If the governor of the state of Massachusetts declares a pandemic, his workers can enter your home, take your property, arrest you and anyone in the house, quarantine you and inject you with a needle. Is that something you’ll accept?
Some people trust the government. Most of those people advocated going to war in Iraq.
Read about this bill and ask yourself why you need to forfeit all your civil rights during the next flu pandemic. Also… why does the government need to seize control of all the flu vaccines in the instance of a flu pandemic?
If you’d prefer to keep your rights during the next crisis, check out these guys. They actually believe in freedom; just like our nation’s founding fathers.
Everyone is talking about revolutions in media, science, medicine, energy, education, labor organization, philanthropy and the myriad of other fields that are effected by the introduction of transformative information distribution systems . No one, it seems, but the anarchists and new agers are talking about THE Revolution. It is here, it is peaceful and it’s manifesting itself in many of the cultural movements taking place in Brooklyn. The following are a few of the one’s I’ve witnessed:
1. Art everywhere: There is nothing more liberating to an individual than participating in authentic artistic expression. Even if the art is bad, if it isn’t ‘original’ or has no philosophy behind it, the simple expression of art is enough to get participants to think critically about their world. This artistic expression is evident in the galleries, cafes, parks and music venues where every emerging indie musical talent seems to play, but also on the streets as different graffiti artists battle day in and day out promoting their work with massive murals and/or prolific tagging. There is street music, especially in the trains, and lots of the music players wear costumes: authentic gypsy garb, cookie monster suits, V for Vendetta masks… it’s eclectic to say the least. Then there is the community spaces such as 3rd Ward, the lofts where every other ‘apartment’ is a band’s dormitory and practice stage, the warehouses where massive installations are constructed and, of course, the streets, where all this artistic energy expresses itself in a general attitude of folks not giving a shit.
2. Conforming to non-conformity: People complain that the hipster aesthetic is hypocritical. If everyone looks like they don’t give a shit they are conforming to what it means to look like one doesn’t give a shit. It’s true, there is a continuity, maybe a conformity, but when the guy next to you at the bar is a bad ass architect, his friend is a musician and ‘shaman’ and all of you are talking to (a) girls from Manhattan who came to Brooklyn to see where dancing with free individuals would take them (b) Spanish designers who heard this bar was awesome in Barcelona or (c) ‘anarchists’, worries about hypocrisy quickly fade away. Quite simple, it becomes quickly apparent if someone is boring and can’t dance.
3. A food focus: Whether it’s the half dozen urban farms that have popped up in the last 5 years, the well reviewed, locally focused indie restaurants that open every week or the underground kitchens secretly serving the most innovative meals to adventurous foodies, it’s clear that the food revolution discussed in recent feature films Food Inc. and Fresh: The Movie has found its east coast home in Brooklyn.
4. DIY: Do It Yourself, once considered a vestige of a bygone era of American machismo, has hit Brooklyn with tremendous force. Massive factories and warehouses in Industrial Williamsburg and Gowanus (and to a lesser extent Queens and the Bronx) have been converted into wood and metal working spaces where artists can pay a monthly fee to use tools once only accessible to the most well financed artists. Add a massive population of creatives and a community of people who genuinely want to drop out of the formal economy and traditional ‘consumer roles’ and you’ll find an area bursting with creative ideas and the tools necessary to make them a reality.
5. Hustler/Artists: Living in Brooklyn makes one aware of the many ways one can make a living in this world. Lots of Brooklynites earn money so they can pursue their artistic endeavors and since the economy loves freelancers, people have lots of projects. Some are for financial rewards, others are for social and artistic ones. Painters are doing graphic design, sculptors sell real estate and everyone is an electronic music artist. More social folks are realtors and event promoters, usually with a side of DJing skills. People aren’t starving, but a lot of folks are following their dreams and that’s rewarding to see.
