Enjoyed your recent musings on Mr. Obama’s utilization of his god in our health care debate. How does a major newspaper allow an avowed atheist to write such things? Well, if this be blasphemy, make the most of it! Thanks.
Hate to be a one-man cheering section, but your recent column, “Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?” is the best analysis I’ve seen yet on this phenomenon. I think you hit the nail on the head in this excerpt:
“Politico reported that Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), chalked up all this anger toward Barack Obama to racial tensions. ‘As far as African-Americans are concerned,’ she claimed, ‘we think most of it is. And we think it’s very unfortunate. We as African-American people of course are very sensitive to it.’
“‘We’? Incredibly, Johnson speaks for tens of millions of African-Americans.”
Bingo. It’s collectivism (or tribalism, if you prefer) that’s driving the left. Unable to view their opposition in terms of individual people with individual grievances, the left attacks Obama’s detractors with the only weapon they have: the charge of collective guilt, hatred, racism. It’s an anti-intellectual and dishonest tactic, and it should be impotent. Whether they get away with it remains to be seen.
You are more right in this article than you perhaps imagine…
all energy efficiency based bans are wrong.
Where there is a problem, deal with the problem:
Energy can of course be supplied with whatever emission criteria is needed,
and consumers be allowed to use and pay for what they want, in their own homes.
It may sound good to “only allow efficient products”.
Unfortunately, inefficient products may be popular for many other reasons, relating to
performance, appearance, construction, as well as cost, and actual savings http://www.ceolas.net/#cc2x onwards
Using light bulbs as example:
Americans (like Europeans) choose to buy ordinary light bulbs around 8 to 9 times out of 10 (light industry data 2008).
Banning what people want gives the supposed savings – no point in banning an impopular product = no “savings”!
If new LED lights – or more efficient incandescents etc – are good,
people will buy them – no need to ban ordinary light bulbs (little point).
If they are not good, people will not buy them – no need to ban ordinary light bulbs (no point).
The arrival of the transistor didn’t mean that more energy using radio tubes were banned… they were bought less anyway.
The need to save energy?
Advice is good and welcome, but bans are another matter…
ordinary citizens -not politicians – pay for energy, its production, and how they wish to use it.
There is no energy shortage – on the contrary, more and more renewable sources are being developed –
and if there was an energy shortage of the finite oil-coal-gas fuels,
then
1 renewable energy becomes more attractive price-wise
2 the fuel price rise would lead to more demand for efficient products – no need to legislate for it.
Any government worried about say oil use can simply tax it
(and imported oil is not used in electricity generation).
Supposed savings don’t hold up anyway,
for many reasons: http://www.ceolas.net/#li13x onwards
= comparative brightness, lifespans, power factors, lifecycles, heat factor etc with referenced research
About electricity bills:
If electricity use does fall, the power companies have to put up prices to cover their overheads, maintenance costs, wage bills etc (using less fuel doesn’t compensate much in overall costs).
As with other consumption, those who use less tend to pay more per unit used (and heavy users get discounts).
Emissions?
Does a light bulb or any other electrical product give out CO2 gas?
Power stations might not either:
Why should emission-free households be denied the use of lighting they obviously want to use?
Low emission households already dominate some regions, and will increase everywhere, since emissions will be reduced anyway through the planned use of coal/gas processing technology and/or energy substitution.
Direct ways to deal with emissions (for all else they contain too, whatever about the CO2 relevance),
with a focus on transport and electricity:
ceolas.net/#cc10x
.
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For now, this is my lightly used personal blog. Elsewhere, I'm editor of Human Events and a nationally syndicated columnist (you can find most of my columns here and here and here -- and for years I wrote here). My bio is here. You can contact me at dharsanyi (at) gmail.com or follow me @davidharsanyi on Twitter.
5 comments ↓
Enjoyed your recent musings on Mr. Obama’s utilization of his god in our health care debate. How does a major newspaper allow an avowed atheist to write such things? Well, if this be blasphemy, make the most of it! Thanks.
Thanks, Ed!
Hate to be a one-man cheering section, but your recent column, “Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?” is the best analysis I’ve seen yet on this phenomenon. I think you hit the nail on the head in this excerpt:
“Politico reported that Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), chalked up all this anger toward Barack Obama to racial tensions. ‘As far as African-Americans are concerned,’ she claimed, ‘we think most of it is. And we think it’s very unfortunate. We as African-American people of course are very sensitive to it.’
“‘We’? Incredibly, Johnson speaks for tens of millions of African-Americans.”
Bingo. It’s collectivism (or tribalism, if you prefer) that’s driving the left. Unable to view their opposition in terms of individual people with individual grievances, the left attacks Obama’s detractors with the only weapon they have: the charge of collective guilt, hatred, racism. It’s an anti-intellectual and dishonest tactic, and it should be impotent. Whether they get away with it remains to be seen.
I think I have yet to read a piece by you that I don’t think is money. Rare work indeed.
Go run for office or something, will you?
Saw your recent post on reason.com
You are more right in this article than you perhaps imagine…
all energy efficiency based bans are wrong.
Where there is a problem, deal with the problem:
Energy can of course be supplied with whatever emission criteria is needed,
and consumers be allowed to use and pay for what they want, in their own homes.
It may sound good to “only allow efficient products”.
Unfortunately, inefficient products may be popular for many other reasons, relating to
performance, appearance, construction, as well as cost, and actual savings
http://www.ceolas.net/#cc2x onwards
Using light bulbs as example:
Americans (like Europeans) choose to buy ordinary light bulbs around 8 to 9 times out of 10 (light industry data 2008).
Banning what people want gives the supposed savings – no point in banning an impopular product = no “savings”!
If new LED lights – or more efficient incandescents etc – are good,
people will buy them – no need to ban ordinary light bulbs (little point).
If they are not good, people will not buy them – no need to ban ordinary light bulbs (no point).
The arrival of the transistor didn’t mean that more energy using radio tubes were banned… they were bought less anyway.
The need to save energy?
Advice is good and welcome, but bans are another matter…
ordinary citizens -not politicians – pay for energy, its production, and how they wish to use it.
There is no energy shortage – on the contrary, more and more renewable sources are being developed –
and if there was an energy shortage of the finite oil-coal-gas fuels,
then
1 renewable energy becomes more attractive price-wise
2 the fuel price rise would lead to more demand for efficient products – no need to legislate for it.
Any government worried about say oil use can simply tax it
(and imported oil is not used in electricity generation).
Supposed savings don’t hold up anyway,
for many reasons:
http://www.ceolas.net/#li13x onwards
= comparative brightness, lifespans, power factors, lifecycles, heat factor etc with referenced research
About electricity bills:
If electricity use does fall, the power companies have to put up prices to cover their overheads, maintenance costs, wage bills etc (using less fuel doesn’t compensate much in overall costs).
As with other consumption, those who use less tend to pay more per unit used (and heavy users get discounts).
Emissions?
Does a light bulb or any other electrical product give out CO2 gas?
Power stations might not either:
Why should emission-free households be denied the use of lighting they obviously want to use?
Low emission households already dominate some regions, and will increase everywhere, since emissions will be reduced anyway through the planned use of coal/gas processing technology and/or energy substitution.
Direct ways to deal with emissions (for all else they contain too, whatever about the CO2 relevance),
with a focus on transport and electricity:
ceolas.net/#cc10x
.
Leave a Comment