Rand Paul runs up against Environmentalists

[liveonearth]

Perhaps the reason that his father, Ron Paul, has been successful in congress longterm, is because he has not gone out on the anti-environmental limb. It's a particularly shaky limb. Rand's recent introduction of a bill that would eliminate the inter-state control of air quality by the FDA is running up against the Sierra Club and others. The kid's a rookie, and is going to learn the hard way that the far right agenda has some true weaknesses, not the least of which is an inattention to our quality of life as manifested by our environment.

Comments

[ford-prefect42.livejournal.com]

The problem is that we may very soon have to decide between polluted cities and mass starvation. Just sayin'. It's not as clear as one might hope that these policies are actually beneficial to the environment at this point either, given that each national regulation sends polluting industries to nations that are already facing the famines and thus don't worry so much about the pollution.

There is also the constitutional states rights issue that really ough to be considered more. He wasn't saying that there shouldn't be environmental regulations, he was saying that it isn't an enumerated federal power to do so.


Side-note:
One of the things that I have a HUGE issue with as regards the environmental movement is that environmentalist groups are opposed to virtually everything. Look at the litigation involved in actually *building* a windfarm to see what I mean.

It isn't acceptable to simple be against everything, you have to be *for* something. Environmentallists fail that, epically. It would be a good movement if they were to say "Okay, we'll support the building of 200 MW of IGCC coal plants, *if* we can offline 100 MW of older less efficient plants. And things like that. There is simply no winning with the enviros, every venture, regardless of what or where must view environmentallists as the enemy.

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

I guess you haven't met a whole lot of reasonable environmentalists. Or maybe the environmentalists haven't met a whole lot of reasonable industrialists. There has to be a middle road. We have all got to be able to figure out a goal that is worth more than our aversions.

Bottom line: people are going to starve. And die of diseases that are preventable and curable. People are going to die of impure drinking water, and in wars over water. It would be foolhardy of us, who are relatively rich, to simply hand over our best resources to megacorporations and governments in the name of "the economy" on the grand scale. We have to drive a hard bargain on both sides of the deal, to get the most out of it that we can, as citizens.

I'm not overly fond of wind farms. I'd rather see us investing in a new generation of nuclear plants. So I again fall in the space between the groups.... but I have to go, big exam coming up! Thanks for your comments as always.

[ford-prefect42.livejournal.com]

It isn't that I haven't met reasonable environmentalists, hell, I think of myself *as* one, in that I consider environmental damage to be an externality of industrial activities that must be paid for by the industry and am well aware that we have no alternative to this environment. My problem isn't that there aren't reasonable enviros, it's that the sheer *numbers* of unreasonable enviros makes things difficult. The problem is that the vast majority of the enviros are unreasonable on one issue or another, and that comes off as an unreasonableness on the part of enviros and enviro regulation in toto.

I'm totally with you on nuclear vs. wind. You know why that isn't happening?


Best of luck on the exams.

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

People are freaked about nukes. And nukes ARE risky. Did you have a better reason?

[ford-prefect42.livejournal.com]

Mostly it's misinformation propogated by one of the enviro wings that has them freaked. Other than that, it's a lot of litigation by enviro groups.

Ya know how you're frequently railing about "misinformation campaigns" perpetrated by Intelligent design advocates etc? Yeah, they're not the only ones that can be accused of that with justice.

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

I'd assert that the Republican establishment gets the gold metal for manipulating the public mind with media. Everybody else is just playing catchup. Including the environmentalists. Most environmentalists are true liberals, meaning that their frontal cortices are highly developed, and they are capable of holding a highly complex and internally contradictory worldview. Unfortunately they are unaware, to a large degree, that the majority of humanity is not like them, cannot understand, and will not buy in to the arguments that they make. So it is my observation that for the most part, when environmentalists attempt a "misinformation campaign" (from their perspective they'd call it "public education") they are singing to the choir and do not reach the public.

[ford-prefect42.livejournal.com]

I'd assert exactly the opposite. *Hordes* of commonly accepted liberal talking points, things that are used in common conversation in support of liberal policies are outright lies. From "food security" and the 1 in 8 thing, to the dangers of nuclear power, to the evils of "deregulation" (never happened), to the myth of the "right wing" national socialist party, etcetera, etcetera. The liberal establishment has been *masterful* at propogating lies and misinformation.

I'll grant that the *church* establishment has been pretty successful what with ID and a few other persistent misinformations. But there does exist, at least in my athiest republican voting mind, a division between the church and the republican establishment.

I come to this belief mainly by checking into *everything*. When a politician speaks, I assume that the words that are coming out are false unless I find evidence otherwise. Same goes for all statistics and societal statements, regardless of who is saying them. Overall, I have to call liberals on falsities *far* more often than conservatives. That's the primary reason that I lean conservative these days. I used to be pretty much split down the middle.

[liveonearth.livejournal.com]

This is heartening! I'm happy that all those liberal "lies" are gaining some traction at least in your world. It takes the whole mix for people to begin to synthesize independent synthesis opinions.