Trouble on the left
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED JULY 3, 2000
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
Trouble on the left
On Sunday June 25, in a 105-minute speech, Ralph Nader accepted the presidential nomination of the Green Party.
One would think an hour and three quarters would be plenty of time to set forth that party's agenda of biological and eco-system preservation. Yet Mr. Nader hardly mentioned the environment at all.
OK, there were a few de rigueur mentions of tearing down dams to restore salmon runs (one presumes the Naderites have come up with an adequate substitute for hydro power -- clean, cheap nuclear fission, perhaps?) along with the evils of agri-business conglomerates foisting off on an unsuspecting public their genetically engineered "Frankenfoods" -- poisonous potatoes and the like. (Heaven forfend the "Greens" might celebrate a plan to breed enough insect-resistance into these plants to allow a sizeable reduction in external pesticide use.)
But at a press conference following his nomination, reports editorial writer Tunku Varadarajan of the Wall Street Journal, "Mr. Nader declared that he would focus on three principal issues in his campaign: universal health care, campaign-finance reform and income inequality." Not a paper mill, not a spotted owl, not a coal-burning smokestack.
"This wasn't surprising," Mr. Varadarajan explains. "The Green Party ... is an agglutination of activists who span the spectrum of the left -- from mild-tempered progressives who don't hate all free enterprise to hard-core nutcases who want to institute a maximum wage in the U.S. (One explained that it should be capped at 10 times the minimum wage.)"
In the real world, of course, the best way to preserve wild lands and species is often to develop and honor private property rights, allowing for-profit management and harnessing the natural human desire to preserve something for one's private heirs -- as demonstrated by the superior results of "private ownership" elephant management in Tanzania, as compared to "collective" state herd control in Kenya. But the "Greens" scorn such strategies, regardless of real-world results. Capitalist greed: bad.
One theory holds none of this matters much, since the American system has become irredeemably biased against third parties since Abe Lincoln last cut the Gordian knot in 1860.
But third -- and even fourth -- parties can still play the role of spoiler, as Ross Perot helped prove with his 19 percent plebiscite in 1992. And with the Greens now running at 7 percent in nationwide polls -- 10 percent in vital California -- the Democratic supporters of Al Gore may have reason to lament this challenge from the environmental left.
The irony here is that Al Gore -- unlike Mr. Nader, who isn't even a Green Party member -- is a bona fide eco-nut.
In a review of Mr. Gore's recently re-issued 1992 book "Earth In the Balance," the Competitive Enterprise Institute notes "The book was chock full of suggestions for increased government authority to correct what were thought to be failures of the free market. Its Luddite arguments about the supposed evils of technological progress sounded as much like the Unabomber as they did the reasoned thinking of a serious public person."
Mr. Gore wrote in 1992 -- and has never retracted: "We must make the rescue of the environment the central organizing principle for civilization. ..."
"It seems an easy choice -- sacrifice the tree for a human life -- until one learns that three trees must be destroyed for each patient treated. ...
"It ought to be possible to establish a coordinated global program to accomplish the strategic goal of completely eliminating the internal combustion engine over, say, a 25-year period." (No wonder the United Auto Workers are starting to make eyes at other beaus.)
Yet the Green extreme now considers Mr. Gore little short of a traitor, an "enviro-phony" who made all the right promises eight years ago but has failed to deliver any sizeable strides toward the Green police state despite eight years in office.
While meantime -- in Mr. Nader's words -- "NAFTA, WTO, they happened on his watch."
Once again, can someone explain how protective tariffs or their removal constitute environmental issues?
Why, because the so-called environmentalists are really what the folks at the Ludwig von Mises Institute call "watermelons," of course -- green on the outside, but socialist red under the skin, promoting an agenda of populist protectionism and a level of government economic oversight which would gladden the heart of Benito Mussolini.
"In fact, there is a certain relish in their role as spoilers, which has acquired sharp definition in recent days after both the Teamsters and the United Auto Workers snuggled up to Mr. Nader," while these unions' leaders "heaped scorn on the vice president," Mr. Varadarajan of the Journal concludes.
Oh dear, oh dear. It really does begin to look like trouble in Eco-City.
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available by dialing 1-800-244-2224; or via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.
Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com
"The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it." -- John Hay, 1872
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken
Previous Posts:
Fines for political speech
Oh, did we cite you under the health regulations?
'There Oughtta Be A Law,' Chapter 417
OSHA would ban cookie-lifting
Hose out the ant farm
Quite a mess for the grown-ups to clean up
Educrats give fat cat relatives a 'bye'
Some kids should be locked up
More 'Wilderness'
Public Employees as Legislators