It’s important to note a sobering reality. Over 2.5 million people reside in Brooklyn at a density level of 35,000 per square mile. Chicago, in comparison has 2.8 million people living at 1/3 the density. Everything I described happens in a small portion of the northwest of this metropolis bordering Manhattan. The 18 train lines are slowly changing that. Indeed, Brooklyn, with it’s extensive subway and bus network, boulevards, parks, coast lines, canals, and even beaches, it’s the only city in America that can compete with Manhattan. Indeed, the two cities competed vigorously for stature in the 19th century. In the 20th century Manhattan dominated, powered by the mass media and financial services industries. In the 21st, Brooklyn is going to make a decisive comeback. In fact, it’s going to be a revolution.
I began writing my first blog posts when I was in Italy in 2006, chilling on a train. Here are three of the finer ones tackling sex, technology and how Italians managed to institutionalize chillness.
Slut: Worst Word in the English Language
It has become cliché to complain about the double standard of sexuality concerning men and women. A guy that has a lot of sex is a “player” or “the man” while a girl is a “slut” or “whore.” We all know it, we all think its more or less ridiculous, but we keep the double standard going by using those negative, loaded words. Every time a person calls a girl a slut, a guy somewhere is left unsatisfied because the girl he likes doesn’t want to be considered a slut. The girl, of course, is left unsatisfied as well and confused about the sex role she is supposed to play. The word slut has survived for a long time, originating in the Middle Ages, yet it still retains so much venom and power. The synonyms to slut seem so dated nowadays, it makes you wonder how the word slut made it out of the 19th century: tart, floozy, tramp, scarlet woman, hussy, trollop, harlot, strumpet. These words show just how dated the term slut really is. The last time any of these terms were used in the vernacular, women couldn’t vote.
Slut, however, remains as powerful as ever. It has transcended the simple language and has become a brand. Are you a slut? Are you a Playboy? Once something becomes a brand, people use the word to compare their friends and themselves. The coolest girls I know have embraced the word and made it their own, but in a world where female sexuality is taboo and confusing (i.e. Britney Spears being a virgin for so long) it is difficult not to have to deal with the slut brand.
If you consider yourself a feminist (or at least someone who views men and women as morally equate) you should never use a word that stigmatizes a woman freely embracing her sexuality; if you’re a guy that wants to get laid, you should never use a term that would make women less inclined to sleep with men.
iSolation
I was riding on a train from Porto San Giorgio with three good friends and I couldn’t speak a word to any of them. Witness the power of the iPod. Lots of people enjoy verbally fellatiating (one of my favorite words) Steve Jobs, the leader of the cult of Apple, and sometimes I get on my knees and pay my respect, but over the last year I’ve become increasingly angry about how the iPod insulates me from the real world. In my eyes, it’s contributing to a social transformation that will ultimately end much of the randomness, the unpredictable, the dangerous, and the thrilling parts of life. I will elaborate on that topic more in future entries but for now, I’m going to keep it simple.
I was at a wedding earlier this summer and the father’s speech at the reception got me thinking. He said, “One lonely night on the F train, I met a beautiful girl. Little did I know that 40 years later I would be sitting with her as we watch the last of our five daughters get married and start a family of her own.” I ride the F train sometimes, and I see beautiful girls on subways relatively frequently, but since I’m listening to my iPod and they are listening to theirs, I’d have to come up with a pretty sick line if I’m going to interrupt both of our listening experiences and start a conversation. Back in the day, I would be bored and so would she and I could start the conversation with a simple “hi.” Now, when people get on the train, they can rest assured they will not be interrupted by a random person as they listen to their desired song. We can all rest assured that nothing potentially unpredictable or thrilling is going to happen and continue listening to Stadium Arcadium for the 5th time…
I’m no luddite, I love technology and think it will be the salvation of our species, (see the FAQ about the site) but we must realize we are sacrificing the often surprisingly delightful randomness of life for ease and utility. I am in Italy and just bought a cell phone after nearly a week without one. When I was alone, I actually felt alone: an emotion I haven’t experienced in a long time. It brings me back to my childhood between the time I started taking mass transit without an adult and when I got a cell phone. A time when if I got lost, I had to figure out what to do: it was a little scary but it was thrilling. I was taking on the world alone and it made me feel like a grown up. I wasn’t insulated but an active participant in the action taking place all around me: listening to the sounds of the train, following the plot of other passengers’ conversations and simply enjoying the reality of travel.
