Energy: Release the Market!

 I'm not for or against any particular kind of energy. We need it all.

I do, however, oppose any subsidies or penalties for any kind of energy.

Petroleum, for instance, gets a gigantic "gunboat subsidy" -- American warships and troops protecting the Suez Canal, and so on. Our ring of bases along the borders of Russia, Iran, and China is likewise a subsidy -- intended to secure oil supplies to us and our "allies". On the other hand, petrol also has numerous penalties. For instance, auto emissions are now so insane that what comes out of a new car's tailpipe is cleaner than the average sample of ambient air. That's just dumb. Petrol supplies in the US are increasingly at risk because it's now almost impossible to build or expand refining or storage capacity, due to ever-tightening zoning and environmental laws . Refineries are aging and locked into footprints they can't grow out of; ensuring more maintenance failures into the future.

Wind energy likewise gets both subsidies and penalties.  At the same time energy companies are heavily subsidized to bring more wind energy online, turbines don't last forever and the increasing number of decommissioned turbines fills up gigantic landfills fast. American laws have virtually shut down mining for the precious metals wind energy needs, so we're shipping vast amounts of wealth to China to supply our expanding demand for those materials.

Nuclear has the same dynamic going on. The Price-Anderson act is a massive subsidy to nuclear energy. There are no insurance companies that are currently willing to cover the damages nuclear plants can cause -- witness the inability of even the Japanese government to be able to fully pay for the damage caused by just ONE Fukashima. Plus, the cost of burying (or storing) spent nuclear waste is huge -- and energy companies are largely excused from paying for it. Instead, governments do.

Get rid of all of the subsidies and penalties for all forms of energy, and allow the market to sort out which one is the safest and most efficient.

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Vote Libertarian * 800-ELECT-US * http://www.LP.org
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Written by Marc Montoni <AMCAmbassador@gmail.com>, April 2021.  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Montoni For Mesa County - Survey Answers for CRV

Colorado Candidates: I don't know how many of you are answering candidate questionnaires from groups that typically oppose Libertarian or non-government solutions, but I answered the rather long survey from Colorado Rural Voters.

My answers were rather long, too --there wasn't a text limit in the entry boxes, and I saw no notice that they preferred <100 words until I got to the confirmation screen.

Oh, well.

In any case, Colorado Rural Voters would be better named "Colorado Gimme Your Money and Rights Voters" -- look at their wish list on their main page.

Some of those wishes might sound good upon first blush to Libertarians.  But the tyrannical reality is how they want to implement them.

Anyway, most of my answers on their survey questions were copypasta from things I'd written earlier (in one case I copied something I wrote in 1999).  While some would quip that only proves I'm a closed-minded jerk, what I believe it means is that the takers are making the same arguments and coveting the same rights and property in 2020 as they were in 1999.

And in 1899.

Here is the actual survey.

Jeriel Clark is the contact person for this thing.  I have not looked into who funds this "nonpartisan" group (nonpartisan my ass).   If I remember correctly, before this she was a paid staffer for another group that was trying to saddle up the taxpayers of Grand Junction and every other municipality in Mesa (including the county itself) and take them for a sweaty ride on a massive debt load for a city-owned gym/fitness/pool/recreation center.   It is my fading memory that she was the person who came before the Mesa Libertarians and did a presentation for the gym.

I'm in the wrong business.  It apparently pays to be a leftist activist.

But getting on with the story, here is how I answered their survey:

New College Major: "Useless Studies"

You know what those "_________ Studies" college major courses are?

They don't exist because they impart any useful skills for the demands of life after graduation.  Unless of course you can figure out a way to make ginned-up outrage into a paying occupation.

They exist for two reasons:

1) To enable the institution to meet hiring and student quotas. They serve perfectly to meet the ever-multiplying affirmative action laws and regulations (both in the faculty and student populations).

and,

2) To revenue farm, because universities are among the largest of our society's welfare queens (roughly a $100 billion cash sink at the federal level, a similar amount comes from states and localities). Think about it: Weak faculty members, and weak students, were once a market universities were neither interested in nor were they a market the university was able to tap.

Enter federal and state welfare (as well as donors who wanted to do a bit of cash virtue signaling). Now that the tap was turned on, administrators have become dependent upon the growth lathered on by debt-addled students who could never get into a rigorous program, hence never get into university.

And now we're going to "free" college for everyone.

Keep it up, y'all. Break that bank.

The sooner the country goes bankrupt, the sooner you'll crash the entire scam.

A Libertarian Response to The Fat-State Address by Jared Polis, 2019

In his first "state of the state" address, new Colorado governor Jared Polis proved something: Namely, he is just another in a long line of tax-spend-regulate-subsidize-suppress-penalize political hacks who think they have any moral right to govern the affairs of private individuals.

