13 June 2012
You hear a lot about "Sustainability" -- government controlling and curtailing the actions of people to act for some "noble" purpose. "Sustainability", along with the goal of "being Green", is the cry of Environmentalists.
It should be unnecessary to point out that the U.S. is founded on the rights of the individual to his life, liberty, and property -- his happiness. The people (not the government) held the Constitutional Convention in 1787 to put together a constitution that institutes a government with certain limited powers -- and no more.
Unlike in Europe, the U.S. government does not have the right to change the Constitution that authorizes its existence and actions. The Constitution is above the government, which exists only to protect the rights of the people who authorized its existence for that purpose.
To repeat, the whole purpose of a government is only to protect the rights of the individuals in that country. In contrast, "sustainability" is something completely opposite -- the government's forceful determination of which citizens can do what, based on its permission. That is wholly antithetical to the foundation of the U.S. (despite certain people who would like to change that).
Sustainability is incompatible with everything the U.S. stands for -- the lives and well-being of the individuals who live there.
Consider these points:
1. "Sustainability" replaced "global warming" in the Environmentalist agenda when it was shown (1) that global warming was not occurring and (2) that their data was exposed as lies. Environmentalism is a system of beliefs,
with all the same hallmarks as religions, communism, fascism, socialism, atheism, etc. If someone wants to switch his beliefs, fine, but be clear that it is done deliberately and by choice, and not by stealth.
In other words, Environmentalism falls under the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" -- Remember that the next time you hear of it being taught in your schools.
2. "Sustainability" assumes finite resources. The idea of finite resources comes directly from Karl Marx, and Marx was completely wrong. Yet Marxism is the foundation for every government structure in the EU today. Government controls (in the name of Sustainability or socialism or simple dictatorship) erode and destroy economic growth.
Experience agrees with theory: the periods of greatest growth have been in those times and places of the least government control. Economic growth will continue or increase to the degree that people live in the absence of government controls. In contrast, Sustainability inevitably destroys growth. People (i.e., and corporations) who are able to compete in a free marketplace for access to available resources will invent alternatives to any limitations, and make those solutions competitive in the market -- that is economic progress, and it is unending -- limitless -- as long as government does not intervene.
3. Europe is slowly deteriorating. The EU is a "statist" organization -- i.e., dedicated to preserving its members' governments, not the rights of individuals (in contrast to the U.S.). Again, theory agrees with experience: the EU is inherently doomed to failure, and the current Greece / Spain / Italy mess is only one symptom of that ongoing decline. Sustainability is just one more tool by which EU governments limit and channel peoples' lives, destroying economic progress and future prosperity.
4. The U.S. is better off economically than the EU because its people are more free to pursue their own interests. Changes to that relative comparison will be determined by political changes in either location. Politics always trumps economics.
European governments are still effectively unchanged from where they have been for about a thousand years, far behind the political progress made in the U.S. in the past 300. The greater the degree to which a government defends (or fails to defend) the rights of the individual has direct consequences for the economic well-being of the individuals it governs -- which is the same thing as economic progress.
That is why Sustainability is wrong. Sustainability is destructive -- to economic prosperity, which is to say: to life itself.
-- Scott
Go to top