Watching doors open and close and people’s mouths move to the sound of Broken Social Scene is fun, but it removes us from the world we live in. We are surrounded by millions of people just like us, living lives, dealing with problems and being happy. It’s easy to forget that exceeding simply and important fact when they appear to be characters living in a world where you chose the soundtrack. What if one of those characters could be a future spouse or a potentially thrilling hook-up? When the doors of the train open and they walk on, are you going to be ready to enjoy the randomness of life or will you be listening to the same song you’ve heard a dozen times?
Institutionalized Chill
The Italians have got it made here. They’ve done the whole empire thing and now they relax. They don’t make shit loads of money but they don’t need to. It’s not a motivation of life. Your economist friend may see that as a negative, but if a happy and satisfying life is what you look for, Italy has everything you need.
Chill is basically institutionalized here. The effect of nothing being open for three hours in the day (from 1am-4pm) ripples through the entire culture. If you aren’t working in an intense industry, you’re free to do anything but consume goods (minus eat food and drink espresso and wine.) Unless you are the economist friend, you’ve realized that consumerism does not produce a happy populace and a healthy culture. Money is money, but life is life. Anyway, it’s a big stab in the heart of consumerism and makes people value each other more.
I was sent an article not too long ago entitled “Welcome to Your Quarter Life Crisis”, — the time period in our 20s when we realize that THIS is life and we need to get comfortable with it. The article explained:
“The Quarterlife Crisis is a kind of anticipatory crisis: ‘How is my life going to turn out? I don’t have a clue; I don’t have a map; I don’t have a vision for it.’ The mid-life crisis is a kind of ‘Is this it? I had a big plan, I had big ideas. Now I’m 48 and I guess I won’t get to do those things.’ The mid-life crisis is understood as one of resignation. A Quarterlife Crisis will resolve itself by hooking itself into a plan.”
The article is chock full of pop psychology that leaves mainstream thinkers slightly more comfortable because they realize their depression is common but also leaves them with no fucking clue how to get happy.
Fortunately for us, humans have been trying to get happy for thousands of years and keep writing books on the topic. I summarize their conclusion as act honest, act dignified.
It’s common knowledge in the West that each of us needs to self-actualize to be fulfilled. The difficulty for most of us is figuring out what activity we should perform to self-actualize.
This is where honesty becomes essential for happiness. If you’re lying to yourself or others about anything, that lie is going to obscure your view of yourself, your reality and what you need to be happy.
Most of us have been telling ourselves lies for years about our past, our future, our relationships, and our values because we didn’t know how to cope with the experiences reality presented to us. The origin of these lies are most often in childhood when we are, both physically and mentally, more vulnerable to trauma. These lies, whether they’re meaningless white ones or profound whoppers, quickly compound themselves and get repressed, creating more complex problems that are increasingly difficult to solve. These lies will prevent you from being happy because they obscure your view of what happiness really is.
Solving this problem is, in a way, really really easy. All you have to do is stop telling lies. Just as one lie leads to another, one truth leads to next. The more you tell the truth, the more the truth will want to be told. You’ll quickly become aware of lies you didn’t know existed and the relationship between those lies and your irrational and negative emotions. Once you’re aware of an individual lie, all you have to do is tell the truth (do it out loud, even if you’re alone) and the lie will start to disappear. Even the scariest, darkest lies can be overcome through simple awareness because reality is more comforting than illusion and, no matter what happens, reality will always be there for you.