Libertarians in Colorado listened, where we could stay awake, to Polis' comments with same understanding we have had with every other new governor:

• Taxes will go up
• Spending will fatten
• Regulations will suppress more and more entrepreneurs
• More individual rights will be trampled upon
• Transparency will fade further
• More citizens will be killed by police enforcing ever more new laws
• The war on the recreational choices of individuals will rage on and expand
• Health care will be further taken over by the state
• Bureaucrats will expand their drive to choose economic winners and losers
• Colorado will continue to become the exclusive playground of the upper classes

In short, Polis will do all of the same things that every other governor has done.

Some Libertarian reactions to Polis' fat-state policy desires:

THE ECONOMY

POLIS: "Our economy is strong. From agriculture and outdoor recreation to aerospace, bioscience, energy, and cannabis, we've watched industries succeed and create jobs."

LIBERTARIANS: Meanwhile, the political class, including Polis, have endeavored mightily to destroy and marginalize industries they don't like, ruining the jobs those sectors supported.

Libertarians call for a free, unfettered market economy and elimination of regulations that stifle growth and eliminate hobs.

BIPARTISANSHIP

POLIS: "We've become a model for how we can put politics aside and work together."

LIBERTARIANS: That's what everyone is afraid of.  Thinking individuals know that whenever politicians agree with one another, your right, liberties, and property are at risk.  Gridlock preserves liberty to some degree.

The only reason that statesmen should put aside differences and work together is to repeal and eliminate the Byzantine layers of law and bureaucracy in Colorado.  The state code could be halved, and no one would die and everyone would benefit.

THE POOR AND MARGINALIZED

POLIS: "Despite all of our progress, far too many people are either barely getting by, or falling behind."

LIBERTARIANS: Well, when you increase the tax and regulatory load on taxpayers, some of them break and can no longer keep up.

The cure for that is to eliminate the load on the taxpayer by eliminating taxes.

BROADBAND INTERNET

POLIS: Seeks local government takeover of broadband internet.

LIBERTARIANS: Competing with the private sector is never a good idea.

And what happens when "communities" decide they can disconnect or deplatform individuals or groups who wish to freely exercise their right to freedom of speech or religion?

It's bad enough that private-sector entities sometimes refuse to allow uncensored speech (much of that so-called "private sector" censorship, by the way, is driven by government pressure).

It will be much worse if there is only the government monopoly provider and no other outlet for free speech.  And cost per user will skyrocket, same as with everything else bureaucrats take over.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM

POLIS: "We [must] address the inequities in our criminal justice system. That means tackling discriminatory practices that make people of color, individuals living with mental illness, and Coloradans experiencing poverty more likely to face incarceration. And it means working to make sure Coloradans who do serve prison or jail time are able to live a dignified and fulfilling life after they've paid their debt to society."

LIBERTARIANS: The biggest single issue looming over criminal justice is the number of nonviolent drug offenders who go through the system.

Libertarians suggest the one reform that would eliminate much of the injustice of our current syustem is to fully decriminalize all victimless crimes, including all recreational drugs, sex work, and gambling.  It's time to end our national experiment with the Progressive Era's national socialist legacy of Prohibition.  Prohibition has been a disaster, costly in both human lives and in expense.  It has decimated several generations of young men in minority communities -- which were revenue-farming targets for law enforcement for decades prior to Prohibition.

Private, consensual behavior is none of the government's business. 

Ending state prosecution of drug and other victimless offenses will eliminate the need for many drug warrior jobs, allowing government employed individuals currently fighting that utterly unwinnable war to seek productive work in the wealth-producing private sector.

EARLY CHILDHOOD INDOCTRINATION

POLIS: "[We will introduce] state-funded early childhood education."

LIBERTARIANS: Hasn't government done enough to our children?  In Colorado the average public school spends a little over $10,000 for each child already, and the results are sub-par.  Meanwhile, homeschoolers and private schools continue to outstrip their government indoctrination centers' results.  The real reason for the push to get kids into the government's indoctrination system earlier and earlier is... well, to increase the amount of time the state has to indoctrinate.

The same kind of bureaucrats who can't seem to deliver mail or keep violent criminals locked up should not be trusted around children.

PARENTAL LEAVE

LIBERTARIANS: Polis' budget package coming up on the 15th includes a formal request to provide paid parental leave for all state employees.

He also wants to force the private sector to establish a paid family and medical leave program.

So he's going to make it more expensive for the private sector to pay their own employees, and then he's going make sure they pay for his patronage of Colorado bureaucrats too.

Where does he think that money is going to come from?

Libertarians call for government to stop regulating everything in life.  Whether one's employer provides leave or not is a private matter that should be left to negotiation by employers and employees.

As for leave for government employees, it would cost a lot less if government employees simply left.

