Da Bubbler

Attitude

2009-09-30T10:52:00.000-07:00

There are so many things in life that we have no control over, but the one thing that is ours to control is our attitude. The following is a little blurb that Chuck Swindoll wrote regarding Attitude.

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do.

It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company ... a church ... a home.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past ... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable.

The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude ... I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you ... we are in charge of our Attitude." - Chuck Swindoll

What choice will you make today?

Shine On

2009-09-29T10:02:00.000-07:00

Life is a lot like a sunflower. Each seed contains a new season. Some seasons are short - others are long. Some are wonderful and others are dry and hard. But the one thing that we can count on is that God's love is wrapped around each of those seasons. As long as there are seeds God is not done tending to us and growing us.

Sometimes we wait dormant. Waiting for the light to reach us and lift us out of our darkness. Even though we may feel dried up and dead on the surface - underneath we have a root system that is waiting to be filled.

Shine on, Lord. Grow us to glorify you.

Will we all be paying for abortions?

2009-09-04T06:38:00.000-07:00

President Obama says no....but that's not what the facts say. Check out this article by Chuck Colson.

Abortion and Health Care Reform: What Are the Facts?
Chuck Colson
BreakPoint

August 31, 2009

From having worked in the White House, I know how important it is for a President to get his facts clear when he is speaking to the American people.

Well, I'm sorry to say, it appears that President Obama has not done that regarding whether or not his health care plan would force Americans to pay for abortions.

During a recent conference call with religious leaders, the President said, "I know there's been a lot of misinformation in this debate, and there are some folks out there who are frankly bearing false witness."

And then he himself said the following: "You've heard that this is all going to mean government funding of abortion. Not true. These are all fabrications."

Are they fabrications? What about the Capps Amendment, which was passed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee? The amendment would require "at least one plan covering elective abortions in every federally subsidized exchange," notes John McCormack of the Weekly Standard. It also gives the secretary of Health and Human Services "the authority to include abortion coverage in the public plan and requires that the public plan cover abortion if the Hyde amendment...is repealed."

The Associated Press, which on August 2 claimed that the President wanted to continue the tradition of not forcing Americans to fund abortions, has backed off its story. On August 5, AP reporter Ricardo Alonsozaldivar acknowledged, "Health care legislation before Congress would allow a new government-sponsored insurance plan to cover abortions."

And Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee called the Capps amendment "a sham." The more recent AP article "confirms what we've been saying," Johnson said. "Under both Obama-backed bills, House and Senate, the federal government would run a huge system of subsidizing elective abortion."

Finally, FactCheck.org says the bills now before Congress "would allow a new ‘public' insurance plan to cover abortions, despite language added to the House bill that technically forbids using public funds to pay for them." FactCheck concludes "that the president goes too far when he calls the statements that government would be funding abortions ‘fabrications.'"

There's also the fact that Congress has shot down every attempt to allow wording that explicitly prevents government funding of abortions.

Now, I'm the first to agree that politics is about the art of compromise. But there are some things that Christians simply cannot compromise. One of them is federal funding of abortion—which is nothing more than the killing of unborn children.

And it's very clear that, the President's statements to the contrary—that you and I will see our tax dollars pay for abortions under the current health care reform bills. Some Congress people, like Rep. Zoe Lofgren, are even telling their constituents that abortion coverage is in the bill.

I hope you will let your representatives know that you cannot support, and will not, any health care bills that allow your tax dollars to pay for the slaughter of innocent children.

And don't let them tell you that you are misinformed—because the facts are out there.

Chuck Colson's daily BreakPoint commentary airs each weekday on more than one thousand outlets with an estimated listening audience of one million people. BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends via radio, interactive media, and print.

The reality of texting while driving

2009-08-28T10:58:00.000-07:00

People may joke about texting while driving....but this is what happens. Warning...this is graphic.

Make sure that everyone that you love stays safe!!

Gardasil - Dealth toll on the rise

2009-08-27T07:06:00.000-07:00

Gardasil’s grim death toll is on the rise -
This is an article from the Health Sciences Institute (Thanks to Shana for sharing)

Somewhere Out There

Sometimes I wonder, who is the girl who will be the last recorded death linked to the HPV vaccine Gardasil?

She’s out there somewhere. She might be a happy child, enjoying her summer, looking forward to starting the first grade in a couple of months – still several years away from receiving her Gardasil vaccine. Or she might be a newborn, bringing enormous joy to her proud parents.

