Facebook Doodlings - in which I may have called out Lloyd over at TreeHugger - Granite Grok

Facebook Doodlings – in which I may have called out Lloyd over at TreeHugger

Well, I do go over to TH from time to time, and even leave comments.  Well, there was a post by Lloyd (“90 by 50 plan could reduce New York City’s emissions by 90% by 2050“), someone that doesn’t always take kindly to Conservative or Libertarians assaulting what seems to be an Environmental Communitarian mantra.  The Urban Green Council wants to make it mandatory that buildings meet their standard of reducing their carbon footprint by 90% by 2050.  This will absolutely require massive expenditures by private owners – probably enough to bankrupt more than a small percentage.  And knowing how this works, they will use Government to make it happen.

Private Property?

So, I could not help myself – I left a comment for the author, Lloyd:

” there is no need for floor-to-ceiling glass” – Ah yes, THE phrase that marks a Liberal. We so declare that in our eyes, you should not want to “need” it, so we’ll pull a Bloomberg and just regulate it out of existence.

If you are looking for a firm foundation, when you see such a phrase, ask yourself: Since when did someone’s Freedom become limited by someone else’s selfish sense of “it has to be needed first”?

Freedom should always. just. be.  “Need” need not apply when talking about Freedom.  Thus, I was surprised, he actually responded – but the nuance did not surprise:

I really don’t have time for this argument anymore. so you think that the free market should say that we don’t need building codes? that if people want to live with paper walls and can afford to heat them, it is their business? I am amazed you stop for red lights.

Well, I could not help myself:

Let me address the words you put in my mouth without me having to move my jaw.

Point #1 – if *I* build a crappy house to live in, and if falls down around my head, whose fault is that, Lloyd? I have suffered the bad consequence of bad decisions. Freedom MEANS the ability to do nose-plants.

Point #2 – if someone else wishes to purchase my house, let them hire a private contractor to examine the house – I will bear the bad news when buyer walks after hearing the news if did not meet the codes.

Look at the recent effort to make sprinkler systems mandatory – and it turned out to be of low value (if any) in saving additional lives above / beyond the current smoke / co2 / heat alarms. This was simply a politically connected group to rent-seek the govt to increase sales. So much for ALL building codes being worthwhile.

An alternative is akin to the ISO standards in Mfg / service industries – a totally voluntary effort to meet a private set of quality enhancing standards that if done right, increases your quality of your product. And if safety is your only item, think UL (another private well known testing lab).

Point #3 – if people wants spend their money on heating walls, that IS their business.  After all, it IS their private property, right?  Or does environmentalistic communitarianism trump the Right to Private Property?

To paraphrase your opening, I don’t get why the knee-jerk reaction of most environmentalists is to automatically turn to Govt force when you fail in the arena of ideas. I also grow weary of the enforced Communitarianism that the “we’re all in this together, so if you don’t do what I want you to do ‘for the common good’, we will use Govt to fine or jail you”.

A less tolerant bunch would be harder to find with respect to the values this country was founded on – Individual Freedom & Liberty than Enviromentalists who are bound and determined to force their version of Utopia on others – even when it is unwanted or undesired. That drive to do to others is called Tyranny. If someone else’s idea IS to live in a paper walled house, who are you to deny them that? You may believe it is the stupidest thing in the world (and actually, living here in NH, I would agree).

The main difference between you and me, Lloyd, is that I’m perfectly willing to let them do that (even a whole village if they wanted to). I do live by my State’s motto: Live Free or Die. You, and others here that are philosophically aligned with you, would do all you could to keep them from doing so – simply because you think their decision is not good for them or for your religious belief in how people should live.

I suppose that I will be the next to be banned, like C.dog and Crisp E Bacon for upsetting the heterodoxy here that is as closed minded as the back row Baptists in the church I grew up in. Or will you allow that others that do not share your beliefs should be here – if for no other reason than to test you and push you in trying to persuade them that they are wrong?

Folks like Lloyd are only fixated on saving Gaia – and in their quest to obtain their Utopia, like Progressives, are willing to use the force of Government to obtain it – and presumably, use that force to keep it.  Look, I have not problem with the outlook of saving energy – I owned an active solar home for heat and hot water before moving to NH.  I now live in a home that is well set up for passive heating (and is well insulated, given the time it was built).   So, I like the idea – not to make myself feel righteous but saving money is cool.

But I would never, EVER, think that I should force anyone into expending what I have done in the past much less manipulating Government to carry out what I think others should be doing – while Lloyd and others would have no problem with it at all.

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