House of Eratosthenes

Legislation to restrict carbon emissions that is supported by the administration would undoubtedly kill a large number of jobs by increasing the cost of energy, and so you can see why its advocates might want to argue that there will be a compensating number of “green jobs” created — at least if the government spends a lot of money on them.

But this sounds like fantasy. If there were money to be made in green jobs, private investors would be creating them already. In fact big corporations like General Electric are scrambling to position themselves as green companies, gaming legislation and regulations so they can make profits by doing so. Big business is ready to create green jobs — if government subsidizes them. But the idea that green jobs will replace all the lost carbon-emitting jobs is magical thinking.

Obama’s approach to health care legislation, unless he makes a major course correction in his speech to the joint session of Congress tonight, is of a piece with his hiring of Van Jones. By ceding the task of writing legislation to congressional Democratic leaders and committee chairmen, he has been following a “no enemies to the left” strategy.

One of the reasons The Left stays so strongly unified whereas The Right does not…bonded together and emulsified, almost in a surreal sort of way, like a demonic force is at work…is that The Right is motivated by a desire to avoid engaging in bad ideas, ideas that have been shown in the past to be wrong ideas, but that are nevertheless seductive. The Right therefore must be engaged in a schism regarding how forcefully to reject these wrong ideas, since we are all surrounded by well-intentioned but naive and inexperienced folks who want to go for the wrong ideas, and feel personally alienated when the wrong ideas are labeled as the wrong ideas they really are. And so any time it is necessary to drum up support that is represented through a count-of-noses, The Right becomes instantly fractured, if not vaporized.

The Left, on the other hand, is motivated by simple jealousy: If that guy over there has something I don’t have, something somewhere must have gone wrong, there’ve been some shenanigans going down, and I should get some of what he has. Obama says “no enemies to the left,” He is not the first leftist to work this way, because there’s no division in place until after the dog has caught the car, the spoils have been seized, and it’s time to divvy ’em up. Then leftists turn on other leftists. But during the paper-chase there is no primal force to divide them. They’re not trying to stop a bad idea from becoming the law of the land, they’re trying to make it happen.

It’s interesting that they’re running into problems now with staying together on this “public option” business. That’s because now is one of the rare times in which there is a price to be paid for reaching too far in implementing too much of the bad idea within too narrow of a timeframe; and, we’re starting to wake up to what they’re doing, so there is also an opposing danger to not implementing enough of it. A window of opportunity may be closing on them. Next year, our country just might be too wise and cynical to be slapped by this stupid-stick of wrong ideas — it may very well be now-or-never. So now, for once, it is The Left that is sailing between Scylla and Charybdis. That gets ’em fighting with each other.

“…there is a price to be paid for reaching too far in implementing too much of the bad idea within too narrow of a timeframe…”
But…but…but…I thought the ramifications of “The Big Plan” weren’t set to kick in until JUST AFTER the next general election. PLENTY of time to tout “See how wonderful we are?”

I see NO argument for “carbon” taxes/brokerages until AFTER the next 10 Nuke plants are pumping out the “extra” juice, at an astonishing discount per kilowatthour, for all those electric cars/Segways to recharge um… overnight.
Of course, the JUMP in potential jobs to efficiently rewire down to residential level
can only be realized by folks that are suitable as skilled, non-union, tradesmen.

Wonder what the next bunch of recipients of higher education “rights” are going to commute to? Community “wellness” clinics? I hear there’ll be SEVERAL minimum wage openings in the food service gleaning/packing industry, that is, until THAT meme is vilified as the next BIG Evil Greedy to be “toppled” by clean handed “concerned” folk. Perhaps the all-volunteer “community” activism army (WPA?) is at least offering room and board.
- CaptDMO | 09/10/2009 @ 15:53
Well, that’s one way of looking at it. I’ve seen a very unfortunate pattern in Conservatives that we need to flesh out, or we’ll never be effective against the left: we need to learn to work together.

Honestly, some of the biggest douchebags I’ve ever met were Conservatives. And that’s saying quite a bit from a self-proclaimed Right-Winger. The problem is that Conservatives are too individualistic for their own good. Self-supporting easily crosses over into self-absorbed. And the self-absorbed see no value in working with others. They want to go it alone to prove something. What? Who knows.

While some could argue that libs are just as guilty of being self-absorbed, the reality is that their “collectivist gene” at least pushes them to work together to obtain what they want. How else can the whacked out minority control everyone else? They’re better at creating a united front.

I’m both amazed and appalled at the lack of cooperation between Conservatives, how they’d rather accentuate their differences than find common ground. Even on this site, I witness petty squabbling between bloggers who really shouldn’t give a shit about their differences, especially in this day and age, when there’s so much government evil out there to be opposed.

It’s time that those of us on the Right learn the value of teaming up and “having each other’s back,” as it were. Or is everyone born after 1950 essentially socially, and functionally, retarded?
- sanskara | 09/13/2009 @ 18:50
[…] ‘NO ENEMIES TO THE LEFT’– Michael Barone, writing in the Washington Examiner about the President’s “convenient […]
- Steynian 383 « Free Canuckistan! | 09/15/2009 @ 05:57

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“No Enemies to the Left”Thursday, September 10th, 2009

“No Enemies to the Left”
Thursday, September 10th, 2009