Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
-Benjamin Franklin
Well, I suppose this means that attacks on freedom were happening way back in the 1700's!
History repeats itself, my friends.
Count on it.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Trashing Freedom
Something is very wrong in California.
The mayor of San Fransisco, Gavin Newsom, has proposed new legislation that may, if it passes, be a big step toward big government.
The proposition is: Either residents of San Fransisco recycle their garbage, or they face fines of 'up to $500 for the first violation, $750 for the second in one year and $1,000 for the third in a year' (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/20
08/08/01/MN47122A98.DTL). The garbage-sorting chart regulations are no less severe.*
If an individual or household fails to comply with the ordinance and the trash collector (who must check the issued color-coded containers briefly to ensure they hold the proper trash items) finds trash sorted into the wrong bins, their garbage container will be marked with a small tag. Brett Stav, a planning and development specialist at Seattle Public Utilities (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/20
08/08/01/MN47122A98.DTL) commented that
"When you're the one guy on the block with the little tag on your garbage can, everyone knows you screwed up. There's a little bit of shame, a 'Scarlet Letter' effect, to this program that seems to work with people."
So what is he going to do - embarrass people into submission?
Tyranny comes in all shapes and forms - most notably, government influence on the lives of citizens. Yes, they may want to be 'greener,' and control landfills by forcing their citizens to live under strict regulations, but they are restricting the freedom of the people in the process. Once the government (state, city or otherwise) can tell people how to throw away their garbage (the smaller aspects of life), then eventually they may try to tell them what to eat, how to live, etc (the bigger aspects of life). Don't think that the government does not constantly want more control than they have. Tyranny is a progressive occurrence - the small changes build to bigger changes and suddenly, no one knows how it began.
As Mayor Gavin Newsom so disturbingly put it, "We don't want to fine people. We want to change behavior."
*
The mayor of San Fransisco, Gavin Newsom, has proposed new legislation that may, if it passes, be a big step toward big government.
The proposition is: Either residents of San Fransisco recycle their garbage, or they face fines of 'up to $500 for the first violation, $750 for the second in one year and $1,000 for the third in a year' (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/20
08/08/01/MN47122A98.DTL). The garbage-sorting chart regulations are no less severe.*
If an individual or household fails to comply with the ordinance and the trash collector (who must check the issued color-coded containers briefly to ensure they hold the proper trash items) finds trash sorted into the wrong bins, their garbage container will be marked with a small tag. Brett Stav, a planning and development specialist at Seattle Public Utilities (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/20
08/08/01/MN47122A98.DTL) commented that
"When you're the one guy on the block with the little tag on your garbage can, everyone knows you screwed up. There's a little bit of shame, a 'Scarlet Letter' effect, to this program that seems to work with people."
So what is he going to do - embarrass people into submission?
Tyranny comes in all shapes and forms - most notably, government influence on the lives of citizens. Yes, they may want to be 'greener,' and control landfills by forcing their citizens to live under strict regulations, but they are restricting the freedom of the people in the process. Once the government (state, city or otherwise) can tell people how to throw away their garbage (the smaller aspects of life), then eventually they may try to tell them what to eat, how to live, etc (the bigger aspects of life). Don't think that the government does not constantly want more control than they have. Tyranny is a progressive occurrence - the small changes build to bigger changes and suddenly, no one knows how it began.
As Mayor Gavin Newsom so disturbingly put it, "We don't want to fine people. We want to change behavior."
*
| BLUE CART (RECYCLING) | ||
| Paper | Glass, aluminum | Plastic |
| Cardboard, cereal boxes (without lining), computer paper, paper egg cartons, envelopes (windows OK), junk mail, brochures, magazines, newspapers, phone books. | Aluminum cans, aluminum foil, glass bottles and jars, including metal caps and lids. | All plastic bottles, all plastic tubs and lids, plastic containers and clamshells, plastic cups and plates. |
| GREEN CART (COMPOST) | ||
| Food | Paper | Plants |
| Fruit, vegetables, meat, poultry, seafood, bones, rice, beans, pasta, bread, cheese, eggshells. | Waxed cardboard, napkins, paper towels, paper, plates, paper milk cartons, tea bags, coffee grounds and filters. | Flower trimmings, tree trimmings, leaves, grass, brush and weeds. |
| BLACK CART (LANDFILL) |
Ceramic dishes and cups, coat hangers, lightbulbs (no fluorescents), mirrors, plastic bags, plastic straws, plastic wrap, potato chip bags, Styrofoam packaging, window glass. |
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
An Animated Robot is Teaching Our Children Ecology
ALERT!