When you begin to trust reality (a.k.a. the plan, the path, etc.) and accept that you deserve to live completely honest and free of guilt, then you’ll be able to discover what you love very quickly and surround yourself with it. As you engage with that love you’ll automatically start self-actualizing and, once you do, the marketplace will reward you handsomely because you add the most value to the world when you’re passionately doing what you love.
So, start today on the path towards core happiness by eliminating your use of white lies: either tell people what you truly think or don’t say anything at all. If you don’t stop lying to others you won’t be able to stop lying to yourself. If you’re lying to yourself you’ll never be able to discover what you truly love. If you don’t know what you truly love you won’t be able to self-actualize or find authentic happiness.
As we watch our two dominant political parties spin their wheels trying to pass or defeat outrageously inadequate legislation, it’s easy (and frightening) to imagine this deadlock continuing indefinitely. It won’t. I know our democracy looks feeble right now but it’s always darkest before dawn.
During the 2008 presidential election, something very significant happened. The major third party candidates (oxymoron?) including Ron Paul and Ralph Nader signed a statement called ‘We Agree.” This statement, I believe, presents a new alternative to mainstream politics. This document could be the foundation of a viable third party that unites libertarians and liberals against the corporate parties that dominate our political system. Below is a copy of “We Agree.”
We Agree
Foreign Policy: The Iraq War must end as quickly as possible with removal of all our soldiers from the region. We must initiate the return of our soldiers from around the world, including Korea, Japan, Europe and the entire Middle East. We must cease the war propaganda, threats of a blockade and plans for attacks on Iran, nor should we re-ignite the cold war with Russia over Georgia. We must be willing to talk to all countries and offer friendship and trade and travel to all who are willing. We must take off the table the threat of a nuclear first strike against all nations.
Privacy: We must protect the privacy and civil liberties of all persons under US jurisdiction. We must repeal or radically change the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and the FISA legislation. We must reject the notion and practice of torture, eliminations of habeas corpus, secret tribunals, and secret prisons. We must deny immunity for corporations that spy willingly on the people for the benefit of the government. We must reject the unitary presidency, the illegal use of signing statements and excessive use of executive orders.
The National Debt: We believe that there should be no increase in the national debt. The burden of debt placed on the next generation is unjust and already threatening our economy and the value of our dollar. We must pay our bills as we go along and not unfairly place this burden on a future generation.
The Federal Reserve: We seek a thorough investigation, evaluation and audit of the Federal Reserve System and its cozy relationships with the banking, corporate, and other financial institutions. The arbitrary power to create money and credit out of thin air behind closed doors for the benefit of commercial interests must be ended. There should be no taxpayer bailouts of corporations and no corporate subsidies. Corporations should be aggressively prosecuted for their crimes and frauds.
We support opening up the debates beyond the two parties and the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), a private corporation co-chaired by former chairmen of the Republican and Democratic Party. It is time for our Presidential Debates to once again be hosted by a truly non-partisan civic-minded association.
-Statement of Agreement between Ron Paul, Ralph Nader, Bob Barr, Chuck Baldwin and Cynthia McKinney.
It’s called the Freelancer’s Union and they can provide you with quality health care for $180-$380/month depending on the size of the deductible. That means you could have health care coverage for $2,000-$4,000 a year.
If the government enabled the spread of organizations like the Freelancer’s Union, and gave every American a $2,000 voucher, we could ensure that every American has basic health coverage for about $700 billion a year. That’s a shit load of money, but it’s THREE TIMES LESS than the $2,2600 billion (aka $2.26 trillion) we currently spend per year and every indication suggests that private health care via organizations like the Freelancer’s Union is superior to the current system or any government run one.
