Robert Kennedy Jr. is an Eco-Idiot
The environment is the most important, the most fundamental, civil-rights issue.Right off the bat in a Working for Change interview, we get a pantsload of crap. It doesn't get any nicer as we move along.
The environmental movement is a struggle over the control of the commons -- the publicly owned resources, the things that cannot be reduced to private property -- the air, the water, the wandering animals, the public land, the wildlife, the fisheries. The things that from the beginning of time have always been part of the public trust.These things can't be "reduced" to private property? I disagree. Want to know why it can be hard to do so these days? Because asshat collectivists keep nationalizing the damn things! They, through the political process, stake a claim on the environment as if THEY owned it, in direct contradiction to their assertion "the people" own such things.
Environmentalism didn't begin on Earth Day. It's been recognized for thousands of years as a basic human right.So was slavery. So what?
If you were a citizen of Rome, you had an absolute right to cross a beach to catch a fish. The emperor himself couldn't stop you.That's better than it is these days, when the emperors themselves don't allow us to cross any beach we want to fish. Of course, the better plan is to allow private property to flourish along the beaches so the owners can decide for themselves who can fish off their land and who can't.
In England, in the 13th century, they had a clean air act. It was illegal to burn coal in London. It was a capital crime and people were executed for it.Probably warms the hearts of ecoterrorists everywhere. With awful laws like that on the books, its no wonder it took so long for people to accomplish any economic progress.
When Roman law broke down in Europe during the Dark Ages, a lot of the feudal kings began reasserting control over the public-trust resources. For example, in England, King John began selling monopolies to the fisheries and he said the deer belonged to nobility. The public rose up and confronted him at the Battle of Runnymede and forced him to sign the Magna Carta, which of course was the beginning of constitutional government. In addition to having virtually all of our Bill of Rights, the Magna Carta has two other chapters on free access to fisheries in navigable waters. And those rights descended to the people in the States when we had the revolution. And virtually every state constitution says the people of the state own the waters and the fisheries, the wildlife, the air. They're not owned by the governor, the legislature, the corporations. Nobody has a right to use them in a way that will diminish or injure their use and enjoyment by others.[...]
Really all environmental injury is an assault on democracy, because the most important measure of how a democracy is functioning is how it distributes the goods of the land, the commons. Democracy must ensure that the public-trust assets stay within the hands of the people.
I simply cannot understand the thinking behind this. Assuming I'm one of "the people" and assuming Mr. Kennedy really means "the people own" some aspect of nature (say, a stretch of beach), then why is it illegal to camp on that beach when I want? Ownership implies the right to use the property as one sees fit. I'm apparently an owner of:
- 507 million acres of United States surface land
- 476 dams and 348 reservoirs
- 1.76 billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf
- 3,300 recreational sites
I've never claimed these resources and I've barely been near perhaps 0.0000000001% of them. I certianly haven't bought these things from anyone. Yet, according to enviros, I'm a joint owner in them...along with 300 million other Americans who also can't exercise ownership over them. Well, that's not entirely true. Because Mr. Kennedy is lying in the above quote. The government owns the resources and who is the government? The mayor/governor/president, city council/state legislature/Congress, and the various executive agencies. "The people" are not the government. It has final say over what happens with these resources and it simply doesn't matter that we can elect the people who either run these things or who pick the bureaucrats who do. The day-to-day control is in their hands, not ours.
It's the political system that allows corporations to have so much influence in the political process. We've got to get the money out of politics. It's overwhelming the Democratic process. Campaign finance reform is hands-down the most important environmental bill.
There is only one way to consistently satisfy what he wants: publicly-funded elections. Anything less represents private money financing political candidates in order to influence electoral outcomes. You can't do this without the state getting the money to pay for the campaigns...and where exactly would that come from? Then there's the problem of who the money is spent on: the media. If they charge prices higher than the campaigns can afford, then what? Do we force the media to offer free coverage or impose price caps on ad prices for political campaigns? Naw. We'll probably just restrict all political advertising to NPR.
Here is the crowning hypocrisy:
Grist: So is the culprit free-market capitalism?Kennedy: No! The best thing that could happen to the environment is free-market capitalism. In a true free-market economy, you can't make yourself rich without making your neighbors rich and without enriching your community. In a true free-market economy, you get efficiencies and efficiency means the elimination of waste. Waste is pollution. So in true free-market capitalism, you eliminate pollution and you properly value our natural resources so you won't cut them down. What polluters do is escape the discipline of the free market. You show me a polluter, I'll show you a subsidy -- a fat cat who's using political clout to escape the discipline of the free market.
Ye gods, he's almost sounding rational...
Grist: So you're saying free-market economies have to be controlled by regulations and strong central government?Laissez-faire capitalism does not work, particularly in the commons. Individuals pursuing their own self-interest will devour the commons very quickly. That's the economic law -- the tragedy of the commons. You have to force companies to internalize costs. All of the federal environmental laws are designed to restore free-market capitalism in America in this regard.
[...]
I don't even consider myself an environmentalist anymore. I'm a free-marketeer. I go out into the marketplace and I catch the polluters who are cheating the free market and I say, "We are going to force you to internalize your costs the same way you are internalizing your profit." That's what the federal environmental laws allow us to do: restore real property rights in America.
(c) 2004, grist magazine
I give up. The man has no idea what he's talking about. Read the rest if you can handle it.
Comments
I'm not sure what this babble is about. You disavow the work of Robert Kennedy because he doesn't like mercury-polluters polluting the environment.
