Saturday, March 03, 2007

wow, what a week it has been & Environmentalism drives me nuts!

Folks ask me how I pull off maintaining the number of sites I manage, and to be honest, I am not sure. However, this week became difficult, and I posted intermittently. Of course, when I was at work, I was thinking non-stop about my blogs, and about today's radio show.

Anyhow, and dang it, I'm not whining (and no, I don't want any cheese with my whine either), all week I was up at 3 am, and with the exception of one day, home after 7pm. Leaves little time for blogging, much less answering e-mail.

Anyhow, enough of my moaning and groaning.

The real moaning and groaning has been going on in the comments section thanks to the arrival of a few more liberals. However, and I know my conservative readers can't figure me out on this one, I welcome the liberal readers as long as they play fair. Keeps me on my toes, and besides, I love a good debate. The comments at "A Night at the Television" post have been particularly interesting.

To make a point before you read the banter, I am not an environmentalist, but I do recognize that our environment needs to be cared about. Pollutants in the air is bad, ought to be diminished. Pollutants in the water makes it difficult to drink, expecially if you have to chew it. Any idiot can figure that out. But, I don't particularly care for extremists that act as do the enviromental kooks, and extremism is exactly what the environmental crowd tends to represent. Some of my ill feelings toward environmentalists stem from the fact that I used to work for a city (environmental impact reports are the worst, sometimes), and currently labor in the construction industry (don't you know, dirt is now a hazardous material!). They now place hay-rolls and sandbags around the dirt lots the houses are to be built upon to hold back the dirt. Fine. Too much dirt in the storm drains making its way to the beach must be a bad thing. Although, I wonder how the earth has made it this far with all that dirt flowing down rivers into the ocean for thousands of years? Gosh, perhaps that has something to do with all that sand on the beach.

Anyhow, dirt in the gutter, even a dirt clod's worth, can result in fines of unbelievable amounts ($25,000 and up), which the builder applies to the cost of the home. Hmmm, and people wonder why the cost of houses is so high.

So, to answer a person's question who stated that I believe that doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is as bad as doing the wrong thing for the right reasons - the answer is no. I believe doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons is bad. And often, that is what environmentalists do. Their intentions are good, but my complaint is that their reasons have nothing to do with the environment. Motives, my friends. What sometimes makes something wrong is not what it is, but the motives behind it. Especially when it comes to devious political motives by loud-mouthed groups that think violent picketing and hate-filled speech will get them what they desire.

And remember, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Oh, and if you get a chance, listen in on Political Pistachio Radio, today at 4pm Pacific/7pm Eastern. Mudkitty will call in at the get-go, and it should prove to be entertaining, since I never did answer a question by her about Mormons being Christians, and she never answered my question about the justifications of Iraq.

Tune in at: www.blogtalkradio.com/politicalpistachio
Call in to the show at: (646) 652-2940
Also, during the show you can send comments to my by Yahoo Messenger, ID: douglasvgibbs
or send "after the show" comments to politicalpistachio at yahoo dot com.

6 comments:

MDConservative said...

I came across a great Global Warming piece:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_21b7mdJz2M

Bushwack said...

I came in the door and slipped from all the salt water on the floor....You appear to be emotionally unstable there Doug....

Tough job you got but someone has to do it.... you are doing a great job.

Anonymous said...

Hehe...the first time I saw your name, I thought it was a court case and went to findlaw to look it up.

As riled up as I get, I beleive that the only way to reach a truly informed decision is to take both sides of an issue and evaluate the worthiness of each arguement.

Really, the only fundamental way you and I differ is that you beleive what you beleive no matter what. A concept I find, frankly, disturbing. The particular quote you used,

" And remember this, you can't convince me otherwise. If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong."

kinda of struck a cord with. It seemed vaugely familiar, but I couldn't pinpoint it until earlier today. It just kinda of hit me like a ton of bricks.

A similar sentence was uttered by Julius Streicher. He says,

"You will never convince me of the justice of your actions. For it I were to agree with you, than we would both be incorrect."

Look up Julius Streicher. Really take a look at him. I'm not saying you are anything like him, and I'm not saying you are going to become like him. I hope you look on him as the majority of the world does.

However, his way of thinking and beleiving, his utter faith in what he did and his superiors, is what allowed him to do as he did. He wouldn't hear arguement, he couldn't even consider he was wrong. It's a dangerous road you walk.

MDConservative said...

Dan,
Explain to me when anyone in the GW movement has been willing to listen. I haven't seen Gore willing to budge on his standpoint.

And while you seem to be willing to tell people to debate, what is your personal view of GW?

Anonymous said...

I confused as to the acronym, but the arguement is still dumb.

"We won't budge because they won't budge."

Welcome to the politics of 5th grade.

Tom said...

I think "GW" = global warming.

That quote from Streicher was a great find, and is nearly verbatim what DG said. It's astonishing, and it's so close to what Streicher said that I wonder if DG knew of the quote and was paraphrasing.

In college I was facinated by German politics of the early 20th century. I'd reccomend people read Albert Speer's books, particularly Inside the Third Reich.

The Streicher quote is not the only parallel you'll find to the current American right wing. It's a cult of personality - personified today by Bush.

I don't want to create my own straw man here, but I'd hazard a guess that any policy decision, no matter how reckless or absurd, would be supported by the right just as long as it came from Bush. It is that same assumption of nobel purpose that led the Germans down that road they did. It is what drives many Islamists today.

Speer spent the rest of his life lamenting the blind authoritarian cultist he had become.