Loved reading
this article on the proposed carbon tax. Quick primer: a carbon tax is a proposed method of controlling carbon emissions by taxing individuals and corporations for every pound of carbon they emit. A cap-and-trade system institutes caps on how much carbon can be emitted, and people who wish to go over their limits can purchase additional carbon emissions from those who are not using up to their cap. Got it? No? Whatever, you don't need to get it to enjoy the hysterical reaction from this conservative author. Instead of making you read the whole thing, I will instead offer some wonderful quotes:
"The sheer chutzpah it takes to even offer such
a thing is breathtaking, matched only by how frightened we all should be
by the sheer economic destruction it would inevitably cause and the loss
of freedom to which it would directly lead."
"This is simply a direct frontal assault on freedom, standards
of living and America as we have known it. For, you see, this is cloaked
in the cover of "being green," which is the most dangerous movement in
politics today. Why is it the most dangerous? Primarily because it has
no opposition whatsoever, so gutless and cowardly are all politicians in
the face of the Sierra Club and their fellow enviro-wackos."
"No one has the guts to tell these tree-hugging lunatics
where to shove their CF light bulb mandates, their all-consuming hatred
of the car and, most of all, their cult-like blind belief in
non-existent global warming as the universal justification for this
blatant government thuggery."
"When the Cold War had a
lull starting in 1989 - let's disabuse ourselves of the naïve notion
that it ever ended - the remaining believers in Marxism found a home in
the far-left environmental crowd. ... Fast forward to 2008,
and Big Green (or Big Red, if you prefer) is now the monster ready to
swallow the U.S. economy and radically remake society in their
totalitarian and anti-human image."
I don't intend to offer a point by point counterargument to every ridiculous thing he said, since that would be a waste of my precious time. Instead, please enjoy this clip from The Producers - imagine that Zero Mostel is playing the role of environmentalists, and Gene Wilder that of the author.