HEALTH CARE

POLIS: Wants to lower "the outrageous cost of health care".

LIBERTARIANS: The only way to do that is to get the fickle fingers of bureaucrats completely out of the health care pie.  A good start would be to eliminate the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment, end all government funding of or subsidies to the health care industry, and begin eliminating state licensure so that private certification can take over.Perhaps the most laughable of Polis' demands is his proposed "Office of Saving People Money on Health Care".

Maybe this will buck the trend of government agencies being created for a purpose but then having the exact opposite effect in reality (and growing to gargantuan proportions in the process), but that's probably a pipe dream.

PRESCRIPTION DRUG COSTS

POLIS: Wants to "address the appalling costs of prescription drugs", and cites the factoid that "Canada has the same drugs from the same manufacturing plants that we have here in the United States; but often at one-half, one-third, yes, even one-quarter of the cost."

LIBERTARIANS: And the reason for that is Canada's government lets those manufacturers sell their drugs there only at the prices the government sets -- edicts which do not take into account drug development costs.  So when Colorado and other states start buying drugs from Canada and elsewhere at regulated prices, and re-importing them here, expect the pipeline of new life-saving drugs to start drying up.

Polis is just like every other politician in that respect: They are too shallow and ignorant to look for the real reasons why things are the way they are.

ENVIRONMENT, CLIMATE DEBATE, GREEN ENERGY

POLIS: Wants "good-paying jobs in the clean-energy sector that can never be outsourced."

LIBERTARIANS: This is an example of politicians thinking they have any moral right, or the authority, to pick winners and losers.

What the green energy sector needs is for the government to get completely out of meddling in any kind of energy -- green or not.  Eliminate the subsidies, eliminate the penalties, and protect property rights, and the markets will gravitate towards clean energy just fine and without government help.Perhaps the most ironic part of Polis' state of the state speech was his twin arguments for spending billions and writing impossible-to-comply-with regulations to mitigate climate change, and forcing a changeover to electric vehicles on the one hand, but then building more and bigger highways.

If Polis really wishes to reduce emissions, then he should be working towards eliminating land-use regulation by localities that force builders to spread out developments further and further away from city centers.  He should also be looking at privatizing infrastructure so that users pay the full cost of building and maintaining it.

In the meantime, one of the methods Polis and populist politicians like him use to "help" get electric vehicles into use is by penalizing the use of fossil fuels.  Libertarians suggest instead getting government out of the way: Don't subsidize or penalize **any** form of energy.

It is also ironic that Polis cited the all-solar coffee shop and windmill plant in his address.  Politicians like Polis, by making mining the minerals needed to build windmills, solar panels, and other tech either impossible or costly.  Which means that mining such minerals goes overseas, where slave and child labor is used and where environmental oversight is lax or nonexistent.

Polis says he wants to "help" businesses of all kinds start, grow, thrive, and create good-paying jobs.  Once again, this means he will attempt to pick economic winners and losers, when the only thing he needs to do is to get government out of the way by eliminating taxes, fees, licenses, permits, and regulations.  This is clearly not what he intends.  He wants to protect the "right" of communities:

"to have a voice when it comes to industrial activities within their borders. It's time for us to take meaningful action to address the conflicts between oil-and-gas drilling operations and the neighborhoods they impact, and to make sure that all of our communities have clean air and water."

"Communities" don't have rights.  Governments don't have rights.  Only individuals do, and only by protecting the right of individuals to do what they wish with their own honestly-acquired property will liberty be preserved.  If a company damages neighboring properties, the solution is to allow those damages to be addressed in court.

STATE INCOME TAXES; TAX CODE

POLIS: Wants to "make our tax code more fair, so that we can reduce rates for Colorado families and small businesses. Our tax code gives too much power to the special interests who can afford expensive lobbyists, while forcing ordinary families to pay more. As legislators, I know that many of you find these tax giveaways offensive."

LIBERTARIANS:  Again, this is because previous iterations of Polis have tried to pick winners and losers using the tax code.  Rather than continuing to trifle with who gets the better deal at tax time, the Libertarian Party suggests making all taxpayers the winners by eliminating taxes for all and allowing the private sector to provide better services at lower cost -- and without the free rider problem.

Polis referred to alleged "tax breaks" for this or that group as "tax expenditures".  In other words he assumes every penny of your money actually belongs to government, and if the government deems you worthy of keeping some of it, that's "spending" by the government.  That is a disease just about every politician suffers from.  A name for it might be "Grabitis".

Libertarians think you and everyone else in the private sector own every penny you have earned, saved, and invested; while the leeches of government should not expect a penny.

So yes, Jared -- let's modify the tax code.

By eliminating it.

