivism is antithetical to freedom and human nature. The only way to enforce it is by force.
It never works. It has never worked, but the ideas have killed a lot of people.
Oh well.
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