A new message from the media has arrived! Get this: Humans are the last thing the planet needs, actually, we are destroying it and it would be better for dear ol' Earth if we got the hell off of it.
A new message from the media has arrived! Get this: Humans are the last thing the planet needs, actually, we are destroying it and it would be better for dear ol' Earth if we got the hell off of it.
Is that what easily-influenced kids need to be hearing?
As you might've guessed from the title, this post just might be the spilling-over of my sentiments after seeing the newest Pixar movie Wall-E. Even though the film didn't spell out their message as clearly as I did, it was still there in plain sight - quite literally. If you haven't seen the movie, much of it was placed in a setting of mile-high piles of garbage. In the movie, the little robot Wall-E has the daunting task of compacting the trash into small squares and stacking them, most likely so there will be more room when the humans come back from space where they are residing until Earth is cleaner.
But that's not quite what upset me.
The film's target audience is children, there's no doubt about that. The film grossed $63 million its opening weekend. Deduction: A lot of kids saw it. A lot of kids saw humanity's role in trashing the planet until there's no walking room, until there's garbage halfway up the walls of the supermarkets. They saw skies filled with smoke and yellow haze that doesn't look breathable (after all the talk in public schools about global warming and air pollution, who wouldn't make the connection?). All this in the ... 22nd century?
There was another section in the movie that was scientifically questionable yet carried some weight. In one of the last scenes, just as the humans return to earth after their 700-year sojourn into space, there were plants beginning to cover the hillsides. Plants that had grown while the humans were away, with the sole reason that there were no humans around to prevent the growth. That's a little unrealistic to me, and would send a very false, The World Without Us (Alan Weisman)-type message if people do not analyze it beyond the growing epidemic of information-swallowing apathy. I'll put it this way: CO2 is one of a plant's basic needs. If anything, lots of Co2 is better than no CO2, as far as plant life is concerned (http://www.purgit.com/co2ok.html).
So riddle me this: why, in Wall-E, are more plants growing without humans than with humans?
It's certainly something to ponder.
My opinion is: kids do not need to hear that they are a blight on the planet at such a young age, as they are not mature enough to know that they should question it (sadly, a good-sized portion of adults aren't, either). Now, Junior is going to grow and live his life with an idea (that he is just a harmful earth-trasher) that was impressed upon him by teachers, television and - even more influential than that - movies that star lovable animated robots.
There was another section in the movie that was scientifically questionable yet carried some weight. In one of the last scenes, just as the humans return to earth after their 700-year sojourn into space, there were plants beginning to cover the hillsides. Plants that had grown while the humans were away, with the sole reason that there were no humans around to prevent the growth. That's a little unrealistic to me, and would send a very false, The World Without Us (Alan Weisman)-type message if people do not analyze it beyond the growing epidemic of information-swallowing apathy. I'll put it this way: CO2 is one of a plant's basic needs. If anything, lots of Co2 is better than no CO2, as far as plant life is concerned (http://www.purgit.com/co2ok.html).
So riddle me this: why, in Wall-E, are more plants growing without humans than with humans?
It's certainly something to ponder.
