Berkeley liberals in retreat

Last week, the Berkeley City Council voted 6-3 to tell the Marines at a local recruiting office that they were “unwelcome intruders” in the city that hippies built (or rather invaded and occupied).

After a massive outcry that sent city officials scurrying for cover like cockroaches when the lights come on, some of the council members are starting to relent.

Council members Betty Olds and Laurie Capitelli now say they will ask the council to repeal its resolution calling the Marines intruders, although they want to keep the resolution that ordered city staff to find a way to sue the Marine Corps over gay rights and gave a free parking space and noise permits in perpetuity to the socialist fringe group Code Pink.

Olds was one of the three who voted against the original resolution telling the Marines to leave, though she voted for the parking space and noise permits.

Capitelli is one of the six cockroaches that has been scurrying for cover after her vote to diss the people who protect her right to be a moron. Mayor Tom Bates, another bug, has said he will now vote to rescind the “intruders” resolution.

Councilwoman Linda Maio, also of the insect persuasion, said she will now introduce a resolution “welcoming” members of the military to the city of Berkeley but that she still opposes the recruiting station.

Of the remaining invertebrates, Councilman Darrell Moore is waffling and has said he is undecided how he’ll vote on the motion by Olds and Capitelli. So much for liberal principles.

Councilman Max Anderson and Councilwoman Dona Spring, however, remain resolute in their commitment to oppose America. Said Spring: “I’m going to try to work to amend this resolution to make sure we’re expressing our full opposition to the military policies and that we do not feel it’s appropriate for any military recruiting to be done in Berkeley. I definitely feel the message to the Marines should be, ‘You need to go,’ and I’m not backing down on it.”

Don’t go thinking that Capitelli, Bates, Maio or any of the council members is repentant, though. Like errant children, they just don’t want to be yelled at any more and will say whatever they feel they need to: “I would prefer they recruit somewhere else, but they have a constitutional and legal right to be here,” Capitelli said, according to MediaNews. “If they decide to be here, then there are actions (protesters) can take, and the Marines will have to decide whether that’s an acceptable price to pay to be in Berkeley. That’s their decision to make, but not the city council’s decision.”

Like many liberals, Capitelli thinks she’s being criticized just because of a poor choice of words and if she just uses different words, then she can go on her merry little anti-American way.

She just doesn’t get it. Next week, we’ll see if the rest of the Berkeley council does.

Global warming: And just a pinch of dictatorship

The proponents of the global warming scare have a long list of wants.

They want to decimate our energy infrastructure and make us reliant on intermittent, insufficient power sources like wind.

They want to heavily regulate or even eliminate dependable personal transportation in the form of gasoline-powered automobiles.

They want to control what you can eat, especially beef, which comes from greenhouse gas-producing cattle.

They want to control what temperature you can have in your house, when you can use your appliances and ban fireplaces.

Some even want to regulate how many children you can have or tax you for having any children at all.

But it’s one thing to have someone like me, a lone blogger, telling you these things and urging you to realize that global warming is not about science, it’s about totalitarianism and a drive to eliminate the freedoms we have in America.

The natural tendency is to believe we are safe, that such things couldn’t happen and that I’m reading too much into things, even though every one of the above points is well-documented.

It’s another thing to hear it in the words of the aspiring eco-fascists.

There is now a book called “The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy” by David Shearman and Joseph Wayne Smith. In it, the authors explain that all the “voluntary” measures that have been proposed to combat global warming won’t be sufficient to solve the “crisis.”

Their solution? Benevolent dictatorship. From the publisher’s description of the book (emphasis mine):

Climate change threatens the future of civilization, but humanity is impotent in effecting solutions. Even in those nations with a commitment to reduce greenhouse emissions, they continue to rise. This failure mirrors those in many other spheres that deplete the fish of the sea, erode fertile land, destroy native forests, pollute rivers and streams, and utilize the world’s natural resources beyond their replacement rate. In this provocative book, Shearman and Smith present evidence that the fundamental problem causing environmental destruction–and climate change in particular–is the operation of liberal democracy. Its flaws and contradictions bestow upon government–and its institutions, laws, and the markets and corporations that provide its sustenance–an inability to make decisions that could provide a sustainable society.

Having argued that democracy has failed humanity, the authors go even further and demonstrate that this failure can easily lead to authoritarianism without our even noticing. Even more provocatively, they assert that there is merit in preparing for this eventuality if we want to survive climate change. They are not suggesting that existing authoritarian regimes are more successful in mitigating greenhouse emissions, for to be successful economically they have adopted the market system with alacrity. Nevertheless, the authors conclude that an authoritarian form of government is necessary, but this will be governance by experts and not by those who seek power. There are in existence highly successful authoritarian structures–for example, in medicine and in corporate empires–that are capable of implementing urgent decisions impossible under liberal democracy. Society is verging on a philosophical choice between “liberty” or “life.” But there is a third way between democracy and authoritarianism that the authors leave for the final chapter. Having brought the reader to the realization that in order to halt or even slow the disastrous process of climate change we must choose between liberal democracy and a form of authoritarian government by experts, the authors offer up a radical reform of democracy that would entail the painful choice of curtailing our worldwide reliance on growth economies, along with various legal and fiscal reforms.

I can’t help but feeling that the twisted logic of the above paragraphs, resting on the transparent lies about humans’ impact on the globe and wildlife, is nothing more than an afterthought, a slip of justification to cover the impulse that always seems to lurk behind the environmentalist movement: a naked lust for power.

The book has received a number of hearty endorsements from college professors and luminaries in the environmental movement.

Perhaps the quote that best reveals the environmentalist mindset is: “Society is verging on a philosophical choice between ‘liberty’ or ‘life.’” In other words, like the radical Muslims, the environmentalists are offering the simple option: submit or die.

It reminds me of another quote, from Ben Franklin: “Those who would sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither.”