Our favorite quotes say a lot about our world view. It probably has something to do with the fact that facebook and other social networking sites get us to list favorite quotes on our profiles. Right now, there are probably marketing analysts aggregating lists of personal profiles and their associated information, including favorite quotes, and sorting them into different columns of consumer groups. I'm one of those people that always fall into the trap of filling out all of that information, including favorite quotes, knowing that it's all going to be used against me by some cyber-hacking marketing analyst. My exhibitionist tendencies always seem to override my logical appreciation for propriety. It probably is the same reason I keep this blog, recklessly revealing any of the political career-damning thoughts that go through my head in the course of a day.
That said, my favorite quote has always been one of Henry David Thoreau, the one that states, "Man is rich in proportion to that which he can let alone." It's my favorite succinct summation of conservationism. The more land, water, and resources you just let alone, to abide by itself, naturally, the richer you will be in the end, with more of those resources to enjoy in the long run. Just let it be. Let it 'abide' as the Big Lebowski would say. The less we develop, the less we overfish, over harvest, overtil, over use in general, the more we'll all have in the end.
I would make one small adjustment to Thoreau's quote and say that "Mankind is rich in proportion to that which he can let alone." In our economy of unquestioned growth, individual man cannot see the benefit of stabilizing production, there are no personal benefits to leaving things alone. Only when acting together, can an entire population feel the added benefits of leaving things alone. It's that nasty old fallacy of the commons. Nobody is going to stop overuse voluntarily in a free market. There are no benefits to it, and really only consequences to a single person. However, when the population works together, then the overall benefit of conserving the commons can be realized. That's why we can't afford to have a smaller government when it comes to environmental policy and implementation. The smaller the governmental unit, the smaller the overall benefit of environmental regulation. When you look at the EPA of the last 40 years, since the bipartisan enactment of NEPA in 1970, conservationism has been under a constant barrage of special interests and political adversaries calling for deregulation of harmful chemicals, polluting industries, and anything else that deals with resource exploitation and land use. NEPA was enacted in the passionate wake of a 100,000-gallon oil spill in Santa Babara, California. The United Stgates just underwent a spill a couple magnitudes larger, but instead of making policy reform, we're stuck in a stalemate where the average constituent has a pretty poor understanding of what just happened. I think that sometimes we get stuck in the details. When we should be talking about the bottom line in the political arena, the media and populace gets stuck in the tidbits. One day we're talking about real policy reform, the next day the headline is what the president said about policy reform, the next day the headline is talking about what somebody said about what the president said. The next day we're hearing about who the person who was talking about the president used to be married to. The next day a volcano blows in Iceland, and the whole conversation changes. It's no wonder kids are experiencing higher levels of ADHD these days. There is so much useless information out there now, the whole country is ADHD. It's ridiculous. Of course the storms in the south are horrible and news worthy, and of course the Iceland volcano is news worthy because it will disrupt air traffic for a while, but really, give me a break, how many things can we deal with. Maybe there's some real good policy work going on right now, but from my point of view, I don't see how anything can get done when everybody cares about everything. Before internet and mass media, it seems that policy makers and constituents could focus on a couple issues about which they were passionate, but now, it's a crapshoot of a hundred different things that people are talking about, the most important of which depends on the most vehement buzz word uttered.
Well, I'm gonna refocus my passion and tell you I have two big qualms. Environmental policy is the first thing. Conservation now, or a cesspool of unknown chemicals, polluted streams, and eroding forests later. Barack, I love ya, but you haven't done much for the environment as far as I can see. There's only one environment, and now is the time to refocus as a nation on preserving it, 50 years after Rachel Carson spoke out. Secondly, could somebody explain to me what's so wrong about a flat tax? Are turbotax and other lobbies in charge, or can we just make it simple? Okay, republicans, we'll reduce the flat percentage for rich people too, done. Why is that so hard? I don't get it. I mean, seriously, I paid just as much into the system as other volunteer couples this year, but I got double the money back. Although I love rubbing it in their faces, the only difference was that I had a tax man to find loopholes and they didn't. That doesn't seem right, but it's going on with corporations and billionaires all the time and the middle class is getting screwed. Somebody, just explain this to me. I'm open to criticism.
Oh, and peanut butter m&ms at rest stops. That would also be nice…
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