My opinion is: kids do not need to hear that they are a blight on the planet at such a young age, as they are not mature enough to know that they should question it (sadly, a good-sized portion of adults aren't, either). Now, Junior is going to grow and live his life with an idea (that he is just a harmful earth-trasher) that was impressed upon him by teachers, television and - even more influential than that - movies that star lovable animated robots.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
An Interesting Truth
This is an intriguing report by a very reputable man by the name of Christopher Monckton. He served as former policy adviser to Margaret Thatcher and is well-known for his skeptical views on Global Warming - more precisely, that much of the 'data' bringing scientific 'consensus' is wrong. I'd love to summarize it, but I may accidentally scramble the facts or figures, so I'll just give the link.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html
I don't know about you, but isn't it strange that Al Gore portrays 'climate change' as a negative occurrence? To say the climate is changing is equivalent to pointing out that the grass is growing. It is the nature of the climate to change, and any attempts to squelch that change is going against nature, and at the same time futile. It is an indisputable fact that the climate has been changing since time began, so why all the sudden is climate change a 'bad' thing? And, as a sidenote, isn't it interesting that their solution is telling us to change the way WE live our lives?
A very interesting (not to mention valid) bit of reasoning found on Yahoo Answers:
Freedom is Life controlling its own energy. Life energy is predominately derived by oxidizing hydrocarbons.
Because this makes CO2, anyone asking to control your CO2 is asking for your freedom.
Is the concern over CO2 REALLY about the environment, or just an excuse for higher taxes & more governmental control?
To be completely honest, it might just save America if more people thought this way. I might not be able to prove it with science, but History readily shows through tragedies like the Holocaust that complete loss of freedom starts very small. This tragedy began with a little oppression, a little graffiti on the Berlin Wall - yet escalated into one of the largest human massacres in history. I'm not comparing Hitler's tirade to Al Gore's speals - just presenting an example of how oppression can begin with seemingly nothing, yet when the tyranny is here, people will look behind them into the past and wonder why they didn't see it coming.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/goreerrors.html
I don't know about you, but isn't it strange that Al Gore portrays 'climate change' as a negative occurrence? To say the climate is changing is equivalent to pointing out that the grass is growing. It is the nature of the climate to change, and any attempts to squelch that change is going against nature, and at the same time futile. It is an indisputable fact that the climate has been changing since time began, so why all the sudden is climate change a 'bad' thing? And, as a sidenote, isn't it interesting that their solution is telling us to change the way WE live our lives?
A very interesting (not to mention valid) bit of reasoning found on Yahoo Answers:
Freedom is Life controlling its own energy. Life energy is predominately derived by oxidizing hydrocarbons.
Because this makes CO2, anyone asking to control your CO2 is asking for your freedom.
Is the concern over CO2 REALLY about the environment, or just an excuse for higher taxes & more governmental control?
To be completely honest, it might just save America if more people thought this way. I might not be able to prove it with science, but History readily shows through tragedies like the Holocaust that complete loss of freedom starts very small. This tragedy began with a little oppression, a little graffiti on the Berlin Wall - yet escalated into one of the largest human massacres in history. I'm not comparing Hitler's tirade to Al Gore's speals - just presenting an example of how oppression can begin with seemingly nothing, yet when the tyranny is here, people will look behind them into the past and wonder why they didn't see it coming.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
The Definition of Tyranny (And a few examples)
According to Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, the definition of Tyranny is:
"The government or authority of a tyrant; a country governed by an absolute ruler; hence, arbitrary or despotic exercise of power; exercise of power over subjects and others with a rigor not authorized by law or justice, or not requisite for the purposes of government."
Now, I really have nothing against people who buy organic food and drive hybrids, in fact, with today's gas prices I don' t blame them. But imagine this: what if dozens of influential people were actually telling their fellow Americans how to live their lives?
Forget the hypothetical notions - it's happening right now.
Dozens of influential people really are trying to get us to exist according to their standards, and mostly under the innocent guise of protecting the environment. That, my friends, is tyranny. The government is even stepping in (believe it or not!), setting future mandates for fuel efficiency (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19352490/) and other measures that are slowly draining us of the freedom our forefathers gave their lives for.
As Environmental Protection Agency administrator Stephen L. Johnson so effectively stated,
"I believe that Congress by passing a unified federal standard of 35 mpg delivers significant reductions that are more effective than a state-by-state approach. This applies to all 50 states, not one state, not 12 states, not 15 states. It applies to all 50 states, and that's great for the economy, for national security and for the environment." (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-epa20dec20,0,1603760.story?coll=la-home-center)
Is it really?
