THE WAY I SEE IT by Don Polson   Red Bluff Daily News         5/01/2012

On wanting America to fail—divine it ain’t

 

The late Paul Harvey, whose folksy but incisive commentaries delivered over the radio airwaves for almost six decades, first as “Paul Harvey News and Comment,” then with “The Rest of the Story” in 1976, offered listeners far more memorable lessons than we can count. However, one was titled “If I were the Devil” and presented all the things Satan would likely do and say, to illustrate that his work and efforts to undermine and eliminate God from our American nation and its people were, in actuality, proceeding rather effectively.

 

In that spirit, I found a You Tube by a group called “FreeMarketAmerica.org” (http://freemarketamerica.org/) titled “If I wanted America to fail,” viewable for free at their web site. I took the time to transcribe excerpts from the narration so readers learn that when the enviro-liberalist on this page regales us with predictions of doom, gloom and demise unless we seek divinity by abandoning oil and coal, and by retaining President Obama in office, well, here’s “The rest of the story”:

 

“If I wanted America to fail; to follow, not lead; to suffer, not prosper; to despair, not dream: I'd start with energy. I'd cut off America's supply of cheap, abundant energy. I couldn't take it by force, so I'd make Americans feel guilty about using the energy that heats their homes, fuels their cars, runs their businesses and powers their economy. I'd make cheap energy expensive so that expensive energy would seem cheap; I'd empower unelected bureaucrats to all but outlaw America's most abundant sources of energy.

 

“If I wanted America to fail: I'd use their schools to teach one generation of Americans that their factories and their cars will cause a new ice age, and I'd muster a straight face so I could teach the next generation that they're causing global warming. When it's cold out, I'd call it climate change instead. I'd imply that America's cities and factories could run on wind power and wishes. I'd teach children how to ignore the hypocrisy of condemning logging, mining and farming while having roofs over their heads, heat in their homes and food on their tables.

 

“I would never teach children that the free market is the only force in human history to uplift the poor, establish the middle class and create lasting prosperity. Instead, I'd demonize prosperity itself, so they will not miss what they will never have.

 

“If I wanted America to fail: I would create countless new regulations and seldom cancel old ones. It'd be so complicated that only bureaucrats, lawyers and lobbyists could understand them; that way small businesses with big ideas wouldn't stand a chance, and I'd never have to worry about another Thomas Edison, Henry Ford or Steve Jobs.

 

“I would ridicule as flat-earthers those who urged them to lower costs by increasing supply. And when the evangelists of common sense try to remind people about the laws of supply and demand, I'd enlist a sympathetic media to drown them out.

 

“If I wanted America to fail: I would empower unaccountable bureaucracies seated in a distant capital to bully Americans out of their dreams and their property rights. I'd send federal agents to raid guitar factories for using the wrong kind of wood; I'd force homeowners to tear down their own homes built on their own land. I'd make it almost impossible for farmers to farm, loggers to log, miners to mine and builders to build. Because I don't believe in free markets, I'd invent false ones; I'd devise fictitious products, like carbon credits, and trade them in imaginary markets. I'd convince people that this would create jobs and be good for the economy.

 

“If I wanted America to fail: For every concern, I'd invent a crisis, and for every crisis, I'd invent a cause, like shutting down entire industries and killing tens of thousands of jobs in the name of saving spotted owls. And when everyone learned the stunning irony that the owls were victims of their larger cousins and not people, it would already be decades too late.

 

“If I wanted America to fail: I'd make it easier to stop commerce than to start it, easier to kill jobs than create them, more fashionable to resent success than to seek it. When industries seek to create jobs, I'd file lawsuits to stop them and then I'd make taxpayers pay for my lawyers.

 

“If I wanted America to fail: I would transform the environmental agenda from a document of conservation to an economic suicide pact; I'd concede entire industries to our economic rivals by imposing regulations that cost trillions. I'd celebrate those who preach environmental austerity in public while indulging a lavish lifestyle in private.

 

“If I wanted America to fail: I'd convince Americans that Europe has it right and that America has it wrong. I would prey on the goodness and the decency of ordinary Americans; I would only need to convince them that all of this is for the greater good.

 

“If I wanted America to fail, I...I suppose I wouldn't change a thing.”

 

The environmental agenda, particularly “climate change” fanaticism, has been infected by extremism—it's become an economic suicide pact that you don’t have to accept.