She’s out there, alive and well for the moment, and it couldn’t be more heartbreaking.

Climbing numbers

After watching my video about the dangers of Gardasil, I received an e-mail from an HSI member named Tosca, who’s affiliated with the Renew-You Centre for Wellbeing and Longevity in Australia.

Tosca writes: “I would like to pass on the word re Gardasil to our patients. Can you let me know your sources for the statement that 32 girls have died?”

The source for all reported adverse effects linked to Gardasil is the FDA’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). But unfortunately, 32 is no longer the total number of deaths associated with Gardasil. According VAERS, that number has climbed to 47.

And while the death of 47 young girls is the worst of it, there’s plenty more to dislike about this very dangerous vaccine.

Easy to spot where this trend is going

Gardasil launched in 2006, and by the end of 2007 there were 19 deaths linked to the vaccine. In 2008, 28 additional deaths were reported. And I think we can safely predict that number will rise again in 2009.

Which begs the question: How many deaths will the FDA require before this vaccine is removed from market? It’s going to happen. I have no doubt. Gardasil will eventually join Vioxx and other drugs that have been linked to death after death after death until the numbers couldn’t be ignored.

But between now and then, many young girls will die, while other girls will suffer harsh and debilitating adverse side effects.

Some of these VAERS cases are chronicled in a recent press release issued by Judicial Watch. They include one girl who required a wheel chair to get around after receiving her second of three Gardasil doses. She also experienced migraines, swelling of her face, and was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre syndrome and peripheral neuropathy. She’s been hospitalized two times.

Another girl, age 19, experienced fatigue, muscle pain, tremor, dizziness, nausea, convulsions, seizures, and loss of consciousness. Other girls have developed genital warts after their vaccinations. In some of these cases, warts also developed on faces, hands and feet.

Descriptions of side effects like these go on and on. According to the latest VAERS records, more than 13,700 adverse event reports in the U.S. have now been linked to Gardasil. Given the severity of many of these events, it’s hard to say what’s worse: 47 deaths, or hundreds, perhaps thousands of girls suffering daily.

How long, FDA, before you shut this monstrosity down?

You can find my Gardasil video at this link. And I hope you’ll share it with friends and family. Until the FDA decides to protect our girls, we’ll have to do the job ourselves.

Source:
“New FDA Records Obtained by Judicial Watch Indicate 28 Deaths Related to Gardasil in 2008″ Press Release, Judicial Watch, 6/23/09, marketwatch.com

Angry Mob??????

2009-08-14T09:26:00.000-07:00

Mob Anger: Protesting and Civil Discourse

Chuck Colson

BreakPoint

August 11, 2009

The left-leaning media has, as far as I’m concerned, hit a new low.

Case in point: August 7, Friday. Paul Krugman writes a column in the New York Times blasting angry protesters showing up at town hall meetings across the country. By a very twisted process of reasoning, Krugman ended up likening those who oppose the government overhaul of the health care system to racists.

I can’t even find the right words for the outrage I feel.

This is the kind of rhetoric that does nothing but inflame already heated passions and opinions. Now maybe Krugman is simply trying to do what other backers of the President’s health care plan are trying to do—silence the opposition.

The Speaker of the House, in fact, has written that these protests are un-American. The White House has opened a tip line on its website so people can report so-called “misinformation” about health care reform efforts. And now Krugman sees racism behind the protests.

Have some of the protests gotten out of hand? Sure. Shouting down congressmen and senators is counterproductive and disrespectful. There’s no room for that kind of behavior in civilized, democratic debate.

But while the media hyperventilates over shouting matches and ascribing nefarious motives to the protesters, I can tell them a thing or two about angry protesters.

I remember very clearly being virtually barricaded in the White House during the Vietnam War, surrounded by 150,000 students. Now they were angry—and dangerous. They were turning buses over that we had stationed to try to keep them away from the White House fence. There were FBI reports that some had bombs in their possession. I myself nearly missed a gasoline can that had been ignited and thrown into the road. This was much more like a revolution in a banana republic than a protest.

I recall that soldiers of the 82nd Airborne were stationed in the Executive Office Building basement, just in case. I couldn’t get home at night because we couldn’t get the car through the crowd. Most of us stayed in the White House that weekend.

I was always struck at the time, however, by the very sympathetic press coverage of the protesters. They were seen really as just idealistic young people working for peace against a very unpopular, mistaken war.