The most important reason a private system is better than a public one is that private health care incentivizes healthy living by encouraging people to INVEST in their own health. The logic is simple. Would you maintain your car if the government paid for all your repairs? No, you’d probably drive more haphazardly, skip routine maintenance and purchase lower grade gasoline. You’d save money in the short term by accumulating damage until a serious malfunction occurred. Then you’d go to the government repair shop and get a major overhaul. If you had to pay for all your repairs yourself, you’d more likely treat your vehicle with respect, driving more conservatively, perform routine maintenance and invest in high quality fuel. You’d think about saving money in the long term by taking care of problems early so they don’t ultimately devolve into seriously expensive malfunction. Your body is a vehicle and, while most people treat their bodies worse than they treat their cars, the economics of auto-repair and health care are not so different.
Obama’s health plan is fundamentally wrong. It taxes businesses that don’t purchase their employees health care which results in an indirect tax on anyone who purchase their own health care from organizations like the Freelancer’s Union. The ultimate result is that if you, a sovereign human being, wanted to purchase your own health care on a free market you would be taxed. This is a horrible idea that would stunt the growth of private health care solutions and erode our personal freedoms.
There is absolutely no reason for the Federal Government to be involved in the application of health care services to the people just as the military should not be involved in community watch programs. Individuals must be free to make their own decisions about how they treat their own bodies. Freedom encourages responsible long term thinking that can not be successfully replicated by an authoritative system, no matter how honest the intention or complete the application. Freedom can not be imitated. It’s our nation’s most valuable resource and we squander it at almost every opportunity. That is no longer acceptable.
There is also a Constitutional argument that could be made about the invalidity of any public health care scheme. The 4th amendment, as interpreted under Roe v. Wade, clearly gives individuals the right to make their own health care decisions. Any government action that deliberately changes the most important decision I can make about my body, how health care is delivered, is obviously unconstitutional. My right to my body is the most fundamental right possible because if I do not have that right then, quite simply, I could be imprisoned or killed at any time by the people who do have the right to my body.
Let’s go deeper.
Big Insurance: impossible without Big Government.
But, one might say, if health care was really about freedom and we’ve been living with deep government interference with health care for over 30 years, then we are not, nor have we been, free individuals. This is true: we’ve been enslaved. Liberated people do not hate their jobs. Liberated people do what they enjoy all the time because there is no one forcing them to do otherwise.
Imagine how little money you’d need to be truly happy. What if health care, food and shelter weren’t a factor because society provided you with access to each for no cost. How much money would you need? Aside from attracting a mate and recreation, you wouldn’t need much else. You’d be liberated because you’d need to earn less so you could spend more time doing what you enjoy. The magic of the world is that you are best at doing what you truly enjoy and, in a more liberated economy free from government meddling and the monopolies that emerge from it, it’d be much easier for you to monetize your passion. Indeed: you’d be in the sweet spot of what economists call comparative advantage.
The beauty of of the free market is that capacity doesn’t increase when people do more valuable tasks, but when people actually producing more value. The difference is subtle but significant: economic output increases when people expand their own capacity to do work, not when they do higher priced jobs. The more self-actualization in an economy, the more it can produce. The goal of the free market is transforming our labor force from farm labor into self-actualized labor. This is the trajectory of humanity’s economic development. It is the accumulated efficiencies of thousands of years of incremental progress.
But what does this have to do with health care?
The free market is the active force enabling comparative advantage. Government does the opposite. It restricts freedom by enabling someone else to make decisions for you and for others. No one knows what you love better than you do so no one but you can efficiently allocate your labor. Only you and the creative force of freedom.
The fact that our politicians do not look at every policy and first ask whether or not it restricts people’s freedom is a great treason and violation of the spirit of the Enlightenment philosophers who founded this country. America’s founding was rooted in a deep faith in the goodness of free human nature and a deep suspicion of institutions that prevented people from being free. It was an outgrowth of a freedom movement. If you’re not into freedom (many people aren’t) and think government should baby sit you and your friends – then you should either amend the Constitution or move elsewhere. There are many countries with lower costs of living, better weather and a government that will be happy to take care of you.