SALES TAXES, OTHER TAXES

POLIS: "90 percent of the retailers in our state are small businesses. It's time to cap the vendor fee, which is a giveaway to the largest and most profitable retailers in the nation, and use the savings to lower rates, which will benefit small businesses and millions of working Coloradans."

LIBERTARIANS: Again, Polis wants to use the tax code to pick winners and losers.  But the only way to level the playing field is to abolish the vendor fee (tax) altogether.

POLIS: Wants to implement "true tax reform that reduces taxes for hardworking Coloradans instead of giving breaks to special interests while forcing families to pay more."

Families pay all taxes.  No corporation pays one cent of tax -- because taxes for corporations are just one more expense of doing business.  If you buy a loaf of bread one day for $1.00, and the next day a new $1.00 per loaf tax takes effect, that family will then have to pay $2.00 for the same loaf of bread.

Libertarians want an "economy where Coloradans from all walks of life don't just get by, but thrive," same as Polis said he wants.

But the difference between Polis and Libertarians is Polis wants you to believe he can wave his wand and do that by saddling Coloradans with higher taxes and more regulation; while Libertarians would eliminate barriers to producing wealth and improving one's lot in life.

MAKING THE STATE "WORK BETTER FOR ALL"

POLIS: He says he "will work tirelessly to make our state work better for you - so that you can earn a good living and share in our special way of life. And I know that this Legislature will do the same, because every single one of us wants to see every single Coloradoan succeed. A Colorado for all."

LIBERTARIANS: What he doesn't say:

• Except oil workers, whose industry is slowly being restricted into oblivion.
• Except the poor, who are being displaced rapidly from their homes due to escalating real estate taxes.
• Except gun owners, who are being threatened with confiscation.
• Except for antique car hobbyists, who are being regulated and harassed out of working on their own cars.
• Except for Republicans, Libertarians, Constitutionalists, and other political minorities.
• Except for the victims of police shootings and beatings.
• Except for those who believe Freedom of Association is an inalienable right.
• Except for those who say unpopular things.
• Except for people in alternative relationships, like polyamory.
• Except for singles.

Polis asked a few rhetorical questions.

Which, unfortunately for him, are easy to answer.

POLIS: "Will our ideas be good for Colorado?"

LIBERTARIANS: Nope.  His ideas will mean more job security for bureaucrats, and more looting from taxpayers.

POLIS: "Will they reduce health care costs?"

LIBERTARIANS: No.  Polis' "solution" for health-care costs are no different than any other worshiper of state meddling.  They will increase costs and make the health-care system even more difficult for patients to navigate.

POLIS: "Will they improve our schools and help our kids get a strong start?"

LIBERTARIANS: No.  Schools will continue to deteriorate and leave students further behind homeschoolers, private schools, and the rest of the world.

POLIS: "We all agree that every child deserves a great education, so let's start there."LP: Excellent idea.  A terrific start would be to begin transitioning government indioctrination centers by selling them to parents.

POLIS: [Detailed a long laundry lists of things he wants to burp forth using other people's money.]

LIBERTARIANS: Sigh.

In summary, Polis is just another in a long line of tax-spend-regulate-subsidize-suppress-penalize political hacks who think they have any moral right to govern the affairs of private individuals.

Libertarians suggest an alternative to politics-as-usual:

• Get government out of the way.
• Eliminate taxes.
• Stop allowing localities within the state to violate individual rights; including property rights.
• Slash spending.
• Eliminate government jobs.
• Abolish regulation.
• Repeal all all unconstitutional regulation of freedom of speech, conscience, religion, expression, and Freedom of Association.
• Privatize government functions.
• Allow the private sector to work.
• Leave people free to improve their own station in life, and don't penalize them for doing so.
• Get government out of education.
• Cease all regulation of private, consensual behavior.
• Eliminate all state laws that compromise citizens' rights as protected by the Bill of Rights; particularly the 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments.

And leave us the hell alone.

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Vote Libertarian * 800-ELECT-US * http://www.LP.org
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Written by Marc Montoni <AMCAmbassador@gmail.com>, January, 2019.  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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For more information about the Radical Caucus, see www.LPRadicalCaucus.org or see the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2497146127/  .
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Bootlickers Want YOU Out of Your Car

Eric Peters, a car enthusiast in Virginia, wrote on Sept 7, 2018, about something that's been gnawing at me too:

The average cost for insurance for a new teen driver is now north of $250 per month.

How is he supposed to get a car – or afford gas – when he is obliged to pony up $250 each month to the insurance mafia? ... How is a teenage kid working a minimum wage/part-time gig supposed to deal with it?

Faced with this extortion – and that’s exactly the right word; there’s no choice about paying the $250 per month, if the kid wants to drive legally – many simply opt out. A record-high percentage of 16-25-year-olds haven’t even got a driver’s license and forget the car. They stay home instead, game and text. When they need to get somewhere, they ride share or Uber or something that doesn’t require them to spend a minimum of 20-25 hours working at minimum wage (currently $10.50 er hour) gig hauling pizzas or some such just to tithe the mafia.... More and more of them just don’t care about cars – or driving.

