HILARIOUS Randite Op-Ed On The Environmental Movement!

[hatrack]

Earth Day approaches, and with it a grave danger faces mankind. The danger is not from acid rain, global warming, smog, or the logging of rain forests, as environmentalists would have us believe. The danger to mankind is from environmentalism. The fundamental goal of environmentalism is not clean air and clean water; rather, it is the demolition of technological/industrial civilization. Environmentalism's goal is not the advancement of human health, human happiness, and human life; rather, it is a subhuman world where "nature" is worshipped like the totem of some primitive religion.

In a nation founded on the pioneer spirit, environmentalists have made "development" an evil word. They inhibit or prohibit the development of Alaskan oil, offshore drilling, nuclear power-and every other practical form of energy. Housing, commerce, and jobs are sacrificed to spotted owls and snail darters. Medical research is sacrificed to the "rights" of mice. Logging is sacrificed to the "rights" of trees. No instance of the progress that brought man out of the cave is safe from the onslaught of those "protecting" the environment from man, whom they consider a rapist and despoiler by his very essence.

Nature, they insist, has "intrinsic value," to be revered for its own sake, irrespective of any benefit to man. As a consequence, man is to be prohibited from using nature for his own ends. Since nature supposedly has value and goodness in itself, any human action that changes the environment is necessarily immoral. Of course, environmentalists invoke the doctrine of intrinsic value not against wolves that eat sheep or beavers that gnaw trees; they invoke it only against man, only when man wants something.

EDIT

To save mankind from environmentalism, what's needed is not the appeasing, compromising approach of those who urge a "balance" between the needs of man and the "needs" of the environment. To save mankind requires the wholesale rejection of environmentalism as hatred of science, technology, progress, and human life. To save mankind requires the return to a philosophy of reason and individualism, a philosophy that makes life on earth possible."

EDIT/END



Damn, I never knew I was THAT evil! ;-)

[girl gone mad]

1. That doesn't explain why...

most scientists are environmentalists.

Environmentalism is not anti-science, just the opposite. And, it's not anti-technology, since many recent technological advances in energy production have been prompted by environmental concerns.

It's the polluters that are anti-science, anti-technology and anti-progress with their stubborn denial of hard scientific data, and staunch refusal to modernize.

[Viking12]

2. Sounds a lot like the crap Crichton was spewing

I guess I am an evil human hater too :)


On edit: Hey it looks like this guy might be salvagable. After all he did recycle this article from last year (and probably the year before).

http://www.aim.org/publications/guest_columns/berliner/2003/apr17.html

[DarkPhenyx]

3. Fucking moron.

That's all I have to say on the subject.

[smada]

4. What I would like to know

is what is wrong with preserving green spaces for the sake of aesthetics? Is it too much to ask that we have beautiful natural settings in some places? Does everywhere need to be covered in asphalt, concrete, and guady signage?

I'd like to know why the old two lane country road I take to work had to be widened into a four lane highway, in the process cutting down beautiful old trees that provided relaxing shade and a home for all sorts of deer, squirrel, and birds, which were ubiquitous previously and have now been driven off. It has been replaced by ugly steel utility poles and wires, and 60 foot wide swaths of asphalt.

I would like to know why this was necessary especially since there is another four lane road feeding into this same area less than a mile away and an interstate highway right next to that. Was this destruction of peaceful and beautiful green space really needed or did the road builders union press the governor to give them something to do?

It makes me sick. I wish it could be undone and returned to the way it was.

[minkyboodle]

5. wait for the Columbus day articles

They recycle both of these diatribes each year. I wish every young upper middle class college kid who thinks Ayn Rand is "soo amazing" could see the logical extension of her bullshit hackneyed philosophy. Ahh the evils of environmentalism and multiculturalism.... John Galt is shitting his drawers as we speak... Did I mention I hate Randroids :)
Scott

[blindpig]

6. fools & shills

may Rand & co rot in hell. They are deluded apologist for the greedy rich, nothing else.

[ldoolin]

7. Randroids. Ugh.

Wackiest political cult this side of the dark side of the moon. As bad as the LaRouchies.

Why do so many high school and college kids get so briefly infatuated with her pre-juvenile "philosophy" after reading one of her long-winded tomes while listening to too much Rush?

[hatrack]

9. Are you talking about the Canadian rock trio?

Or the bloviating King Turd gasbag of the AM airwaves.

The former I could take - at least Neal Peart is a really good drummer!

[ldoolin]

10. The Canadian rock trio

Musically very good, but lyrically whacked. Neal Peart was very heavily into Ayn Rand.

[hatrack]

11. Wow, had no idea!

Then again, who the hell listens to Rush for the lyrics anyway?

[ldoolin]

12. Well, back when I was 13 years old and...

obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons, and Douglas Adams books, and first discovered Rush (the band), I thought I had stumbled onto something *really* profound and intellectual:

Know your place in life is where you want to be,
Don't let them tell you that you owe it all to me.
Keep on looking forward; no use in looking 'round;
Hold your head above the crowd and they won't bring you down.
Anthem of the heart and anthem of the mind
A funeral dirge for eyes gone blind
We marvel after those who sought
The wonders of the world, wonders of the world
Live for yourself -- there's no one else
More worth living for
Begging hands and bleeding hearts will only cry out for more
Well, I know they've always told you
Selfishness was wrong
Yet it was for me, not you, I came to write this song

"Freewill", "The Trees", "Something for Nothing", "2112", "New World Man", and a bunch of other Rush songs are straight out of Rand too. I think they finally ditched their interest in Rand around the time of "The Big Money".

Fortunately I didn't stumble onto Ayn Rand until much later, and was able to write her "philosophy" off as the BS that it is after slogging through one of her tomes, but I suspect there are a lot of people who discover her during their teenage years, maybe in some cases because somebody told them that their favorite band was into her books, and became instant Randroids for about a year.

Most people outgrow that phase, thankfully.

[NNadir]

8. It's interesting to note that Alan Greenspan was a Randy accolyte.

This is a particularly appalling religion, Randism.