Let’s not be hasty and rush a ‘reform’ plan through Congress before looking at all the options, especially an easy to implement voucher system.
Two new films have come out about how our food system is making us sick, destroying our environment and producing food that tastes like shit. Both films herald the coming food revolution: a movement that encourages people to grow some their own food, buy local food, seasonal food and to take more of an interest in what they put into their bodies.
The QuestionableSource platform articulates our vision of an ideal government consistent with the QS Principles.
Introduction
The New World was a void into which the most ambitious ideas of the Western Enlightenment could be applied without the baggage of European institutions. It was on American soil that immigrants came together and asked the simple question: how can we build the world’s greatest government? Despite their diverse philosophies, divergent economic interests and disparate geographic locations, the founding fathers came together around one issue: limiting government. America’s founders knew that government, like all institutions, loses focus on its founding mission and becomes increasingly concerned with it’s own survival and growth.
Over the course of the last two centuries, the Federal Government has traveled the well worn path towards empire, growing steadily as it pressured Americans to exchange individual liberty for centralized power. This power has been used to make the Federal Government an integral part of everyday life: from business operation to education, health care to recreational choices, our government’s growth would surely frighten the authors of our Constitution.
The intention of our founding fathers was to make sure the American people remained free. The greatest threat to freedom does not come from the threat of violence; it comes from the promise of plenty. When government promises to provide for people, it diminishes the value of the concept of freedom. Why would an individual struggle to find their own path and improve themselves if they could live the life of a fat slave?
The Federal Government isn’t interested in instilling in the American people a love of authentic freedom. Indeed, after two centuries of expansion, it’s clear that the Federal Government wants us all to believe that the concept of liberty is as antiquated as the paper upon which our Constitution was written.
Government: People with Guns
Government is an organization of people who have a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. This means that the Government has the right to coerce you with the threat of imprisonment or death. Such an organization is perfectly structured to perform the essential task of keeping the peace internally (by administering a system of justice) and externally (by defending the integrity of our national borders) but just as a hammer is too clumsy an instrument to mend people, government is too clumsy an instrument to mend society. The fact of the matter is that we don’t want the people with the guns running our education systems, providing us with health care, certifying our plumbers or performing any task that we could do ourselves.
Community: People with Words
Communities don’t have the right to coerce people with the threat of physical harm, but they do have the right to use the tools of social coercion. Indeed, it was the forces of compassion and social coercion that compelled individuals to self-organize and finance the many thousands of diverse philanthropic institutions (nonprofit, for-profit, religious) that provided countless Americans with health and education services before the income tax was established during The First World War.
The forces of compassion and social coercion have the strength to finance philanthropic health and education services superior to those run by the government, but the government, like any competitive organization, works to prevent competition from entering the market by levying high taxes on the people and creating complex regulations with high compliance costs. These tactics, and others, have successfully prevented private philanthropic services from competing with the government and allowed the government to continue to grow in size and scope. While advancements in technology, especially the internet, have made the dream of privately run universal health care and education attainable, Federal programs continue to expand into the space, preventing that dream from becoming a reality.
QS Platform
The QS Platform presents a set of policy proposals that will allow people to organize themselves so they can provide their own communities with the social services necessary for the existence of a compassionate society. We believe that the internet enables people to organize so effectively that, when properly used, it will eliminate the need for government intervention in our everyday lives. In other words, the internet will allow us to construct the classically liberal society of all our dreams.
We believe that all humans are compelled by nature to self-actualize. We also believe that a perfectly free market operates under the same rules that govern natural evolution. Like blowing wind or surging water, man-made structures can channel the natural, evolutionary force of the free market into unnatural arraignments that transform the liberation of voluntary exchange into a coercive relationship of dependency and oppression. This ‘channeled’ free market is the one critics of capitalism complain about, but these critics don’t realize that only government -only the people with guns- are capable of building structures that channel the forces of the market into inequitable arrangements. Our mission is to liberate the free market from these unnatural structures so that individuals and communities can participant in a perfect marketplace that compels each of us to achieve our full potential.