Mission accomplished.

One way to get people out of cars – an agenda that has existed since at least the early ’70s in furtive “urban planning” circles but which has become aggressively obvious in recent years – is to make sure they never get into them. And the easiest way to do that is to make driving prohibitively and unavoidably expensive for new drivers especially. If they never learn to drive, they’ll never miss not driving.

I agree with Eric Peters that the dramatic increases in the cost of insuring new drivers is INTENTIONAL on the part of bureaucrats. It is government policy that allows insurance companies to do this. Just one of those policies is mandatory insurance -- which is nothing more than a massive subsidy to rent-seeking insurance companies.

It's many times more expensive to repair accident-damaged cars now than it was at the peak of Car Culture USA. That is again a direct result of federal policy: Cars must be built to federal standards, rather than customer standards. So what might have been a fender, hood, and grille replacement in 1968, now requires dozens of large and small parts, each one engineered to comply with federal crash standards, air bag systems (required by the feds), and crumple-zone standards -- and each one predictably pricey as a result.

Not long ago, there was an article in a car magazine where a GM engineer was reviewing past GM greats -- like the 1966 Chevrolet Malibu.  He said his department had actually studied the idea: that with the identical manufacturing, engineering, and features as one had in 1966, the same identical car would cost a buyer around $15,000 in today's dollars.

He also said that with modern regulation, all of the changes to every part of the car to comply with current regulations, you'd end up with a car that was almost unrecognizable, twice the weight, about the same power, and roughly three times the cost -- and either impossible to repair or horrendously expensive to repair.

The Murderous Left wants people out of cars. The single greatest liberator of all time -- the personal automobile -- is anathema to bootlickers who want to know who you are, where you are, what you're doing, who you're with, and what you have in your possession. AT ALL TIMES.

Bootlickers are control freaks who want the unwashed masses shuttled around in cattle cars that they can centrally shut down for whatever reason, and grab who or whatever they want.

They don't give a rat's ass about the environment, or deaths and injuries from accidents. All they are really after is CONTROL. And one way to get there is to make mobility-at-will all but impossible.

The Libertarian answer is to:

1) Abolish mandatory insurance requirements, like all other regulations

2) Abolish all government-issued identification regimes.

3) Eliminate all government-owned or operated transportation systems, and allow private ownership to mitigate the harm done by poor drivers.

4) Abolish government-operated police, and allow road owners to provide the kind of traffic control that suits them and their paying customers.

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Vote Libertarian * 800-ELECT-US * http://www.LP.org
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Written by Marc Montoni <AMCAmbassador@gmail.com>, September, 2018.  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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For more information about the Radical Caucus, see www.LPRadicalCaucus.org or see the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2497146127/  .
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Pole-Shifting and Shifty Alarmists

Earth's magnetic poles are never stable; they move constantly -- and sometimes they flip altogether.  Which is understandable, because the earth's core is actually a giant spinning magnet.

Some scientists who study the earth's internal magnet have noticed that the magnetic poles have moved a lot over the last few years.  There is some speculation that the increased speed of their wandering means they are about to flip.

Check out this article about emerging science on pole shifts.  It's fascinating stuff.

A complete flip from N to S is actually about 500,000 years overdue.

Shifting magnetic poles can change the climate immensely -- particularly, the amount of cloud cover (water vapor).  After the sun, more or less water vapor is the main determinant of temperature.

Which brings us to the politicization of the pole movement by the alarmist environmentalist left.

One would think that the climate models -- the ones the alarmist Left uses to blather up panic about the climate (and the taxpayer grants and book deals for their adherents) -- would have in included adjusting those models for the effect of magnetic pole shift .

So have they?  Have alarmists added the effect of moving magnetic poles into their models?

Not exactly.

They did the reverse: Now that acceleration of magnetic pole movement has become a topic of discussion, alarmist scientists have latched on and are suddenly claiming that melting glaciers and warmer temperatures on the surface are the drivers of the pole movement activity.

So someone else brings it up, whereupon it is adopted to mangle cause-and-effect into further support for their alarmist model -- even though there has been no connection yet proven.

Climate scientists -- at least the mainstream alarmist ones -- are inexcusably sloppy about their work.

Many of the earliest of the alarmists' models relied on data supplied by poorly-maintained weather stations, or stations where development, addition of a large parking lot, etc would rather obviously have had a significant effect on what data was recorded (see http://www.SurfaceStations.org/ ).  For years, the alarmist industry flat-out denied that those surface station assumptions needed to be tested or that the data they were supplying was unreliable.