Think of the ramifications of this. According to www.fueleconomy.gov, (and a sprinkle of common sense) the biggest producers of energy-efficient vehicles are the ones based in other countries (think Toyota, Honda, Mazda and others). Now, I don't know about you, but when I think of an American-built vehicle, some vehicles that come to mind are gas-guzzling Ford F-250s and Chevy Suburbans. These may be great for ranchers and soccer moms, but definetly do not get 35 mpg.
Some people have come to the conclusion that, somehow, these companies will just have to use innovation and all that jazz to get to the 35 mpg mark, but in my opinion it will cripple the American car industry. Yes, the companies that make these vehicles do have other models with great gas mileage, but what about the moms with five or six kids to drive around? If anyone has any idea of how to make a fuel-efficient 8-seater vehicle, I'd love to hear it.
2020 is not a long way off, and with it will come a new breed of tyranny. If this government mandate builds on itself, boy, are we in for it. Once Big Brother (the government, for those of you who haven't read 1984) can tell American car companies how to build their vehicles, what will keep them from mandating our lives? What will keep them from mandating our carbon footprint or the temperature in our homes? (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/us/16brfs-THERMOSTATPL_BRF.html)
Don't think for a second that our 'well-meaning' government won't use Global Warming as a scapegoat for this! Remember, America is the land of the free, not the land of the emissions-free.
"The government or authority of a tyrant; a country governed by an absolute ruler; hence, arbitrary or despotic exercise of power; exercise of power over subjects and others with a rigor not authorized by law or justice, or not requisite for the purposes of government."
Now, I really have nothing against people who buy organic food and drive hybrids, in fact, with today's gas prices I don' t blame them. But imagine this: what if dozens of influential people were actually telling their fellow Americans how to live their lives?
Forget the hypothetical notions - it's happening right now.
Dozens of influential people really are trying to get us to exist according to their standards, and mostly under the innocent guise of protecting the environment. That, my friends, is tyranny. The government is even stepping in (believe it or not!), setting future mandates for fuel efficiency (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19352490/) and other measures that are slowly draining us of the freedom our forefathers gave their lives for.
As Environmental Protection Agency administrator Stephen L. Johnson so effectively stated,
"I believe that Congress by passing a unified federal standard of 35 mpg delivers significant reductions that are more effective than a state-by-state approach. This applies to all 50 states, not one state, not 12 states, not 15 states. It applies to all 50 states, and that's great for the economy, for national security and for the environment." (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-epa20dec20,0,1603760.story?coll=la-home-center)
Is it really?
Think of the ramifications of this. According to www.fueleconomy.gov, (and a sprinkle of common sense) the biggest producers of energy-efficient vehicles are the ones based in other countries (think Toyota, Honda, Mazda and others). Now, I don't know about you, but when I think of an American-built vehicle, some vehicles that come to mind are gas-guzzling Ford F-250s and Chevy Suburbans. These may be great for ranchers and soccer moms, but definetly do not get 35 mpg.
Some people have come to the conclusion that, somehow, these companies will just have to use innovation and all that jazz to get to the 35 mpg mark, but in my opinion it will cripple the American car industry. Yes, the companies that make these vehicles do have other models with great gas mileage, but what about the moms with five or six kids to drive around? If anyone has any idea of how to make a fuel-efficient 8-seater vehicle, I'd love to hear it.
2020 is not a long way off, and with it will come a new breed of tyranny. If this government mandate builds on itself, boy, are we in for it. Once Big Brother (the government, for those of you who haven't read 1984) can tell American car companies how to build their vehicles, what will keep them from mandating our lives? What will keep them from mandating our carbon footprint or the temperature in our homes? (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/us/16brfs-THERMOSTATPL_BRF.html)
Don't think for a second that our 'well-meaning' government won't use Global Warming as a scapegoat for this! Remember, America is the land of the free, not the land of the emissions-free.
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