Treehugger has been a fountain of Leftist Collective thought for years, hidden under the guise of “Sustainability” and “Environmentalism.” It’s been fun (and rather easy) to throw pointed rhetorical sticks at said denizens. Why?
Because soon or later, their inner Socialist Totalitarians come out (and face it, ALL Socialists are Totalitarians regardless of race, sex, etc.).
In this exchange at “This is a Test: What Matters More, Personal Responsibility or Collective Action?“, it’s something with which TH’rs struggle. The Individual, voluntarily acting in someone else’s better interest (e.g., Gaia) or the Collective forcing the Individual to behave the way they want.
No matter how it is “wrapped up in a bow,” it is always the “Truth” of their emphasis when that bow is untied.
And they will try hard to hide it. Like here:
Ignatius Kizoo: IMHO collective action is simply the aggregation of individual contributions of will, activism and engagement. Individual action should be the focus of each of us with a view to contributing to the collective. Without individual bricks there is no wall, but bricks alone, unorganised, are of limited consequence.
This was kinda clever, claiming that a collective is actioning only as a group of loosely affiliated people who just happened to have a set of common feelings and outlook. The problem, as you all know in the political realm, when that group becomes too large AND started to use Government to enforce that “outlook” – and the reminder of what happens next:
GraniteGrok: And once the Collective has become the only mindset and outlook, the Individual is of no consequence at all. This, history has proved over and over again. Just a “cog” to be thrown away. Sorry, Collectivism is all about Power by those at the top of that collective. Different names but the same rapacio”us thirst for centralized Power.
And once again, the ideology is left aside as if it didn’t matter. You’re reading GraniteGrok because it DOES matter and we see this upfront, in our faces, every day.
Ignatius Kizoo: Thus, the need for dissent which too, provides impetus through collective action built on individual choice. Granted, the whole exercise rests on an engaged and informed populace requiring individual effort. In the absence of such no system will function to positive ends.
He needed to be reminded about what one of Lloyd’s students said (Lloyd being the author of the post and head honcho at TH):
Appearing to force people to give up meat, travel or other things central to their lifestyle they have chosen to live, is politically dangerous and will give climate change deniers another reason to portray climate change advocates as freedom haters.”
She’s right – and the basis for it is that since Climate Activists have realized that they have yet to persuade those they are targeting, these C.A.’s wish to ram it down everyone else’s throats by capturing and using Government Force against them. Anyone not them should have no choice in how they live their lives is the message that is being sent.
So, if you want to build widespread resentment against what seems to be your only raison d’etre, keep it up. Most people don’t want to be controlled – that is exactly how you will be perceived.
As Star Trek, The Next Generation’s Borg kept saying: You will be assimilated. But no in that science fiction dystopia was assimilated – they were absorbed and then modified to fit the Narrative.
Most Americans don’t want to be absorbed. They wish to make their own decisions. But that’s what these Eco-Socialists keep trying to tell the rest of us “No, that’s not what we really want” – but it IS what they want no matter what they say – like here (again, wrap it up in Enviro-geek)
j.: No-one’s looking to “force” anything. The most I’ve heard anyone suggest is a truly “level playing field,” meaning the removal of state subsidies for any and all animal agriculture, including tax breaks, and excusing of all forms of environmental pollution: we need a price on methane, nitrous oxide, and carbon pollution. We’ve needed that for decades. Had we had that price, fewer people would eat so much cholesterol-laden junk food derived from dead animal flesh, and more people would be healthier, and fewer other species would have gone extinct already… and the pace of extinction would not be as absurdly high as it is already.
Having said that, i’d also like to see an end to the legality of advertising for animal ag “food” products, just like advertising for cigarettes is now illegal, which makes a lot of sense, as animal agriculture “food” products also give us cancer: both milk and meat products. Look up IGF1 growth hormone if you don’t believe it about milk, yet.
There are things to which I can agree with – just not the way that they’d like
GraniteGrok: Frankly, I agree with you but go further – no tax funded subsidies for ANYTHING and anyone – including renewables and fossil fuels.
My only exception would be for those things necessary for the military – a Constitutional mandate here in the US (defense of the country). Not even “infrastructure” – except for that mandated by the Constitution (and if you are in the US, do you even know what that is?). Let the States and locals take ownership of that.
No, like it or not, advertising comes under the First Amendment. And no, I DON’T want Government telling the private sector how to price items. It can’t even do the stuff it is supposed to correctly and now; the Great Mind Fallacy comes into play.
