Sound good. The left are always going on and on about “sustainable
agriculture,” and “sustainable lifestyles,” and “sustainable energy,” and
so-forth, and they make some reasonable arguments. The viability of their
solutions is another matter, but the problems are, at their core, real enough.
Yet they absolutely refuse to address the things that are obviously and destructively
NOT sustainable, and will make the above problems even worse, such as all aspects
of the welfare state.
The Welfare State is totally a creature of government creation,
subject to any rule change they want to make. People respond to their perceived incentives. Every trend line you can draw
show that all forms of public assistance, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security
(normal and disability) etc., are utterly NOT sustainable, and are in the
process of destroying the vary system that supports it (the rule of law, free enterprise,
property rights, etc), and it does so because it is NOT aligning incentives with
goals; indeed, it is filled with perverse incentives. Until people can see
that, the leviathan will continue to grow. We need a balanced budget amendment,
NOW. If people saw the real cost of
government because they were seeing it in real-time, not just putting it on the
credit card for someone else to worry about later, they would understand, and demand
less. Debt is too abstract, and not scary enough, as the colossal level of
private debt clearly illustrates. Balance the budget, via taxes or cuts or both,
and the cuts will follow as the real and immediate pain sets in.
“Sustainability” or “the sustainability movement” is simply a catch term for global communism and as such it should be dismissed out of hand.
If you think about it, what may or may not be sustainable in terms of human activity is none of government’s business whatsoever. It is our job as free individuals to figure out for ourselves what is or is not sustainable.
As for confiscation and redistribution programs; those are none of government’s business either, except that it is government’s business to unsure that they never happen. All redistribution schemes should be dismissed out of hand as unjust and a violation of property rights.
See? Liberty is simple. Evil needs complexity as a hiding place. We have no use for it.
The second you begin to entertain the idea that it is government’s business to reign in, control or shape society (rather than to protect rights) you have fallen into the trap. You have lost to the authoritarians and any further discussion will only dig you in deeper. You have been synthesized, or assimilated.
Thesis
Antithesis
Synthesis
Lyle – Oh, I agree completely – I’m just setting up a good case for an example of cognitive dissonance that can be used to point out the problems in the leftist ways of thinking, too the leftist. “See, here is your principle, and how you apply it here, but how you totally ignore it over HERE. What’s wrong with this picture?”
I erred a little bit. What is or is not “sustainable” really doesn’t matter insofar as it is something with which we need be overly concerned. Reality cannot be denied. We will deal with reality as need be.
A gold mine, we know for certain, is not sustainable. It will run out. Does that mean we should not mine, or must be prohibited from mining, the gold on the grounds that it is not a sustainable activity? Of course not. That’s a stupid argument from the outset.
If it were possible to make Medicare or Socialist Security sustainable, would such confiscation and redistribution programs become right and just? Of course not. It’s a stupid metric.
A certain amount of murder is sustainable. A rather large amount, actually. So? Does that make murder superior to mining gold?
Selling laptop computers is not sustainable– we know for absolute certain that something else is going to take their place, making laptop computers obsolete. Should we then therefore make a law against selling laptops? What a stupid question. I’m not even entertaining it. First and foremost, it is none of your stinking business unless you’re in the business of selling computers, and then it is your business and no one else’s.
If anyone is worried about anything being sustainable, they can always kill themselves. Your very life is not sustainable. For us among the living, we will adapt to changing circumstances, and be the stronger for it, just like humans have always done. Anyone who can’t live with that is free to jump off a bridge, or kill themselves with vice or lay down and starve. Just stay out of other people’s business.
Local, Local, Local.
We’re told over and over and over again that Locavore movement is the only way to sustainability.
Why is it the same people who push ‘local’ for food seem to love national solutions to every local issue?