So once again, it’s back to Treehugger – and this time, it isn’t about tech stuff, or Government (per se) but an individual’s morality and that would be Lloyd.
I’ve finally taken the gloves off because of the total lack of empathy for those onto which their eco-socialist policies would fall.
Not just me but a growing number of conservatives/libertarians are starting to haunt that site (no, not as trolls but as reasoned arguments that theirs can’t or won’t answer) and “bringing it” to that echo chamber to force them to at least read the “other side of the argument”. No more letting them spin their Narratives and letting the casual visitor to that site think that the Eco-Socialists are the only ones to listen to. Again – Be Brave. Do Something.
But that’s not the only place where the Eco-Socialists are doing the same thing – the complete disregard the actual harm their policies will wreak upon their citizens. I’m talking about Vermont. An almost daily read is TNR – True North Reports – just so that I can see what’s going on in that now Progressive Paradise of Socialist Bernie “Three Homes” Sanders; I blame the Connecticut and New Yorkers for this infiltration of hating their home States to move to a better place but then voting and legislating as if they never left.
So I read a post at TNR titled “” but before I go into it, let me leave this comment I left at this Treehugger post (reformatted, emphasis mine): Why the Age of Fire Is Over—We Know How to Live Without It
GraniteGrok: You know what is hypocritical, Lloyd?
People who advocate for policies THEY want but will never share in the negative consequences of that policy on others.
And then I added:
GraniteGrok: I really don’t think I’ve asked hard questions, Lloyd – if you ignore the issue of what is your morality in answering them. You put up a provocative post for us all (and trying to hide behind “provocative” and “aspirational”). So, have you dug deep (like the Kwisatz Haderach) into your political soul and really examine what your words are, not just to you, but to the rest of us? Hard questions require hard thought before giving what may well be a hard answer. And yours is?
That last bit requires more context (and I’ll be doing an entire post on this later, and Lloyd hasn’t answered me yet, but the gist of it is that these Eco-Socialists are working hard to not only set the intellectual battlespace but in the political sphere as well. It is time for us to take it to them.
That bolded line above about the negative consequences, that those in Power (or trying to get access to that Power) is what caught my eye at TNR in this post by John Klar:
Sen. MacDonald says ‘get a blanket for Christ’s sake’ if you don’t like paying extra for heat
Reading Rob Roper’s recent article about Vermont’s contemplated “clean heat standard,” it was hard to absorb how our legislators can be so completely disconnected from their constituents. As ever-more fantastical utopian schemes are fashioned in small committee rooms, ever-more bizarre outcomes can be expected. These heat standards are a pernicious government creep that will only hurt Vermonters — but that likely won’t stop the Vermont Senate’s Natural Resources & Energy Committee from towing the Progressive Party line of domination.
Progressives? Socialists? Same bird of a feather – they use the force of Government to get others to live under their totally looney-tunes ideas. In this case, the Progs are trying to do the Environmental Two-Step on the companies that sell fossil fuels to consumers and this all is about the oil/propane heat that most lower income Vermonters use to keep warm in the winters that our two States share (Vermont, New Hampshire). Let me repeat that title a bit differently:
But the absurdity got stranger yet. The senators struggle to understand and explain this new scheme — it is evident they don’t comprehend what they are asking everyone else to do. To his credit, Sen. Mark MacDonald repeatedly raises the obvious question — what is this and how do I explain it to my constituents? But then we hear this exchange:
Sen. Chris Bray: “Well for the person who says, ‘I don’t like that. I don’t want to be paying extra.’”
Sen. Mark MacDonald: “Well then, get a blanket for Christ’s sake.”
Coming off a long winter with record-high gasoline and heating oil prices, this flippant comment is far from amusing. Senators who would pass laws they can’t understand seem to have little understanding or compassion for the very real and increasing economic suffering of Vermonters.