I’m an expert in angry mobs. And at least what I’m seeing on television right now pales in comparison to the 1960s and ‘70s. Sure, some of the protesters are being uncivil and disruptive—which is wrong.

As I said Monday on BreakPoint, there is plenty to protest when it comes to the proposed and so-called health care “reforms.” And if you speak out—and you should—you should do so respectfully and with civility. Don’t get angry or get into name calling. And let the other side say their piece.

Free expression is essential to a free society. This is what distinguishes us from tyrannies. And people who have these deep convictions about the truth must be permitted to air them—the hysterical rants from the Upper East Side of New York or inside the Beltway notwithstanding.

Letter from Dr. Westlake regarding socialist medicine

2009-08-08T08:27:00.000-07:00

By Dr. Westlake (Emergency medicine Doctor in Oconomowoc)

I am not a very political person, but I feel called to send this out and obligated to fight what is going on in our country right under our noses. I cannot sit by and simply live my life and practice clinical Emergency Medicine while the very fabric of our healthcare system is being attacked/assaulted/and dismantled. I have found that most people have no idea about what is proposed in the healthcare legislation. We need to make ourselves aware and informed. This is not a democrat or republican issue--- this is an issue of freedom and personal choice for all Americans. .

Now is the time to stand up for what we believe in. While we are working nose to the grindstone providing the best healthcare to our patients, the Government is attempting to fundamentally and irrevocably alter the healthcare system. I'm not an alarmist, but the laws that are being considered in HR 3200 are unbelievably scary. I can't even comprehend the changes that are being rammed through. The U.S. healthcare system is under attack. What is being proposed is nothing short of the complete takeover of healthcare by the Government. There is no mention in all 1000 pages of any mention of tort reform/malpractice reform which is probably one of the costliest aspects of practicing medicine--defensive test ordering. There is no personal accountability--the problem now is that patients don't directly know or usually care about the cost of their healthcare--this bill takes accountability even further away by creating a nanny state of cradle to grave entitlements. The proposed changes truly will constitute socialized medicine and take control of healthcare away from doctors/patients and families and put the control in government beurocracy. This is not true healthcare reform--this is the elitist government of Nancy Pelosi taking making a grab for 1/7th of the nations economy. The media is not covering it. We have to act now. We have an obligation to our patients/ourselves/our families and our fellow Americans to get our voices out. We have to get our opinion out to our legislators and government. I know we all think "What can I do?" But we cannot sit back while the best healthcare system in the world is damaged beyond repair, while we stick our heads in the sand.

Here are a few examples of the things they are proposing to turn into law:

1)There will be rationing of healthcare--there is an "annual limit" on healthcare expenses (sec122 pg.29 lines 4-16, and sec203 pg.85 line 7).

2)There will be a Government committee and a Health Choices Commissioner deciding what treatments and benefits you will receive--(sec123 pg. 30, sec142 pg. 42).

3)Healthcare will be provided to all illegal aliens and non U.S. citizens (sec152 pg.50-51), and they will not pay (sec59B pg.170 line1).

4)Govt will gain control of all private plans by creating an exchange that all private plans must join, and then the Govt. will control/define all the coverage and benefits (sec 201 pg. 72, and sec203 pg. 84-85).

5)Govt will force all new employees into public option (sec 312 pg 145).

6)Govt will control physician salary and reimbursement (sec225 pg.127), and what conditions will be paid for (sec1751 pg.800)

7)Govt. will control all aspects of medical training programs (Sec1501 and 1503).

8)Govt will have real-time access to all Americans bank accounts/healthcare records, and be able to use them for electronic fund transfer to withdraw money they see as owed for services (sec163 pg.58-59).

I can't go into all the details, but in the webpage below there are literally 7 pages of the worst examples of what this bill entails. It just makes me sick. Take 15 minutes and read all seven pages of the Overview. I wanted to vomit when I read it.

We can do a few things to stand up and be heard. We have to make ourselves heard. We are the only one's who can look after the safety of our patients.

This is what we can easily do--

1)Be informed--attached is a webpage that concisely translates the bill, and has a link to the actual bill. The site is www.lc.org/index.cfm?PID=19319 . Please look and read through it.