It took a skeptic to start an audit movement.  Volunteers did all of the auditing because the multi-billion dollar alarmist-industrial complex couldn't be bothered to fund such an audit itself. 

Even gas stations have to get their measuring systems assessed and certified every few months -- but an alarmist industry that depends on the measuring instruments doesn't?

Come on.

Alarmist pseudoscience really got rolling in the late eighties and early nineties. Scientists looked at their data tables and saw that temperatures appeared to be climbing, and then they published, and started the cycle of alarm.

They forgot something major, however: The disappearance from the dataset of stations in more remote regions of Russia / USSR as the state collapsed and stopped maintaining, operating, and checking them, was not in any way accounted for.  Many of the abandoned stations were in Siberia.

If you have 1,000 stations all over the planet and 50 stations in some of the bitterest-cold areas on earth steadily drop out of the calculation, 5th grade math says the temperature average of the remaining stations will go up.

But alarmists glossed over it.

Alarmist scientists have also directly diddled with directly changing data tables they use in their models without either explaining the reasons for doing so or adjusting the assumptions the model builds on that data as a result -- and they pass off their diddled data and the conclusions they derive from it as "science" and claim anyone questioning it is just an apish knuckle-dragging throwback who has no place to talk.  Fudging data is in itself an academic and scientific crime for which none have been called to account.

But the real problem with alarmism is that the alarmist-industrial complex (a multi-billion dollar, taxpayer-funded white elephant), is that everything it "produces" is designed to affect government policy.

If you convince vote-happy politicians that the sky is falling, your budget for the following year will get a lot more lard slathered on it.  "Green" corporations and compliant scientists and other hangers-on get huge new government contracts and grants, while more efficient corporations using traditional energy sources or methods in their production, and skeptical scientists, are ignored.

I'm as concerned about the environment as anyone.  The biggest skeptic thinker I know is completely off-grid, uses solar for all of his home and business energy needs, and otherwise is completely self-sufficient.  Even his personal transportation is the ultimate in re-use: He buys ancient 50 mpg Geo Metros and fixes them up.  Compare the resources that went into his 1990 Metro to the local watermelon's brand-new 2018 Prius. The Prius can't quite beat the Metro on MPG, and its curb weight is roughly twice that of the Metro (twice the curb weight means at minimum twice the resources went into it).

I don't know a single watermelon writer or thinker who has as small a footprint.  I'm sure they exist.  But the mainstream watermelon is usually just the latest snob who moved into the local neighborhood of McMansions and wants to slam the door against anyone trying to follow him into that shiny new neighborhood -- as if taking a few plastic bottles to the curb once every two weeks makes up for the McMansion and the Prius.

All governments should abandon all funding of science and limit their activities to their legitimate role of protecting individual rights (and with them, property rights).

Libertarians suggest that only freedom and a lack of government meddling will bring about the lasting change in individual behavior that is necessary to protect our environment.  Private individuals should be left free to engage in education and persuasion activities for better, more efficient practices.

Using the sledgehammer of government policy to get the compliance you want only breeds waste -- and, eventually, backlash.  Abolition of government spending, including that which goes towards so-called 'science', would actually do much to improve environmental health.

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Written by Marc Montoni <AMCAmbassador@gmail.com>, August, 2018.  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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For more information about the Radical Caucus, see www.LPRadicalCaucus.org or see the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2497146127/  .
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The Left's National Forest Reichstag Fires

Regarding the big wildfires in the American West this year:

A number of them are attributed to "pyroterrorism".  It's actually a real thing: USFS and other federal agencies have been holding training sessions and meetings about pyroterrorism at a more & more feverish pace the past few years...

Why?

Because jihadi groups have discovered that American forests have become supremely vulnerable -- and as a consequence, they can cost the US lives and billions -- for the price of a cellphone, a few ounces of gasoline, and a few matches.
 
The idea is not new: Hamas has been torching Israeli farm fields and nature reserves for many years in similar ways; and there is mounting evidence that the disastrous fires in Greece this year were largely a result of Turk and Muslim pyroterrorists who snuck into Greece alongside refugees & immigrants.

What's new, though, is that these extremists in America have begun training in remote-activated incendiary devices designed to ignite fires in fire-prone areas (think IED's for Smokey Bear).

Plus, stupid people are always around.

So why are American forest and grasslands are increasingly vulnerable?

One reason is that federal land policy has gotten trapped by lawsuits (many of which are funded by the forced "investment" by American taxpayers via the EAJA -- in other words a wholesale wealth transfer from taxpayers to the lawyer-industrial complex) which have done much to shut down logging on forests “managed” by the federal government, together with environmental activist political pressure to stop forest "management".   Land managers are increasingly restricted from setting up prescribed / controlled burns to eliminate fuel.  Nor can they contract out to resource (eg logging) companies to clear overgrown areas.

