Another right wing rant about California's predicament.
June 15, 2001 12:54 AM   Subscribe

Another right wing rant about California's predicament. By one of my favourite right wing ranters. But I never knew about this... Kinda cool.
posted by BGM (14 comments total)
 
"And how do you treat unconscionable robber snakes like Ken Lay, CEO of Enron Corp? "I would love," said Bill Lockyer, California's Attorney-General, "to personally escort Lay to an 8x10 cell that he could share with a tattooed dude who says, 'Hi, my name is Spike, honey.' "
....What would happen if a republican AG said something like that?
posted by BGM at 1:17 AM on June 15, 2001


California bought into the soft-eco Sierra Club illusion -- that somehow one could be a conservationist, with no consequences for one's economic well-being. To put it in terms Californians can understand: Suppose you build a house out in the desert. But you don't want to buy a car, because that's bad for the environment, isn't it? So instead every morning you call a taxicab in the city to drive out, pick you up and take you into the office. Not only does it have no environmental benefit but there's no point bitching and whining because the driver charges you a fare that bears no relation to the cost of gas.

That's a false analogy. In fact, why should he bitch about his own red herring? If the basic point of your existence, the philosophy you live by, is conservation, why would that person be so stupid to move all the way out to the desert and then depend on taxicabs to daily, drive all the way there and then drive them all the way to work.
How can this man be paid to write tripe like this?

Well said BGM. . .I wanna go!
posted by crasspastor at 1:29 AM on June 15, 2001


what a conservative haven it must be. . .

There are just seven surnames on the island: Glass, Green, Hagan, Lavarello, Repetto, Rogers and Swain.

I take that back. . .I'd rather imagine it as it once was, pre 1658.
posted by crasspastor at 1:36 AM on June 15, 2001


More California-related stuff here: 1, 2, 3, 4
posted by frednorman at 1:59 AM on June 15, 2001


crasspastor - assuming you're serious (and I do, because you didn't use a smiley emoticon after your post to indicate you were only pretending to miss the point) his point is that Californians ARE stupid. They refuse to build new refineries, drive giant SUVs, and never turn off their lights. It's a classic case of wanting to have your cake and eat it too. Either consign yourselves to a state of orange skies and three eyed fish or chuck all the cars and everybody buy a bike, but KWITCHERBITCHIN!!

frednorman - thanks for pointing out that site.
posted by BGM at 2:18 AM on June 15, 2001


Of course, Mark Steyn forgets that Tristan da Cunha is completely sustained by money from the FCO in London. Which provides precisely the safety net denied to Californians when something goes wrong. Because there's a point of pride in sustaining the little overseas territories that works both way. I just wonder what would have happened if the power crisis had taken place in, say, Texas.
posted by holgate at 5:39 AM on June 15, 2001


If it had taken place in Texas, we'd really be screwed since we're not connected to the national net. I'd hope that Enron and Reliant would be building power plants like crazy. And in the meantime, I'd crank the AC up to 80 and tell my wife to turn off her damn fountains. Luckily for us, power is relatively cheap and plentiful in our little corner of the U.S.
posted by CRS at 5:58 AM on June 15, 2001


Can you not import cheap power from Mexico, then? Or doesn't NAFTA work that way?
posted by holgate at 6:33 AM on June 15, 2001


I don't think that Mexico is hooked up to our grid either. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Mexico doesn't have electricity to spare. Of course, I could be wrong.
posted by CRS at 7:30 AM on June 15, 2001


...Californians ARE stupid. They refuse to build new refineries, drive giant SUVs, and never turn off their lights.

There is, of course, also strange possibility that California, just like everywhere else, is not populated with an army of clones, but rather of lots and lots individual people who have different opinions and who behave in different ways. Some of these people work hard for conservation, and understand the consequences of that. Some even supply their own power with various alternative energy sources. Some aren't particularly interested in politics--they find the rhetoric of conservation appealing enough that they vote for laws sponsored by the conservationists, but that doesn't stop them from going out and buying SUVs, because the contradiction never occurs to them. Some think that we need to be building more power plants, and that the cause of the current crisis is that we still have too much regulation on the power industry. Some agree that a lack of supply is part of the problem, but also suspect that the power companies are not being run in the way that would be most beneficial to the people of California. Some don't mind the rolling blackouts in the least, and hope that higher prices will force people to be more careful about things like leaving the lights on all the time, but also want to be sure that a constant supply of reasonably affordable power is available where it's really needed--hospitals, for example.

And of course, some--as everywhere, the most vocal--get violently offended at the slightest inconvenience, think that energy should have no cost either to themselves or their environment, and think that anyone who tells them this isn't possible must be part of a great conspiracy whose only goal is to make them unhappy. I agree that these people are annoying, but they are hardly representative of the state as a whole.
posted by moss at 9:28 AM on June 15, 2001


Is there still no one left who realizes that our utilities got us into this mess, and now expect us to bail them out? They basically wrote the law that allowed the Ken Lays and the Duke Energy's to come in and rape us. I agree with the AG, it's definitely time to get some revenge.
posted by themikeb at 11:22 AM on June 15, 2001


Oh yeah, I'm sure the state legislature and the governor had nothing to do with the law. Damn utilities.
posted by CRS at 12:13 PM on June 15, 2001


sure they did, but it was a previous republican gov and legislature. The utilities also spent millions on lobbyists for the law. you didn't think the people would actually have had a say in this, did you?
posted by themikeb at 2:47 PM on June 15, 2001


assuming you're serious (and I do, because you didn't use a smiley emoticon after your post to indicate you were only pretending to miss the point) his point is that Californians ARE stupid.

You're right. It was late, I'd had a few and LJRomanoff got me worked up in a couple of other concurrent threads. Whoops. . .
posted by crasspastor at 3:29 PM on June 15, 2001


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