2)Call our Senators and Congressmen-- both Senators express public support for this bill--even though they won't discuss any details. Here are the web pages Russ Feingold www.feingold.senate.gov/contact.html and for Herb Kohl www.kohl.senate.gov/contact.cfm/ which has the phone #'s for all of their offices. Congressmen are by district and can be found by www.writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome/shtml/. Just call and leave a message of who you are--including that you are a physician (or what your profession is), where you live, that you don't want them to pass this bill. I've called all the offices and left messages with the staffers at each one. It will only take a few minutes. God forbid what if this bill passes and we look back and didn't even take 10 minutes to try and stop this?

3)Tell our friends, pass along the information to everyone--neighbors/friends in our address books etc...

4)Tell our patients--they need to know what is truly at stake.

5)Donate to organizations that are getting the word out---check out www.Dickmorris.com/.

Remember, if we say nothing- then our silence will be interpreted and used as tacit agreement.

This is not a single battle, this is a war. If we stop this this month, they will not go away. We have to wake up and protect our profession before it is taken from us.

Please forward this to as many people as you can. This may get voted on in September. Democrats are considering using Reconciliation--a special way to pass budget bills by using only 51 votes in the Senate instead of 60 to ram this pig of a bill through against the will of the people. We cannot stand by idly while our freedoms and liberties are being stripped away.

Tim Westlake

Something to think about

2009-07-29T06:10:00.000-07:00

This is an old column article written by Ben Stein. It is his last article that he wrote for his eonline column in 2003. It may be old but the words still ring true and need to be remembered.

Ben Stein's Last Column...

How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Star in Today's World?

As I begin to write this, I 'slug' it, as we writers say, which means I
put a heading on top of the document to identify it. This heading is
'eonline FINAL,' and it gives me a shiver to write it. I have been doing this
column for so long that I cannot even recall when I started...I loved
writing this column so much for so long I came to believe it would never
end.

It worked well for a long time, but gradually, my changing as a person
and the world's change have overtaken it. On a small scale, Morton's, while
better than ever, no longer attracts as many stars as it used to. It
still brings in the rich people in droves and definitely some stars. I saw
Samuel L. Jackson there a few days ago, and we had a nice visit, and right
before that, I saw and had a splendid talk with Warren Beatty in an elevator,
in which we agreed that Splendor in the Grass was a super movie. But
Morton's is not the star galaxy it once was, though it probably will be again.

Beyond that, a bigger change has happened..? I no longer think
Hollywood stars are terribly important. They are uniformly pleasant, friendly
people, and they treat me better than I deserve to be treated. But a man or
woman who makes a huge wage for memorizing lines and reciting them in front of
a camera is no longer my idea of a shining star we should all look up to.

How can a man or woman who makes an eight-figure wage and lives in
insane luxury really be a star in today's world, if by a 'star' we mean someone
bright and powerful and attractive as a role model? Real stars are not
riding around in the backs of limousines or in Porsches or getting
trained in yoga or Pilates and eating only raw fruit while they have Vietnamese
girls do their nails..

They can be interesting, nice people, but they are not heroes to me any
longer. A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who
poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit, Iraq. He could have been
met by a bomb or a hail of AK-47 bullets. Instead, he faced an abject
Saddam Hussein and the gratitude of all of the decent people of the world.

A real star is the U.S. soldier who was sent to disarm a bomb next to a
road north of Baghdad. He approached it, and the bomb went off and
killed him.

A real star, the kind who haunts my memory night and day, is the U.S.
soldier in Baghdad who saw a little girl playing with a piece of
unexploded ordnance on a street near where he was guarding a station. He pushed
her aside and threw himself on it just as it exploded. He left a family
desolate in California and a little girl alive in Baghdad.

The stars who deserve media attention are not the ones who have lavish
weddings on TV but the ones who patrol the streets of Mosuleven after
two of their buddies were murdered and their bodies battered and stripped
for the sin of trying to protect Iraqis from terrorists.

We put couples with incomes of $100 million a year on the covers of our
magazines...The noncoms and officers who barely scrape by on military
pay but stand on guard in Afghanistan and Iraq and on ships and in
submarines and near the Arctic Circle are anonymous as they live and die.

I am no longer comfortable being a part of the system that has such poor
values, and I do not want to perpetuate those values by pretending that
who is eating at Morton's is a big subject.

There are plenty of other stars in the American firmament...the
policemen and women who go off on patrol in South Central and have no idea if they
will return alive; the orderlies and paramedics who bring in people who
have been in terrible accidents and prepare them for surgery; the
teachers and nurses who throw their whole spirits into caring for autistic
children; the kind men and women who work in hospices and in cancer wards.