Besides the external pressure towards ignoring management, there is internal inertia trending in the same direction: older forest managers who understood that American forests and open land were supposed to be for a balance of uses, including recreation, wild areas, logging, mining, and drilling, and so on, are gradually being replaced by a newer generation of land managers who are increasingly opposed to any uses other than recreation -- or, better yet: human-prohibited wild space.

So a perfect storm is building bigger and bigger every year -- with increasingly devastating wildland fires as the predictable result.

Common sense says global warming isn't global if it's local.  However, environmentalists and their leftist brethren are now peddling the idea that global warming can occur in one small region, which is absurd.  Nevertheless it is the "logic" behind claims that local heat records are evidence of global warming.  This is how environmentalists play their game.

Suppose those of us who are not alarmists do the same?  Let's try it:

"Arsonist forest fires are definitely a sign that Man’s activities has increased local temperatures – as much as 800-1000 degrees C. If environmentalists' opposition to sensible forest management contributes to this 800 degree rise in the local temperature, they should pay for the damages they've caused."

That’s the way, right?

If, by your actions, you create conditions that result in the destruction of property, which includes causing "local" ... er... "global" warming by 800 degrees, then you can expect to bear the consequences in law and liberty:

Pay up, y'all.

But the real solution is to get politics out of the environment (and insurance), and thenceforth to protect property rights.

The fed should sell off the millions of acres it owns to the highest bidder, and from that point on, allow property owners to provide for the protection and management of their property.  How they do so will be managed by their insurers.  Such a regime will encourage proper management of forest resources and the mitigation of harmful practices.

Libertarians have called for the abolition of the BLM, USFS, NPS, and other alphabet-soup bureaucracies, and the wholesale privatization of government property.  We also call for the abolition of welfare for lawyers and political activists who profit endlessly by suing government.  If governments didn't own property, taxpayers wouldn't be left holding the bag on both sides of every argument over the environment.

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Written by Marc Montoni <AMCAmbassador@gmail.com>, August, 2018.  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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For more information about the Radical Caucus, see www.LPRadicalCaucus.org or see the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/2497146127/  .
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EnviroLibertarian

In the lamestream media today was a lapdog-type article about an alleged "former skeptic" named Richard Muller.

This seems to be another in a long line of breathless media front-page hyping of the warmist agenda; especially as the articles printed in most outlets didn't report on any contrarian views.

By the way, Muller is not a 'skeptic'. Having a couple of questions about the 'facts' his fellow alarmists have put forth does not make an alarmist a skeptic. He has been an alarmist for a long time, and in fact has received a not insubstantial amount lot of money from the government and alarmist NGO's.

I think the science is wholly unsettled and it will have to be studied for a long time at length with real science and accurate data, rather than politicized claims based on corrupted data with less-than-reliable measurements and falsified reporting. Climate will probably need to be studied for a good century or two -- before humans will have acquired sufficient data to be able to accurately predict climate changes due to anthro activity.

There is also the question of what to do about it if science really does eventually prove beyond a reasonable doubt that human activity causes climate change. In essence, "so now what do we do?"

Doing some simple math might help put it all in perspective.

That said, solar power is in my future and I practice recycling to a greater extent than most "greens" I know.

I think practicing enviro "harm reduction" should be done by individuals at the individual level -- rather than at the collective level:

- Have fewer children (of course, the responsible already do; the irresponsible are still having huge families and don't care what they do to the planet as a result)

- Stop buying new Toyotas and Buicks, and bike, walk, or ride the bus. "recycle" an older car by fixing it up and using it until the seats fall through the floor.

- If government is going to force people to reduce their emissions, it is government that should lead the way.

- Grow your own no-till garden, without pesticides or chemical fertilizers.

- Stop using chemicals and pesticides on your lawn. [Our neighbors -- who include a number of Democrats and at least two families who are Green Party supporters -- use them and many have perfect monculture lawns as a result. We don't. I am slowly expanding our tree, bush, and flower plantings to cover more of our yard, so I can stop mowing it. I regard mowing lawns as a very strange habit that we Americans have gotten into due to cheap oil.]

Some of this I do because I find the idea of [essentially] giving my money to 8th century racist, sexist, violently intolerant religious bigots in the Middle East utterly repugnant.

But some of it I do because I really see no point in stripping the planet to the point where it can no longer support the population we have. I recycle because I consider burying perfectly good raw materials in landfills to be a complete waste.

Label me a skeptic of global warming if you wish. But before you throw stones, you'd better clean up that glass house of yours.

• If you DRIVE to an environmental rally, YOU are the problem.

