Don's Tuesday Column

THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   1/16/2024

Four legs good, two legs bad

Mature readers, being educated when the literal evils of communism and its socialist, collectivist offshoots were part of high school civics classes, recognize the phase that comes from George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.”

The farm animals decided that their lot would be improved absent the “oppression” of the farmer whose industry and wisdom made their existence possible. Orwell’s story was an allegory; generations of readers have seen the warning and regarded our free market system as fairest of all.

Corollary message: When superficial, arbitrary features cancel the compassionate, analytical process of judging—as Dr. Martin Luther King admonished us, “by the content of our character, not the color of our skin”—evil, malicious prejudices inevitably follow.

When laws, initiatives, propositions and constitutional amendments are put to the vote of the people—who, as we have seen in California, repeatedly affirm (by 57 percent most recently) Dr. King’s simple principle—the elites disapprove.

Whether called “affirmative action,” “racial justice,” or the current fits-all-grievances term-of-virtue—“equity”—it all amounts to decisions and allocations based on “the color of their skin.” One’s colorblind-ness  follows agreement with the simple statement: “The way to end racial discrimination and race-based policies is to remove race from all public policies, laws and programs.”

Back to the race-obsessed elites. They’ve never acceded to, nor acknowledged the voters’ wisdom in passing, bans on race and ethnic preferences in the California Civil Rights Initiative, CCRI or Prop 209. You’ll not be surprised at the current end-run around the law.

It’s Assembly Constitutional Amendment 7, or ACA7. “The measure does not openly target Proposition 209 for repeal but allows the governor to make ‘research-based,’ or ‘research-informed,’ exceptions to the 1996 law. On the basis of undefined ‘research,’ the governor could decide that racial preferences and unequal treatment are good things. In effect, the measure would establish white governor supremacy, for no good reason.” (Powerlineblog.com)

Ah, “research,” from the citadels of “information,” “science,” and “objectivity,” the denizens of which institutions are 95+ percent Democrats and have fought to reverse “merit (not race)-based” admissions for nearly 30 years. As scholar supreme “Thomas Sowell noted in ‘Intellectuals and Race,’ declines in minority enrollment at UCLA and UC Berkeley were offset by increases at other UC campuses. The number of African-American and Hispanic students graduating from the UC system went up, including a 55 percent increase in those graduating in four years with a GPA of 3.5 or higher.” (Powerlineblog.com)

Rather than accept merit-based admissions, as well as hiring, contracting, housing, etc. the leftist, “progressive” sectors of America have waged an ideological war, with passionate (hate-filled) propaganda and intimidation, inflaming themselves via the BLM, anti-cop jihad of recent years.

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Locally, “green” lunacy sprouts forth in “New solar farm may blossom in Tehama County,” Daily News, Jan. 12. Counterintuitively, solar is not endlessly renewable with no environmental cost. It only exists via African child labor and Chinese slave labor used to extract the minerals needed to convert solar to electricity. The panels themselves are financially feasible only through massive government spending (which is not “investments”).

After their life expectancy, the panels are not recyclable. They are not efficient; the 34 acres cited to produce nearly 5 megawatts of power will produce zero electricity at night, requiring backup sources—redundancy not needed for the natural gas, coal or nuclear plants that will fill in after dark.

The batteries will not replace the entirety of the energy needs of the homes served by the solar farm (see above). Those 34 acres could easily accommodate a reliable natural gas plant, or even a couple of modular nuclear power plants that would energize all of Red Bluff’s needs.

Finally, I challenge anyone to research and provide the total, “global cost” of the solar farm: the build-out, the subsidies, tax incentives, replacement cost upon depletion after 30 (plus or minus) years. Someone tell us how much of our electricity will come from the solar farm, at what cost, and if it will lower our 35 cents-per kwh rate; at what point (including all costs) will it result in electricity costing even that exorbitant rate.

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U-Haul cherishes our governor and lawmakers for the business sent their way. Consider: “California's 'Repugnant' Restrictions on Public Gun Possession Just Took Effect—After a federal judge deemed the state's location-specific gun bans unconstitutional, the 9th Circuit stayed his injunction.”

“California School District Forces Children to Watch Films on Transgenderism and Puberty Blockers.”

“Court upholds preliminary injunction in San Francisco homeless encampment case” (Chico ER). These courts will not allow localities to keep public spaces free of homeless campers; however, the nation may find relief from the homeless scourge as the “Supreme Court will hear case about homeless encampments,” (CalMatters).

Genuine needs—particularly, their need to learn a lifestyle not dependent on drugs, public camping and panhandling—of homeless people can be met with simultaneous compassion, and “tough love” for those skirting the law and preying on citizens, especially children forced to avoid such depravity.

It may well be possible, and commendable, to provide economical transitional housing, but only for law-abiding, drug-free folks looking to work and eventually provide for themselves.