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Lights Out
America’s Dream Of Third World Status
April 17, 2001
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
There is a rumor circulating that people want to immigrate
to the United States for a better life. Too bad that when they arrive the
lights will be out. This is no joke and neither is the fraying fabric of
American life.
The Liberal vision draining America into the 21st
century foresees the replication of third world living conditions on the
continental shores of the United States. It’s the huckster’s ultimate
vision; “re-morph” the United States into the “Forth World” of national
progress. The journey from hegemonic superpower to a typhus puddle is the
terminal concept in theme park development.
With the expectation of a semi-enjoyable weekend, I arose
on Saturday morning and clicked on the television in search of a weather
forecast. Suffering through the insufferable, I watched a “Health Update”
which preceded the weather. Not surprisingly, this little interlude only
served to elevate my blood pressure.
The talking (air) head on the Health Update touted the
benefits of a midday nap for working adults. Ceaseless babble about
increased productivity, improved mental attitude and greater work
enjoyment resulting from more daytime sleep and less work was the stuff
that derives vomit. Serious heaving commenced with the closing argument
for a midday nap, “After all, the practice of sleeping the afternoon away
is a long tradition in Mexico, Africa and India.”
This Health Update must have been a production of the
Committee To Re-Elect Gray Davis (Governor of California). I am certain a
daily siesta makes mucho sense to Californians. If more time is spent
sleeping and less time is spent at work, electrical consumption should
decrease.
All of this is, of course, contingent on the premise that
Californians are capable of sleeping without their fully integrated home
entertainment centers murmuring environmental mood music to muffle the hum
of central air-conditioning. Ergo…Gray Davis gets his Jimmy Carterish 10%
reduction in power consumption by lulling his constituents into a siesta.
Nothing beats hypocrisy like more hypocrisy and nothing
defines a Liberal baby-boomer better than hyper-hypocrisy.
Rationing is an understandable necessity during times of
national crisis. Rationing is an inexcusable affront when it is used as a
replacement for competent planning and leadership. And, leadership is a
nearly extinct term in an America partially neutered by spoiled brat
baby-boomers long on knowing everything and short on common sense.
Perhaps this harsh criticism can be mollified by the fact
that most boomers are still living in the black and white world of their
early television exposure. Mysteriously, the shades of gray were lost on
this crowd.
What more could an entitled little brat ask for? The
expectation of endless hot water, refrigerators full of food, stereos,
lava lamps and wardrobes of clean clothes were never in doubt. Mommy and
Daddy pushed the standard of living curve ever higher and their little
prodigies never cried foul.
Oh, those healthy little tykes evolving from the luxury of
their warm baths into the necessity of their endless hot showers. Thank
God, their riotous nature was assuaged by the advent of the BodySpa by
KOHLER.
It might have been the guilt of entitlement or bad acid,
but somewhere in the progression from infancy to adulthood, the Boomers
suffered a short circuit. Everything their parents accomplished was
redefined by the liberal intelligentsia. Progress became the product of a
morally bankrupt society.
Candidly, the only moral bankruptcy is the Boomers abysmal
treatment of their inheritance. Mommy and Daddy quick-claimed the
greatest nation in history to little BaBo who is hell-bent on depreciating
our nation’s future to zero.
Whether it was hypocrisy or a mega-diaspora of common
sense, it was intellectually inconsistent (stupid) to protest chemical
companies in the 1960’s while using RIT® to tie-dye shirts. In
contemporary America it seems just as hypocritical to hug a tree when you
drive to the forest in a SUV. It’s unnecessary to beat a dead horse, so I
won’t mention Oprah’s concern for the environment from the interior of her
$35 million Gulfstream V.
The Rural Electrification Act of 1936 was the envy of the
world and the California Rolling Blackouts of 2001 is an insulting farce.
In the face of the California madness, the Connecticut state legislature’s
environment committee voted 27 –1 to enforce strict emission regulations
on state power plants. Clean-air organizations and environmental activist
lawmakers hailed the 27-1 vote.
“Proponents of the bill call fears of a power crisis a red
herring and say the industry can operate profitably with the
regulations…At the end of the day it comes down to whether or not we want
to clean up the air for the people of Connecticut," said Rep. Christopher
Caruso, D-Bridgeport.”
It is reassuring to have the Proponents of the bill
guarantee that all will be well (from the depths of their infallible
collective wisdom). Besides, if they are wrong, who will remember? This
brand of myopic nonsense occurs daily in all 50 states. America is
becoming a loony bin and the loonies are at the controls.
Long-term strategic planning is being supplanted by
short-term political gain. National survival is being sacrificed for
another term in office for a legion of minions.
The concept of providing electricity to the populace is not
rocket science. There has to be a balance between supply and
demand…otherwise known as equilibrium. If a government allows its
population growth to explode, mainly through irresponsibly managed
immigration policies and the permanent subsidization of poverty, it has to
balance burgeoning demand with an increase in production. Then
again…shortages are always an option.
It is irreconcilable to have Liberals screaming for
pristine air and no new power plant construction while at the same time
supporting unrestricted immigration and the expansion of the welfare
state. If you want to add demand, you had better add supply.
American’s have to tolerate the energy dislocations created
by OPEC. Besides, OPEC is just operating in their self-interest. But
whose self-interest is some State House yokel like Gray Davis promoting?
Which drug made him hallucinate an almost 50% increase in the cost of
electricity and a simultaneous decrease in its supply?
Hello out there in LaLa land. Don’t blame the power
companies. Blame the little brats who think they can have everything
without paying a price…just like Mommy and Daddy used to make nice. Life
doesn’t work that way.
Other than in a Soviet ten year plan predestined for
failure, it is an impossibility to have a demand for 100 units of a
product, with a supply of 50 units and pricing as if there were 1000
units. If the government keeps its inept mitts off the process, the price
of a product is a direct function of its demand. Gee..wiz…guess
what…produce more and the price gets lower.
Either free the market to seek an equilibrium price and let
the poor go without (this means no shortages caused by price regulation)
or…QUIT MUCKING UP THE PROCESS AND LET’S START BUILDING SOME GENERATING
PLANTS.
I have no intention of living in a third world theme park.
And, I am equally certain that people don’t immigrate to the U.S. for a
recreation of their homeland’s deficiencies. If politicians want to
conserve electricity let’s start by shutting off the air conditioning in
their homes and offices. Better yet, let’s take away their blow dryers.
(If you think this is fun just wait until the water
shortages start to hit.)
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