Brainless
Is Everyone Going Insane?
By John D. Turner

Is everyone in the world going crazy?

Item: Vice President Cheney goes to Afghanistan to meet with officials there. A suicide bomber attacks and apparently attempts to kill him.

Liberal bloggers in the U.S. go wild with joy; their only regret that he survived. “Better luck next time”, they write.

Item: The stock market tanks. The reaction by liberal bloggers? Joy! Happy days are here again! An example from the Wall Street Journal webpage: “good, it’s about time! I guess Bush’s last hiding place is being destroyed. Now he can’t even brag about the stock market, boo hoo!”

One person even went so far as to say that it serves people who invest in stocks right for being “greedy”. They should be content with their social security!

Have we come to this; people hating President Bush so much that they really don’t care what happens to everyone else, just so they can score points by anything they perceive as hurting him? People so consumed with hatred for Bush that anything that happens is good as long as it can be perceived as “anti-Bush”, detrimental to Bush, or contrary to Bush?

It reminds me of the people who were working for Braniff airlines, who were so happy when they brought the airline to bankruptcy, despite the fact that they now had no jobs. Boy, they showed them!

What is the difference between such folks and a suicide bomber, who doesn’t care who he or she kills as long as someone dies? How can people be so focused on hating Bush that they can tie anything and everything negative that happens to him in some way shape or form?

I disliked President Clinton too, and disagreed with many of the things he did. But I was never possessed by the all-consuming hatred of him and his administration. And I certainly never rooted for our enemies to kill him.

And it isn’t just the Bush haters either. The lunacy is there in other areas as well.

Princess Diana, concerned over the number of children who fall victim to land mines went on a crusade to have them banned world wide. This was a cause I could sympathize with. No one wants to see children killed or maimed. And the fact of the matter is that some of these land mines, strewn all over Afghanistan by the Soviets during their failed war there, were specifically targeted against children. On the other hand, there is a legitimate use for land mines in warfare, and as a defensive measure, they are a very valuable asset, saving the lives of our troops and deterring or killing the enemy where employed. While I was not 100% in favor of the outright ban she espoused, there was certainly room for improvement, and she called attention to a serious problem.

It appears that Prince Charles is now on a crusade as well. He too has discovered a serious threat to the well being of millions of people world-wide, and is intent on stamping it out. The threat? McDonalds. If we could just ban McDonald’s fast food, the world would be such a better place.

After that, what’s next? Burger King? Wendy’s? The corner hamburger stand?

Florida has finally figured out a way to deal with the illegal immigration issue. A state legislator there has introduced a bill to make the term “illegal alien” illegal. Why? She personally finds it offensive, especially to the children. That’s right. Just call it something else. What term does she think appropriate? Well, she personally prefers the term “immigrant”. Yep! Here legally or not, it’s all one and the same. You are an immigrant; no difference. Keep in mind, it’s for the children, you understand.

Whatever the issue, ring in the children! That makes everything ok. After all, we will do anything if it’s for our children, won’t we?

Need more money for public schools? Raise those taxes! Never mind that the ever increasing burden doesn’t seem to be doing much for the bottom line – how well educated our children are. Pour the money in! It’s for the children, don’t you know.

Then we have the spectacle of very well-to-do folks telling those of us who are less well-to-do how we need to make radical changes in our lifestyles in order to save the planet from global warming. The science is settled, they say. There can be no more discussion! If you disagree, best keep it to yourself. Otherwise you are akin to a holocaust denier, or possibly insane, and we will need to do something about you for the good of society and (dare we say it), to protect the children.

These folks are concerned enough that they want to pass laws that tell us how we should live, raise taxes to force us to pay for things that they think we should be doing to “save the planet”, and otherwise muck about in our lives. However when it comes to their perks, their opulent lifestyles, why that’s doesn’t apply to them. They planted some trees to “offset” their “carbon footprint”. Their attitude? “I’m talking about your lifestyle, not mine; just shut up and color, please? “

There was a lady on Hannity and Colmes recently who I can admire to a certain extent. She apparently is actually trying to live what she espouses, unlike Mr. Gore and company, who simply try and find a way around the issue while at the same time trying to guilt-trip the rest of us. She has solar panels on her house to generate electricity, runs her car off bio-diesel, and does other things to minimize her “carbon footprint”.

That’s nice. I’m glad that she has the money to do those things. I would love to put solar photovoltaic panels on my house. Unfortunately, I can’t; I tried. Solar roof shingles have been marketed for some time now, so when I needed to replace my roof recently, I looked into what it would cost to put enough of them up there to take care of my electricity needs. The cost? Around $40,000. Needless to say, I have the standard composite shingles everyone else has instead.

But even if I had taken out a second mortgage and borrowed the money, I still would not have those solar roof shingles on my house today. Why? They don’t sell them in San Antonio. There is no one here who markets or installs them. Why? Our electricity is too cheap. It’s not cost effective. There is no market.

Bottom line, it’s nice for her, but for most of us it isn’t a solution. The same is true for most of the “green” ideas the “save the earth” crowd have. They work fine for them, because they have the money, and what they are doing is small scale. This individual positively gushed about how the biodiesel she burns in her car comes from old vegetable oil recycled from fast food joints. That’s great, but there isn’t enough recyclable vegetable oil in the US to meet our diesel fuel requirements! It works for her and a few like her. It won’t work for us all.

But, she says, it’s only one component in the big picture of renewable fuel resources. She and others like her aren’t seriously proposing that all motor vehicle fuel be made from recycled vegetable oil. There’s ethanol, and hydrogen fuel cells, and electric, and others as part of the mix.

Great! Except why doesn’t the same logic apply when discussing things such as drilling in the ANWAR? The big argument against that was that there was only a six month supply of oil there, so why endanger the biodiversity of the arctic wildlife refuge for a measly six month supply?

But it was never suggested by the Bush administration that we would put a big oil tap into the middle of ANWAR, suck all the oil out and use only ANWAR oil to power the entire country. It was to be a temporary solution to a long term problem, as part of a mix of other partial solutions (which incidentally included such things as biodiesel, ethanol, et al) designed to get us out of dependence on our enemies for the basic energy resources needed to run our civilization.

I don’t have a problem with “green” solutions. I do have a problem with the “it’s our way or the highway” attitude of many in the “environmentalist” movement. Theirs is the only solution that is acceptable. Nuclear is evil. Oil is evil. Coal is evil. If I made biodiesel from coal, it would still be evil, simply because it came from coal. Biodiesel from recycled vegetable oil is morally superior to biodiesel from coal, even if the final product is absolutely the same.

Those who have, can do as they please. All they need to do is “offset” their emissions. Plant a tree. Plant a forest if necessary. They can then fly their private jets, heat and cool their multiple mansions, and drive the SUV the begrudge the rest of us, but for whatever reason find so necessary to their existence, and feel smug and superior about how they are doing all they can to save the earth, and how they can go about forcing the rest of us to do what they think best via government coercion.

For the rest of us? Check out public transportation! Set your thermostat higher in the summer and wear shorts, lower in the winter and wear a coat indoors. Oh yes, and we will get the legislature to outlaw incandescent light bulbs! Remember, it’s for the children!

If this seems like it has rambled a bit, perhaps it has. There are a lot of insane things going on out there these days. At least they seem insane to me. Perhaps to others, they seem rational.

Suicide bombers see what they do as rational after all.

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