It’s always a challenge to excerpt from Daniel Greenfield’s Sultan Knish writings because he rarely includes a sentence one could consider less meaningful than the rest. With that caveat, he writes today;
The voters who most depend on government vote to break it far more thoroughly than any Tea Party politicians could. No Republicans could have done to Detroit what Detroit did to Detroit. Not even the most extreme Tea Party politician could have done as much damage to the Federal government as Obama did.
Corruption and ineptitude are far more of a threat to the progressive vision than any number of people waving Gadsden flags. Republicans can shut down or slow a progressive program, but only progressives can discredit it from the inside[.]
Surely much of what I’ve held forth about the effect of Elbert County zoning falls neatly into this paradigm.
In a preface to Chapter 2 of Inventing Freedom, Daniel Hannan included a quote by Roger Scruton,
The English law existed not to control the individual but to free him.
Scruton has written books about environmentalism from a conservative approach, pointing out both the failures of statist solutions along with examples of successful environmental protection by vested owners of natural resources. He reminds us of the futility of dispossessing individuals of environmental ownership – call it regulation in America – along with an expectation that those same individuals will carefully husband that which they no longer control – a restatement of the tragedy of the commons.
Which brings us to New-Plains poster-boy Chris Bailey explaining, in effect, his view of law as the polar opposite of Scruton’s. He laments that the county laws and MOU passed this week were not what he wished for in “minor” facility O&G property control;
- He wanted the planning commission to retain approval authority for O&G development, despite their over 3 years of endless deliberations to get to square one of a passable law.
- He wanted the CDS director to have no authority to administrate O&G zoning, despite New-Plains’ love of former planning director Richard Miller.
- He wanted the dozen anti-O&G activists in Elbert County to retain the ability to stage public procedural delays, er, opportunities to scrutinize, O&G zoning administration.
- He wanted an un-flawed MOU, notwithstanding other regulatory conflicts and litigation such a document would have initiated.
- He wanted to make the O&G industry pay for the right to exploit their property.
In his zeal to uphold the collective Bailey doesn’t show much concern for individual property holders.
And let’s not forget the delusional Bishops at the Prairie Times this week. Susan and Jerry apparently told SOS Scott Gessler that,
Many conservatives were delighted by this judge’s ruling,
. . .in reference to the heavily Democrat partisan decision against Commissioner Rowland published last month.
Really? On what planet? Oh, that’s right, this one–the planet where Leftist Susan Bishop is still a Republican PCP.
One hopes that Republican caucus attendees take the opportunity afforded them in a couple weeks (March 4th) to relieve people like Susan of their conflict of interest, and excuse them from the ranks of the ECRCC.
As for the progressive tidal wave awash in America, with so many self-referential enforcement devices available to them, light at the end of the tunnel looks dim.