And of course, we hear that phrase that Dementia Joe has made infamous once again:
Ignatius Kizoo: The application of the 1st amendment to advertising is not absolute (e.g. tobacco advertising as noted by j.) nor should it be. Furthermore, the ability/threat of government regulation is in many ways the only restraint on the excesses of corporate entities operating in self-created de facto monopolies. As to government ineptitude, that is an issue that should be separated for attention from the need for the collective interest to be defended.
So, a very common “throw-off” – if something in the Bill of Rights is in the way, simply call it “not absolute”. What other Amendment should “not absolute”- oh yeah, Dementia Joe is constantly saying that about the Second Amendment. That’s the worst of it, but don’t forget the sleight of hand about what might be even more important: ineptitude.
It doesn’t matter what the result is – only the good intentions at the front end. I couldn’t let that go as this IS one of the reasons GraniteGrok exists – because the Left doesn’t care what the result is, only starting new programs to “fix” things, Government continues to grow in size, become more intrusive, sucks up more cash to pay for it, and diminishes our Liberties as Government tries to solve all ills – even those that most of us know it can’t.
GraniteGrok:
As to government ineptitude, that is an issue that should be separated for attention from the need for the collective interest to be defended.
I’ll disagree simply because having spent 16 years intensely involved in political processes here in the US, I’ve seen that when Govt takes on more stuff, everything else it touches gets worse (a few exceptions but very few).
As far as the Bill of Rights, much of the problems I see is that folks have fallen for the “not absolute” fallacy – they weren’t written to be obviated (but they have been by the Thousand Cuts technique). These, and the rest of the Articles, were to constrain the Federal government but what we see now (and as we saw last century as well), is while the letters and paragraphs remain, it really is up to those that have been elected to maintain fealty to the ideas, philosophy, and restraints laid upon them by both the Declaration of Independence (the philosophical firmament of our system) and the Constitution itself.
They aren’t and no longer respect the barriers and fences they swore an oath to defend.
And for the record, the Feds should never have abrogated “the tobacco speech” – now, the talk in DC from the “Progressives” is that speech from Conservatives is always “extreme” and should be silenced, traditional Christian theology that recognizes gay marriage as sinful is “hateful” and should be silenced; you get the picture. Once a barrier is broached, anything is now possible.
One of the great pillars of the West is now at risk – the Rule of Law. Just look at so many places, many under the guise of Social Justice, where laws are simply ignored.
Monopolies? Certainly Big Tech is in the “break them up” cross-hairs. But what are we seeing now? As Big Tech very much leans Left and has been picking off “dissenters” for a while now, the Right is now creating analogues for its own “community” (a most abused word lately). the Marketplace detected vacuums and are now filling it those holes for desired services in response to commerce being politicized.
And I dryly note that no one is talking about the biggest monopoly of all: Government with all but unlimited money and Force. Why doesn’t the Left ever talk about that? Yes, I am trolling them. But it is a serious question.
And this was, I hope, CO2 being put on their fire:
GraniteGrok:
No-one’s looking to “force” anything.
I’ve been here at TH a long time and you’re wrong. Simple (and low hanging fruit, sorry Lloyd) example is Lloyd’s rants against both cars and trucks – he’s been against them for a long time and wants them gone (although lately its been mostly gone from cities and left the rest of us alone, kinda).
There have been other comments to ban meats (or with such low “allowable” quantity it might as well be). Ditto gas stoves, fossil fuels, flying, plastics. I can go on but those are concrete examples.
And each and every time I see folks referencing government to FORCE people to change their lives and behaviors because these advocates have been utter failures in convincing the majority of folks to do what they believe is right. So off to the few that have the Levers of Power to make others miserable.
I have one nutcase politician that, every year like clockwork, wants to take my wood stove away. But first he wants to disarm me so he can accomplish the first. It’ll be his cold, dead hands before mine get to that state. People are getting tired of just not being left alone.
The road to Hell first starts with good intentions by advocates shoving the rest of us down that path.
So this whole schtick started off with rants by the Rich “abusing” tax laws” made by Government – and but it’s not abuse by those who want others to live by THEIR demands?
And for the record (and it’s rather clear by what I write here), I don’t want Government, beyond its limited Powers) to dictate how ANYONE is to live their lives, much less make all kinds of decisions for them.
