I was glad to see Ross Douthat was a TNR subscriber. While I know TNR had the reputation of being a liberal magazine, I always found it objective and open to ideas that made sense, which is what I try to do. I like old fashioned reading and the opportunity to read things on trains and in cars without looking at a digital screen. That is where I can focus, reading and concentrating in ways that I cannot do when looking at a screen with instant information on who knows how many topics.
Regular readers know I value compromise seeing advantages of policy coming from the traditional philosophical bases of the Democrats and GOP. That is certainly nonexistent today and for that I am sad. In a real world example of how people need to communicate with their neighbors (and compromise) I offer the story of what is going on in London, England.
The story was about how the urban population of foxes has grown and a sniper has a business killing foxes which are doing damage to neighborhood pets and children. But at the same time, people feel compelled to hire the sniper, neighbors are feeding the foxes. There are now more foxes in London than double decker buses and I certainly have sympathy for parents who want their little children to be able to play in the backyard with their pet without being attacked by a fox. Why don't these two camps discuss this like adults?
While I am anti-NRA, I am not anti-hunter. Hunters don't need automatic weapons to be satisfied hunters. Long live hunting for food and preserving the safety of little children and pets.
As for NIMBY's, the Constitution gas pipeline was approved this past week. This will bring natural gas from PA to the I88 corridor that has until now relied upon propane, heating fuel oil, and electricity for energy to power the economy. It will also, if connections are built on the NE end of the pipeline, bring more natural gas to the Capital District and southern VT.
Since this neck of the woods has suffered from uncompetitive cost of energy and lost employment to places where there is a more competitive cost of energy, you would think Tea Party types around there would support the pipeline. I know the anti-fracking crowd is not logical about this and they simply believe in magic that an economy can survive without a competitive cost of energy. But I thought the Don't Tread on Me Crowd might instinctively understand this. Alas, they don't. They are as anti-pipeline as the tree huggers. (I believe in doing something about global warming, but I also understand you have cut down trees when it makes sense.)
I guess these Tea Party people have bought the GOP free lunch argument. You can have your social security, medicare and national defense without paying any taxes. Just like you can have your old health insurance even with pre-existing conditions if ObamaCare is repealed. And you don't need to have natural gas pipeline access to have a competitive location for manufacturing jobs and you can be angry at the whatever for not having manufacturing jobs. There is no truth in any of that, but you don't hear candidates of either party leading an education effort on the gestalt that goes into creating a competitive location for manufacturing jobs. That is because pandering to NIMBY's has become a tried and true way to win reelection and that is one of the most dangerous developments to our global competitiveness.
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