Think of each and every fireman who was running up the stairs at the
World Trade Center as the towers began to collapse. Now you have my idea of a
real hero.

I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that
matters This is my highest and best use as a human. I can put it
another way. Years ago, I realized I could never be as great an actor as Olivier
or as good a comic as Steve Martin or Martin Mull or Fred Willard--or as
good an economist as Samuelson or Friedman or as good a writer as Fitzgerald.
Or even remotely close to any of them.

But, I could be a devoted father to my son, husband to my wife and,
above all, a good son to the parents who had done so much for me. This came to
be my main task in life. I did it moderately well with my son, pretty well
with my wife and well indeed with my parents (with my sister's help). I
cared for and paid attention to them in their declining years. I stayed
with my father as he got sick, went into extremis and then into a coma
and then entered immortality with my sister and me reading him the Psalms.

This was the only point at which my life touched the lives of the
soldiers in Iraq or the firefighters in New York . I came to realize that life
lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it is my duty, in
return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to help others He
has placed in my path. This is my highest and best use as a human

Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will.

By Ben Stein

----------------
After reading the article it made me think of who are the youth of today idolizing. Are there heroes true "stars" or just actors?

Who are the heroes that are praised in your house?

HEROS

2009-07-21T07:06:00.001-07:00

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Way to go Suppan

2009-07-02T17:42:00.001-07:00

Just another reason to love our Brewer's

Suppan donates $10,000 for veterans Honor Flight
By Dan Benson of the Journal Sentinel

July 2, 2009 10:42 a.m. | Port Washington — Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Jeff Suppan has donated $10,000 toward the next Stars and Stripes Honor Flight, a Port Washington-based program that offers World War II veterans free one-day excursions to Washington, D.C., to visit their memorial and other sites.

Suppan's gift was made through Brewers Charities, an arm of the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Stars and Stripes Honor Flight has made three flights so far to the nation's capital since it was formed last year. So far, about 250 veterans have made the trip. The group, which is part of a national network, plans another flight on Sept. 26.

For more information on Stars and Stripes Honor Flight, call (262) 238-7740 or go online to www.starsandstripeshonorflight.org/">www.starsandstripeshonorflight.org.

2 Cool

2009-06-09T06:11:00.000-07:00

The Hurst Jaws of Life are just too cool and thanks to the guys at 5 alarm I had the opportunity to use them.

Thanks TWFD for the great training!

Happy Birthday

2009-05-30T14:27:00.001-07:00

Oh, Lizard tongue
Captain of drool
Today is the day
That you turn two.

I hope all your Frisbee dreams come true.

Sick child at home = Cabin Fever

2009-05-29T06:25:00.001-07:00

Seriously????

2009-05-28T05:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I picked up my son's first HFA inhaler. Here's how it went...

Pharmacist: Here's the new "environmental friendly" inhaler.

Me: Oh, you mean the one that doesn't work as well?

Pharmacist: That's the one.

Then comes the sticker shock. The old CFC type inhaler with the same exact "medicine" cost $5.00 the new and improved, save the ozone, inhaler cost $38.00. That's the co pay amount with insurance. The word on the street is that the old inhalers were 1/3 of the cost.

My question is how many CFC's were in the old inhalers? Rescue inhalers are for emergencies. Does a small amount of CFC's really matter if it is saving a trip to the ER and a life?

The problem with the HFA inhalers are that they clog and the propellant is not forceful enough to deliver the medicine effectively. So when your son is at soccer game and suddenly has an asthma attack and needs his inhaler.....you go to use it and it clogs. Delivering no medicine. Now you have two choices. 1-Get some warm water and soak the inhaler to unclog it or 2-go to the ER or call 911.

Well, it looks like the drug companies will be stuffing more green in their pockets and the hospitals will receive more clients all because we now have "green" inhalers.

Happy Memorial Day..... a little late

2009-05-27T11:44:00.000-07:00

I know this is late....but I just want to thank all the soldiers out there. I also want to thank all the families of the fallen soldiers and know that they will never be forgotten.

Matthew 25:40 (New International Version)

40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

This is the guy speaking for ALL of us????

