From the Carpe Diem blog by Mark J. Perry.



Dear Mr. Roberts, President of World Wildlife Fund:

You and members of your organization worry that industrialization and economic growth are harming the earth's environment. I worry that the intensifying hysteria about the state of the environment - and that the resulting hostility to economic growth - might harm humankind's prospects for comfortable, healthy, enjoyable, and long lives.

So I commend you on your "Earth Hour" effort. Persuading people across the globe to turn off lights for one hour supplies the perfect symbol for modern environmentalism: a collective effort to return humankind to the Dark Ages.

Sincerely,

Donald J. Boudreaux , Chairman, Department of Economics, George Mason University

P.S. The WWF should award some special prize to the North Korean government, for that government keeps North Koreans not in any meager "Earth Hour," or even "Earth Day," but in what WWFers might call "Earth Decades." See picture above of a society keeping its carbon footprint tiny. Of course, in doing so it keeps itself also desperately poor, often even to the point of starvation.

Liberals with the help of cartoons begin their indoctrination. One simple example is Captain Planet illustrating the socialist crew of environmentalist heroes, fighting unethical, ruthless capitalists. Today, the Conservative All-Stars fight fire with fire.

Notorious Villains: Hoggish Greedly and Looten Plunder

A cocaine-addled commuter pops a wheelie on his way to work.
Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters unveiled a new $270 billion federal project to build special lanes for dangerous and careless drivers.

These new lanes are for the millions of drivers who can't be bothered with speed limits, turn signal use, or not careening madly out into oncoming traffic. Whether hell-bent on putting themselves and everyone around them in danger or just drunk off their gourds and out for a simple joyride, America's reckless will no longer be forced to putter along with careful, conscientious, considerate citizens.

Peters then cut the ribbon on the inaugural lane by speeding through it in a rusted-out 1984 Chevy Cavalier, steering with her knees as her left hand held a cup of hot coffee aloft and her right hand slapped her 4-year-old daughter sitting in the back seat.

An entry in the Medical Journal of Austrialia asserts that we should be taxed by the government for having too many children because they produce a carbon burden on our environment.

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It seems the whole of scientists trying to debunk global warming myths and their supposed remedies like expensive Hybrid cars and stifling petro taxes were wrong all along. It appears that all of our recent work to save the planet has worked!

This year's cold snap has returned the polar ice caps to their normal size and the vanishing Canadian ice is 10 to 20 centimeters thicker than it was at this time a year ago. (see Cool And The Gang)

That wasn't so hard after all.

Berkeley city council has made national news on January 29, 2008. The city council passed a series of motions concerning the recruiting center. The most controversial motions ordered the city clerk to draft a letter calling the Berkeley Marines “unwelcome intruders”.

“As it is, members of our armed forces who put their lives on the line to defend America are also defending people like too many in Berkeley for whom the very word America, and the American flag, bring only sneers. All across the country, there are professors who push for keeping military recruiters off campus and for banning ROTC. Apparently if they don't like the military, then other people -- such as students -- should not be allowed to make up their own minds whether they want to join or not.”
Thomas Sowell
Seldom, if ever, the liberal media reports on the selfless, incredible acts of heroism in battle. October 22, 2007 U.S. Navy SEAL Lieutenant Michael P. Murphy became the most recent recipient of the Medal of Honor. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration awarded by the United States. It is bestowed on a member of the United States armed forces who distinguishes himself "…conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States…"[ US CODE ] Because of its nature, the medal is commonly awarded posthumously.

The media wants to depict our troops as victims and not heroes. These heroes make all this possible by putting their lives on the line. Be not deceived, our troops are heroes.

"How many shootings at schools or malls will it take before we understand that people who intend to kill are not deterred by gun laws? Last I checked, murder is against the law everywhere. No one intent on murder will be stopped by the prospect of committing a lesser crime like illegal possession of a firearm. The intellectuals and politicians who make pious declarations about controlling guns should explain how their gunless utopia is to be realized."

The liberal doctrine that gun control is crime control is just a myth. The National Academy of Science has reviewed dozens of studies and could find no proof that gun regulation clearly leads to reduced violent crimes. Years ago Washington D.C. passed its tough handgun ban and gun violence rose.

"If someone wishes to be prepared to defend himself, he should be free to do so. No one has the right to deprive others of the means of effective self-defense, like a handgun."

You've heard of fighting fire with fire, right? Well how about fighting drug addiction by giving drugs to addicts? Most would say that it sounds completely insane. A clinic in Vancouver, Canada has begun offering local drug addicts free heroine and needles as well as a nice place to kick back and shoot-up. The researchers believe that by giving the addicts free heroine, they won't have to steal and sell their bodies to get it. They're going to take heroine anyway, right? I wonder when we will open our first pedophilia clinic for those that are just going to be pedophiles anyway.

Is there a relationship between economic freedom and political freedom? If so, how much does one affect the other? Is individual freedom a political problem and material welfare an economic problem? Or are these two freedoms intertwined?

Milton Friedman said “Indeed, a major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it does this task so well. It gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”

“The existence of a free market does not of course eliminate the need for government. On the contrary, government is essential both as a forum for determining the “rules of the game” and as an umpire to interpret and enforce the rules decided on. What the market does is to reduce greatly the range of issues that must be decided through political means, and thereby to minimize the extent to which the government need participate directly in the game.”