• If you don't recycle, YOU are the problem. Yes, even if your county or city does not offer pick-up recycling, YOU can still recycle -- even counties that don't offer curbside recycling still have recycling units at their landfill; so get yourself a bunch of large garbage bags to store recycling in until it makes sense to take them to the dropoff yourself. Heck, You don't need curbside pickup -- most Targets and Wal-Marts now have a bunch of recycling bins in the front of the store, so you can just combine recycling with shopping. Some of the recycling centers even pay you for your trash!

• If you have a new or new-ish car, even if it's a Prius, YOU are the problem. Buy one of the millions of small cars from the 80's and 90's still out there, and use it until it drops dead beyond all repair.

In the meantime, I remain a skeptic.

Time to Lift the Freon Ban

The ban on dichlorodifluoromethane, the generic name for DuPont's "Freon", was based on junk science. DuPont funded a large fraction of the agitation against Freon in 1989-1990, because it had already developed alternatives to Freon and its original patent ont he product was approaching expiration.

DuPont has a log history of getting into bed with the government to give itself a de facto monopoly on any given market. For instance, DuPont funded the agitation to prohibit hemp products in the 30's -- an activity coincident with the company's development of rayon and other patented products in the same decade.

The media spoon-fed it to us all, just like all the other chemo-scares. Apocalypse remains in high demand -- fear-mongering sells newspapers and glues eyeballs to the screen. Here's a short list of hazards overblown by the media, way beyond the bounds of sound science: PCBs, DDT, dioxin, Alar, smoking, breast implants, irradiated foods, nuclear power, high-voltage lines, radon, acid rain, pesticides, herbicides, asbestos, ozone depletion, global warming, species extinction, deforestation and overgrazing, among others. Some were later shown to be complete lies, others remain controversial.

If you heard it from the lamestream media, it's probably false.

Go Green: Why Should Richmond Subsidize Pollution Anyway?

Many area residents have followed the story of the government workers in the city of Richmond who have been double-dipping for their official-business transportation. I don't know the details of all this -- perhaps their pay stubs don't show the transportation reimbursement as a separate component, in which case it doesn't occur to them they were getting it. I don't pay much attention to each line item on my pay stub, either.

I don't particularly care, either way, because whether or not they were double-dipping is just window dressing. The best way to prevent problems like this is simply to eliminate their jobs.

But if Richmond taxpayers simply can't live without government workers interfering in their everyday life, perhaps the next best solution is for government employees to be required to use the same transportation system for their commuting & official business as they force all taxpayers to subsidize: The Bus. Employees should be given free tokens to do so, and should have to pay an "impact fee" if they choose to drive anyway.

According to the Virginia Employment Commission, there are 10,840 employees who get a city of Richmond paycheck. Interestingly, Richmond's own budget website says there are only 8,493. Must be some secret agents in there somewhere.

Besides the fact that not a single one of these folks produces new wealth to ultimately enrich everyone, how many have cars they have to park downtown? Let's say half of all employees work downtown, or about 5,000. Including hizzoner. Few of them carpool -- spend ten minutes marveling at the aggressive driving during the commuting hour and while doing so, observe how few cars are carrying more than one person. So, let's say there are 4,500 spaces taken up by Richmond government workers' cars every day.

At the same time, many in government will happily regurgitate the garbage science of anthropomorphic climate change; hypocritically while they are collecting fat bonuses to subsidize their trifling meddling around town and unspecified activities at cheap hotels. Here's where the rubber should meet the road. If government is going to force-feed the poison of discouraging private resource use and emissions, it should be the first to "go green". It should set the good example, rather than be the poster child for "do as I say, not as I do". Government employees should all be required to use GRTC (or ride a bike, or walk) to go from their homes as well as to go to and from all official-business appointments.

Think of how this will open up downtown to productive uses. Businesses require available parking at low cost to be able to produce wealth for the government to tax. Shoppers who used to avoid downtown will find thousands of welcoming parking spaces so they can do business with a thriving commercial area, rather than thousands of government workers' cars crowding them out.

Think also of other potential benefits. One would be that increased biking or walking will improve city workers' health. Better health means lower costs to the city for health insurance. Another would be the fact that thousands of government worker's cars taken off the roads will reduce the demand for fuel. Reduced demand means downward pressure on gas prices - a good thing for everyone.

Government employees generally accomplish little but the looting of the productive private sector. For that reason, their impact on society should be minimized or eliminated wherever possible. With one little change, the city of Richmond can re-open the commercial district, support its own bus service, and eliminate several million tons of emissions its workers inject into the atmosphere every day -- and lower the tax rate due to lower costs.

Later, we can move on to eliminating 29,449 state workers' and 5,942 federal workers' cars from the streets as well.

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Marc Montoni lives in Henrico County with his family and serves as a member of the Libertarian Party State Committee. He is a network consultant and writer who often contributes to the city of Richmond's tax revenue by patronizing city establishments.