2009-05-27T11:28:00.000-07:00

Go Rick Santelli

2009-02-19T11:24:00.000-08:00

HT: Silent E

Thank you Mr. President

2009-01-20T07:40:00.000-08:00

Thank you Mr. President for keeping me and my family safe. Thank you for standing up for what you believe in and not letting the press lead our country. I can not even fathom what state our country would be in if you were not in office on 9/11.

Thank you and God bless you and your family.

(Picture from The Anchoress)

The most Ugly Car Ever

2009-01-14T16:19:00.001-08:00

I was driving down the road when I spotted the below car. I thought it was so ugly....that I just had to take a picture.
BTW: I do not recommending driving and taking pictures on your iphone. This was taken at a stop light.

Kudos to the city of Franklin

2009-01-07T15:54:00.000-08:00

I'm giving a big kudos to the city of Franklin. They recently closed a bar for 90 days due to over serving a man who ended up killing a couple. You can read the full story here.

Wisconsin is way to lacked on drunken drivers and something needs to be done. Franklin is setting a standard for bars by making them accountable. I understand that ultimately it is the drunk who is responsible for his actions. However, holding establishments accountable for allowing their drunk customers to get behind the wheel only makes sense. If an establishment that serves alcohol does not want to be responsible for their customers they should forfeit their liquor license and sell some Sprecher root beer instead.

Surprise

2009-01-05T14:04:00.000-08:00

Did anyone see that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting? If you did are you just as surPRIZED as I am????? Oh ya....they are also increasing their rates for that "great" reporting.

If we had some global warming......

2009-01-01T14:51:00.000-08:00

I wouldn't be FREEZING!!!!!
This Wisconsinite seconds these two Minnesotans.

Wow!

2009-01-01T08:06:00.000-08:00

Over the last few days I have been watching my nice neighbors fish while she was out of town........and guess what she brought over...

Thank you neighbor!!!!!! And the boys thank you for the crash em' cars.

It's 2009

2009-01-01T06:07:00.000-08:00

This is the year that we will just need to learn to laugh....

And then we can say "I told you so"

Good Bye 2008.....Hello 2009.

2008-12-31T07:15:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year Everyone!

The Green Conservative

2008-12-29T19:32:00.000-08:00

This is an old post from Gord Gekko but it's still relevant and makes me feel less alone rather than a jumbo shrimp......

The Green Conservative

By Gord Gekko
web posted July 1996

Since its inception the environmentalist movement has been liberal. More disturbing is the fact that the activist segment in that movement is often times anti-capitalist, anti-property rights and prone to issuing alarmist calls to action spotlighting problems that do not exist.

It is no surprise then that the issues that fall under the environmentalist tent are those that conservatives find difficult to relate to or support. Indeed it is hard to support any agenda that relies on emotion over rationality, symbolism over substance.

Be that as it may, the environmentalist movement has done some good. We can credit them with showing us that our actions to have repercussions. They can be lauded for showing us that a healthier environment is to all our benefits. We can do this without buying into the extremist agendas of many of the movement's participants. More so, we can also put forward a conservative environmental agenda that is based on common sense, facts and market based solutions that work.

Our first task is to combat the extremists in the environmental movement. We all remember Paul Ehrlich's assertions that the world was doomed, that over-population, waste and depleted resources would effectively end humanity's reign on planet Earth by the 1980's. We've seen U.S. Vice-President Al Gore play the part with his Earth in the Balance and the major media has played into this doomsaying either by design or ignorance. Fact - The environment in North America is cleaner than any time in the past half-century. "All trends -- cancer rates, air and water quality, human health, acres of wooded lands, and a dozen other indicators of environmental quality in the U.S. -- show improvement, not decline." (Eco-Sanity, p. 9). The planet is not in a perfect state but it is not about to be destroyed by humanity. As the studies pointed out by Bast, Hill and Rue in Eco-Sanity show, food production is going up, oil reserves are constantly discovered, global warming is a no-show, nuclear power is safe, over-population is not a problem, etc. The doomsayers often use inaccurate information, poor models and emotion to create a case. Let's not let them get away with it. Learn the real facts.

We must also assert the case that only under capitalism can we protect the environment. A myriad of studies have conclusively proven that capitalist countries are cleaner, their citizens live longer and they provide incentives to keep it clean (such as property rights). Among the legacies of mass murder, a denial of the individual and a system of pure evil, communism has also left us the immense problem of environmental disaster. Decades of using out of-date-equipment, no environmental controls, and no property rights have left a huge clean-up project in waiting. There are literally thousands of sites all across Eastern Europe alone that point to a callous disregard for humanity. In contrast, the North American environment never approached this condition, and never could of, no matter what the doomsayers say.