I’d blame Pelosi for this newest example of “We have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it” but that sentiment is a pandemic with politicians and has been for a long time now – at all levels of politics. A total lack of empathy for those that either cannot comprehend what their “clean heat” policy / law will do – or worse, don’t care because Vermont is such an emissions emitter we have to lower our standard of modern living for GAIA! “Only one Earth” and the rest of that nonsense simply because its still the Big Deal that can be used as a crowbar to rearrange a free market into one that Government effectively controls.
More from that post for more context (emphasis still mine):
But that explains why the Senate committee babbles on interminably without ever addressing the most glaring flaw with this proposed legislation — it is grossly regressive, and transfers wealth from poor people to rich people, just like EV cars and solar panels. Every time the progressives push to “save the planet,” they line wealthy pockets at the expense of poor Vermonters.
Consider this “clean heat standard” — is it equitable? The senators explain that the idea here is to tax people who choose to “pollute” by using fossil fuels, then transfer those funds to the “good guys” who are installing heat pumps. But many of those “bad guys” are elderly retirees on fixed incomes with ramshackle oil burners they are praying will endure one more winter so they don’t have to move in with their kids. The people installing brand new heat pumps, like those installing rooftop solar panel arrays, likely have funds or credit to do so, and may well be constructing a brand new second home or expanding their office — is it “equitable” to punish the old ladies and let the “enlightened” rich people save the planet while granny gets more blankets? The wealthy building new homes love this law: those on fixed incomes are burdened with yet another state plan to push them down even lower.
John Klar hits it out of the park with that observation and it’s happening all over. Omlettes and broken eggs, and all that. It’s for the “Greater Good” (whatever that is) – and these VT State Senators are barely able to mouth just the talking points. Once again, we see legislators not doing (or is that not ABLE to do) their jobs.
The frivolous attitude of progressive legislators who never “own” the impacts on regular Vermonters of their fantasy concoctions is revealed in this committee meeting. Sens. Bray and MacDonald engage in a conversation about how they are to explain this plan to their constituents. MacDonald mocks the whole scheme to rounds of laughter:
Sen. Bray: “The problem we’re solving is climate change is a real-world present-day danger.”
Sen. MacDonald: “Oh yeah, right” (he says mockingly, leaning over and laying his hand on Bray’s arm).
Sen. Bray continues, mildly disconcerted: “And we have an obligation to ourselves and others to stop polluting, stop fouling our own nest.”
This is a shocking admission that Sen. Mark MacDonald (unchallenged by anyone) knows that Vermont solving climate change “danger” is just political nonsense — there is no other way to interpret his joking dismissal of Bray’s politicizing jargon.
As John notes, if you can’t explain what you are about to schlep onto others, shouldn’t that give you reason to “pause”? I wouldn’t have been so nice – pause means a small interlude to rethink things. From what I’m seeing, there’s no way they can figure out how to simplify it even to explain it to themselves – and they are the ones writing the legislation????
And except for MacDonald. He’s got his head on straight but leads Sen. McCormack voluntarily into the Box Canyon of Stupidity:
Sen. MacDonald elsewhere inquires: “If we do nothing, which members of our community are going to be in a worse condition?” Sen. Richard McCormack responds, “The world’s population.” Sen. Bray answers, “More locally, I would say low-income Vermonters.”
One serious and one VERY unserious politician. Hey, McCormack, did Vermonters elect you to worry about “the world’s population” or about them? This is a big problem, IMHO, with Progressive politicians – they don’t concentrate of what real people want from them, if they bother to do so in the first place. And how is legislating how people will be forced to pay a retributive tax (“Sinners! Pay your indulgencies to Government (your savior) for your sin of using fossil fuels!”) the Proper Role of Government?
How did we allow Environmentalism become the US’s establishment of religion? There is a god, Gaia, there are sins (carbon/energy usage of the wrong type, “excessive consumption” determined by the High Priests of the IPCC), there are the holy books (The Limits to Growth, Silent Spring, Treehugger), and the equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition.
This comes down to a lack of empathy – “first, do no harm” seems to be unknown to these fools (both in the VT Senate and over at Treehugger).
We all have to stand up and tell these idiots to stop.
Large abstracts by permission of John Klar and Bruce Parker of TNR
