I recently reconnected with an old lefty pal of mine. When we met, he was wearing a shirt that said "puppies against racism" or something like that. But at the same time, he keeps chickens and is thinking about getting some goats. We had quite a good chat, since I'm also working on becoming as independent as possible from the grocery store. I'll take this over a "conservative" who thinks just having a bunch of guns is enough.
I have always thought like this. The Lefts crazy insistence of letting everyone in was going to run into reality for many environmentalists sooner or later. Do you want more people, using more water? Or do you want salmon steelhead, and healthy rivers? Do you want more and more wildlife habitat covered in more and more sprawl, and I could go on. There are choices here, and people are going to decide what is more important. Is it going to be tent cities and poo everywhere, or clean healthy environments to live in. I’m hoping....
And, by the way, delighted to make contact with someone else who was already thinking along these lines. I suspect that there are many out there quietly thinking such thoughts. I am claiming no patent! I am trying to trigger a phase change, where conservative/reactionary environmentalists come out of the Closet and recruit those environmentalists bonded to the Left to join a new coalition.
> The citizens of Ecotopia love nature and love living in it. The residents average less than 2.1 children per adult, and they have grand plans to rewild much of their country over time.
Eventually Ecotopia gets conquered by the crowded isles because they don't have the manpower to defend themselves.
As alluded to above, and having gone through university on the left coast, I'm amazed by how many people there seem to have entrepreneurial dreams to say make goat cheese, run a small seed oil free old fashioned bakery - especially and ironically the college kids with Che Guvara shirts running around (if you ask alot of them seem to think he was a drummer in a band). Similar chance to exploit?
Yes! I have openly infiltrated progressive organizations in order to point out how regulatory overhead makes Walmart more competitive vs. Mom and Pop operations. Some got it.
Conservatism seeks to preserve human agency. Watermelon environmentalism—green on the outside, red on the inside—treats human agency as an obstacle… but I agree that there is room for building wherever sustainability, subsidiarity, and human dignity intersect. I'm reminded of Peter Kreeft's "The Politics of Architecture" here; I think it's a classic: https://www.firstthings.com/article/1996/11/004-the-politics-of-architecture
good insight. can confirm. but running for office is not the answer. politics is never the answer. it's hearts, minds, technology, logistics, and economy. Better off becoming an eco-friendly industrialist and hiring them.
Running for office to change minds is not the answer.
Running for office to best use existing minds is. Elections are the penultimate stage in a long chain of actions. (The ultimate stage is actually passing legislation.)
The Left Coast has the eco concern. It also has the brain power to see that the Democrats are idioting bigly. Even Michael Moore realizes that green tech as currently pushed won't work. He executively produced "Planet of the Humans."
But those insights are utterly wasted if Left Coast voters are left with a choice between idiotic woke Democrats and Republicans who say that global warming is a 120 year conspiracy. If you run for the West Virginia vote, you don't get the California vote...
> Here’s the reality: California has a Wall. It’s a virtual wall made up of red tape, tax preferences, and lawsuits. Declaring sanctuary cities is all well and politically correct, but where do you put the people? More people requires more housing units, more water use, more total electricity. Good luck with that! “No, you cannot build that apartment building. We much preserve that historic dry cleaning business.”
There's the problem. California has a "virtual wall" to keep people out, but what we truly need is a wall to keep California *in!* It wouldn't be nearly so bad if it didn't keep leaking Californians into the rest of the country and ruining what used to be good places to live.
Take it from someone who grew up in Seattle. It used to be a beautiful jewel of a city. Then, during the 90s, Californian mass emigration began to arrive and everything started to fall apart. We could all see it happening. One of the most popular t-shirts at my high school was made by a local guy. It depicted I-5 with the rightmost lane just abruptly dropping off into the ocean, with a freeway sign overhead: "WELCOME TO WASHINGTON. CALIFORNIANS USE RIGHT LANE."
Today, it's become a hellhole, essentially San Francisco Jr., because we had no way of stopping what everyone could see happening.