Property rights are the greatest incentive for the protection of the environment, not governmental influence. "A market system uses transferable property rights to create incentives to do the right things. Property rights, in turn, consist of having control over the use of a resource. The owner of a resource stands to benefit if the resource is put to its best use. Conversely, the owner will suffer a loss if the resource is misused or squandered. And if the property right is transferable, then owners must consider not only the value they place on a resource, but also the values that others may place on it." (Eco-Sanity, p. 193).

Capitalism also rewards innovation. We live in a cleaner society, not because government mandated controls, but because individuals created solutions to common problems. It is a comforting myth for environmentalists to believe that corporations are evil entities intent on destroying the environment, but that is all it is, a myth. The people who own these companies are rightly in interested in making money, but they are also human beings who desire to live in a clean world. It is they who most often create the inventions that help clean up the world.

We must also stay away from the environmental organizations themselves. In the past they have relied on emotion, not facts. I've often believed that they are their own worst enemies. Instead of creating rational solutions to problems, they deal in campaigns that focus attention on high-profile (but minor) problems that capture public attention for a brief moment and are soon forgotten. Have you heard anything about the rain forest lately?

The movements themselves are also often times anti-capitalist. Their pro-Socialist/neo-Marxist 'solutions' rely on massive governmental intervention in the economy and environment. Many in the movement have argued that the free market and property rights must be chained to their agendas. Even more dangerous though, is the hidden layer of hatred towards man and industrial society.

Dr. Michael Berliner, Ph.D. Executive Director of the Ayn Rand Institute posited recently in his article Environmentalists: The New Life Haters, "The ideal world of environmentalists is not 20th century Western civilization; it is the Garden of Eden, a world with no human intervention in nature, a world without innovation or change...Had the environmentalist mentality prevailed in the 18th and 19th centuries, we would have had no Industrial Revolution, a situation environmentalists would cheer..."

Berliner explains, "The guiding principle of environmentalism is self-sacrifice, the sacrifice of longer lives, healthier lives, more prosperous lives, more enjoyable lives. But an individual is not born in servitude. He has a moral right to live his own life for his own sake. He has no duty to sacrifice the needs of others and certainly not the needs of the non-human."

While I doubt that most environmentalists know that this would be the end result of their belief system, it is a logical conclusion. As conservatives we have to make sure that we do not fall in with this group.

So what specific ideas should conservatives articulate? Here are some basic steps that should be advanced:

Conservatives should stress continuously the argument of private property. It is the most important principle that we should be fighting for. Owners of property and resources know best how to manage their individual cases. A government cannot set realistic standards for every person in their jurisdiction and their programs do not offer the incentive of private ownership.
Federal government regulation must be removed. We are all familiar with the cases of how regulations have created ludicrous situations for individuals and businesses all across North America. The costs of these regulations have eaten up enormous sums of money and created an atmosphere where the environment is in conflict with capitalism.. As Jonathan Adler points out, "Emphasizing economic costs sets up a dynamic that pits environmental protection against corporate profits, a debate that is difficult to win." (National Review, The GOP Goes Green, May 6, 1996.)
Emphasize that only free market capitalism provides incentives for a cleaner environment. Capitalist countries have the best living conditions and are cleaner than their less freer counterparts. If something is in the self-interest of a human being, then they will pursue it. And only an individual can decide what that is.
Combat the alarmists who preach crisis at every turn. They have an incredibly poor record and never recant. As Eco-Sanity points out, these alarmist campaigns are an excuse for fund-raising and little more. Greenpeace itself is merely an advertising vehicle for the environmental movement. They operate no preserves, protect no wild-life directly and yet they raise millions every year. The alarmist uses fear...we use common sense and facts.

The above suggestions are merely a general platform as specific recommendations have been made elsewhere. I hope though that I have made the point that you can be a conservative and be concerned with the environment. The conservative movement can capture the high ground in this debate if we remember to stress smaller government, more freedom of action and a cleaner environment. As long as we stress individual freedom and choice, we do not compromise conservative sensibilities.

A smart greenie. That has to make you smile :)

Winter Wonderland

2008-12-29T18:54:00.000-08:00

Who doesn't like sitting on top of snow banks?