Can you clarify your meaning when referring to slavery?
"It's been recognized for thousands of years as a basic human right....So was slavery. So what?"
Are you saying that slavery is a basic human right? Or are you saying that slavery has been around for a long time?
And in legal definitions, these public resources are designated as such and protected in the interests of the public at large.
Posted by: Gus | August 2, 2004 10:06 PM
Gus, my reference to slavery was meant to show Mr. Kennedy's argument was bogus. A statement gets no extra validity simply because certain humans generally agree on something. For many centuries, a significant number of people believed they had the right to own slaves. Even more believed the sun revolved around the Earth. The number of people who believe in something and the length of that belief are irrelevant to the validity of that belief.
I'm aware there is a whole body of law intended to protect the lands designated as public. That doesn't make the laws right. Please re-read what I wrote regarding "public ownership" and why I think it's bogus as well. I'm one of "the people" and yet my say in what happens to public lands is weak, to put it politely. What happens on them is generally contrary to what I'd like to happen on them...so how is public management of these resources in my interest when I know what's best for my interest?
Posted by: Drizz | August 3, 2004 08:25 AM
Sounds like you are the real idiot, Drizz. Why don't you read CRIMES AGAINST NATURE? Not that it would have the slightest influence on a dullard like you.
Posted by: Rick | August 7, 2004 10:47 PM
Rick, if you think that by insulting me and referring me to a book you've somehow gained the upper argumentative hand, I suggest you try again. Come back later when you have the will to debate what I've written and not what you assume I believe.
Posted by: Drizz | August 9, 2004 09:03 AM
Take an Ecology class. Maybe a year of Biology, an ecology class and a biological survey class. Biological zones don't exist within the confines or human-defined limits of someone's private property. If Lousiana power companies emit NOx then the resulting ozone travels to Dallas and Corpus Cristi. You are showing your ignorance of biological principles unfortunately.
Posted by: conf. | September 1, 2004 04:44 PM
I don't deny pollution exists. I reject the idea that only the government can help recoup the damages caused by pollution or can help prevent pollution.
Posted by: Drizz | September 1, 2004 04:56 PM
Drizz needs to read more history, acquire a few facts and recognize the real path of how the major problems of society are addressed. I'm a rebublican and still recognize this page as juvenille, deserving no more of my time. Ciao.
Posted by: wes | September 5, 2004 06:05 AM
Hey wes, how about you don't even bother putting your thoughts to my page if all you say amounts to, "Duh, I think ur wrong u stoopid try again with facts an' stuff." Why bother commenting in the first place?
What the hell, readers? Can't anyone honestly counter what I've written or will it all just be along the same grade school lines? Gus has been the only decent participant so far.
Posted by: Drizz | September 7, 2004 12:52 PM
look this is really not rocket science it is accounting or cause and affect. In so many endeavors people just want the benefit with out having to attend to the costs.
When you go to the bank to conduct business you must show the bank your liabilities along with the assets or they will refuse to do business wiht you.
Pollution is the liability for the product or asset and we have governments and laws to balance the books so to speak because unfortunately to many individuals or collections of individuals that form businesses and corporations try to reap the benefits without being accountable to the liability of that benefit.
Instead they leave a mess behind for someone else to clean up.
To Drizz it is not just governments that clean up other peoples messes there are also a lot of individuals and non-profit groups that work hard at their own expense to try and fix the problems but sometime they are to big and require government assist.
Joe
Posted by: joe | September 30, 2004 01:09 AM
Joe, as in Joe LaBonte, right? Nice to meet you. The Human Party is something I wasn't aware of. I'll have to examine the platform in detail in the future.
You see pollution as an externality, I take it. I don't think the analogy to a liability is correct, though. In business terms, a liability is really something that you owe someone on the basis of prior agreement. In moral terms, it's a debt that needs to be repaid due to harm inflicted. It makes more sense to use the moral version in this argument since it seems you believe businesses have a positive obligation to the community around them to operate cleanly. If a negative externality is a cost imposed on those who have not participated in an economic transaction, you think there should be laws, regulations, and taxes to "rebalance" the system, so to speak? To forcibly "internalize" the external costs imposed upon the community by the business?
Well, I disagree. You don't need a government to have cleanly operating businesses, you don't need a government for the surrounding community to constructively interact with a business that emits dangerous substances as a byproduct of its operations, and you don't need the force of government to address the problems of pollution.
I think it's great there are private organizations that wish to clean up the environment and negotiate with businesses to reach compromise regarding the health, quantity, and nature of their industrial byproducts. But again, you don't need the state to step in and do any of the heavy lifting.
I reject all these ideas on the basis of private property rights. Any act should first be judged on the grounds of whether or not it violates an individual's rights; i.e., whether it constitutes the initiation of aggression/damage against their person or their property. If a homeowner living next to a chemical factory sees his landscaping job dying due to compounds released from the factory, then that person has a legitimate claim to make against the factory for damaging his property. Similarly, if the homeowner's daughter develops a lung disease that can be traced to the output of the factory, a legitimate claim can be made against the owners of the factory. Demonstrable harm has occurred and the people owning and/or operating the factory are liable for that harm.
I don't have time to elaborate this further, since I'm at work, but I strongly suggest interested parties read the following paper:
"Why Externalities Are Not a Case of Market Failure" http://www.mises.org/asc/2003/asc9simpson.pdf
Feel free to comment if you want.
Posted by: Drizz | September 30, 2004 09:29 AM