I recently reconnected with an old lefty pal of mine. When we met, he was wearing a shirt that said "puppies against racism" or something like that. But at the same time, he keeps chickens and is thinking about getting some goats. We had quite a good chat, since I'm also working on becoming as independent as possible from the grocery store. I'll take this over a "conservative" who thinks just having a bunch of guns is enough.
I have always thought like this. The Lefts crazy insistence of letting everyone in was going to run into reality for many environmentalists sooner or later. Do you want more people, using more water? Or do you want salmon steelhead, and healthy rivers? Do you want more and more wildlife habitat covered in more and more sprawl, and I could go on. There are choices here, and people are going to decide what is more important. Is it going to be tent cities and poo everywhere, or clean healthy environments to live in. I’m hoping....
Spread the word! Use your spider plant powers! Run for office!
And, by the way, delighted to make contact with someone else who was already thinking along these lines. I suspect that there are many out there quietly thinking such thoughts. I am claiming no patent! I am trying to trigger a phase change, where conservative/reactionary environmentalists come out of the Closet and recruit those environmentalists bonded to the Left to join a new coalition.
> The citizens of Ecotopia love nature and love living in it. The residents average less than 2.1 children per adult, and they have grand plans to rewild much of their country over time.
Eventually Ecotopia gets conquered by the crowded isles because they don't have the manpower to defend themselves.
Good column.
As alluded to above, and having gone through university on the left coast, I'm amazed by how many people there seem to have entrepreneurial dreams to say make goat cheese, run a small seed oil free old fashioned bakery - especially and ironically the college kids with Che Guvara shirts running around (if you ask alot of them seem to think he was a drummer in a band). Similar chance to exploit?
Yes! I have openly infiltrated progressive organizations in order to point out how regulatory overhead makes Walmart more competitive vs. Mom and Pop operations. Some got it.
Conservatism seeks to preserve human agency. Watermelon environmentalism—green on the outside, red on the inside—treats human agency as an obstacle… but I agree that there is room for building wherever sustainability, subsidiarity, and human dignity intersect. I'm reminded of Peter Kreeft's "The Politics of Architecture" here; I think it's a classic: https://www.firstthings.com/article/1996/11/004-the-politics-of-architecture
good insight. can confirm. but running for office is not the answer. politics is never the answer. it's hearts, minds, technology, logistics, and economy. Better off becoming an eco-friendly industrialist and hiring them.
Running for office to change minds is not the answer.
Running for office to best use existing minds is. Elections are the penultimate stage in a long chain of actions. (The ultimate stage is actually passing legislation.)
The Left Coast has the eco concern. It also has the brain power to see that the Democrats are idioting bigly. Even Michael Moore realizes that green tech as currently pushed won't work. He executively produced "Planet of the Humans."
But those insights are utterly wasted if Left Coast voters are left with a choice between idiotic woke Democrats and Republicans who say that global warming is a 120 year conspiracy. If you run for the West Virginia vote, you don't get the California vote...
> Here’s the reality: California has a Wall. It’s a virtual wall made up of red tape, tax preferences, and lawsuits. Declaring sanctuary cities is all well and politically correct, but where do you put the people? More people requires more housing units, more water use, more total electricity. Good luck with that! “No, you cannot build that apartment building. We much preserve that historic dry cleaning business.”
There's the problem. California has a "virtual wall" to keep people out, but what we truly need is a wall to keep California *in!* It wouldn't be nearly so bad if it didn't keep leaking Californians into the rest of the country and ruining what used to be good places to live.
Take it from someone who grew up in Seattle. It used to be a beautiful jewel of a city. Then, during the 90s, Californian mass emigration began to arrive and everything started to fall apart. We could all see it happening. One of the most popular t-shirts at my high school was made by a local guy. It depicted I-5 with the rightmost lane just abruptly dropping off into the ocean, with a freeway sign overhead: "WELCOME TO WASHINGTON. CALIFORNIANS USE RIGHT LANE."
Today, it's become a hellhole, essentially San Francisco Jr., because we had no way of stopping what everyone could see happening.
Ah yes. Port Townsend was the home of both "Liberty" magazine and the infamous Loompanics book catalog.