First Steps
1. Replace the Income Tax with The Fair Tax (consumption tax)
2. Place the Federal Reserve under the authority of the Legislative Branch
3. Provide health care and education vouchers to every American.
4. Enact a Carbon Tax that finances a Green Energy Subsidy Coming Soon: Positions on the Economy and Taxes, Health Care, Education, Foreign Policy and States Rights.
There is a simple solution to our energy problems: a ‘carbon tax.’ The federal government determines a tax on carbon emitting fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal. The higher the tax, the less carbon is output. This scheme is overwhelmingly supported by economists and environmentalist.
Of course, a solution that simple doesn’t provide enough complexity for special interests to leverage their political capital and distort the market to their benefit. Thus, The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 proposes a much more complex system of cap and trade that provides pork to all the necessary players.
The ‘Energy Bill’ creates a ‘cap and trade’ market. The government determines how many emission allowances are issued every year (cap) and then organizations purchase allowances (trade) so they can legally emit carbon. In a traditional cap and trade system, allowances are sold in a free, open market, but in the system Congress voted to pass, 85% of allowances in the first year will be allocated by the government, leaving just 15% of the allowances to be auctioned off in the free market. This means the government will determine which businesses can emit carbon freely and which have to pay. By 2020, 10% of allowances will be allocated, [1. http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2009/06/04/key-points-of-the-climate-energy-bill-before-congress] giving politicians ample time to profit.
Scary image for environmentalists... and humans.
An inherent problem with any cap and trade system is that it’s only as effective as the level of the cap. If a cap is set high, the cost of emitting is negligible, and no progress is made. The current cap is set too high so reductions in carbon will be modest. The size of the bill’s incentives for green technology development is also modest. This disappoints environmentalists and scientists most.
This bill is over 1000 pages, and I’ve probably read about the same amount as your local congressman (zero) so it’s clear that we’ll all be learning much more about this legislation in the future. What’s clear so far is that corporate America loves this bill. (Ford and Dow Chemical are strong advocates.) Many environmental organizations do not. (Green Peace opposes it.) [2. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/us/politics/27climate.html] Gore says it’s the best we can do and ‘there is no back-up plan.” [3. http://blog.algore.com/2009/06/a_historic_opportunity.html] Classic.
This bill isn’t all bad. In fact, it does do one tremendously significant thing: it creates a structure that allows the US to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. This is a huge victory that has come 30 years too late – delayed by the same forces that pushed this bill through. If this bill becomes law, we’ll have the structure necessary to ratify a global treaty on climate change at the Climate Conference in Copenhagen this December. A global framework to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is a noble objective and the first milestone in the struggle to stabilize our planet’s environment.
On Goal: The QS Approach to an Energy Bill
Our objective is to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases in America to a level that will prevent climate collapse. Our solution is to make the emission of greenhouse gases increasingly expensive. Our mechanism is a nation-wide tax on the consumption of fuels that emit greenhouse gases.
Proposal
Scientists estimate the amount of greenhouse gases America can omit and still achieve our objective. Economists determine the amount each fuel source must cost to achieve the necessary reduction. The legislature enacts a law taxing fuels proportional to the amount of greenhouse gases they emit. This means coal and oil would be taxed more heavily than natural gas. Beef would also be taxed because the methane cattle produce is a substantial greenhouse gas.
One portion of the revenue from this tax is used to finance a rebate for low income individuals so they’re not disproportionally burdened by this tax. Another portion of the tax is spent creating solutions to the energy problem: improving our transportation infrastructure, updating our electric grid and subsidizing the consumption of low emission energy like solar and wind.
The tax does not have loopholes special interests can use to avoid paying their fair share and can be collected by existing government institutions, so there is no need to increase the size of government. The bill is as simple as the dreams of a sleepy puppy.
