Just what we need: More government control over another aspect of our lives. As a former smoker (still a hookah smoker), I can tell you up front that this bill is a complete joke and abuse of power.
How you ask? Well lets just look at the “findings” by congress right from the bill itself.
1) The use of tobacco products by the Nation’s children is a pediatric disease of considerable proportions that results in new generations of tobacco-dependent children and adults.
That’s all well and good. However Childhood Obesity (up to 33% of kids) is much more rampant than the number of high school seniors that smoke (up to 24%). Not to mention that studies are showing that teens are smoking at substantially lesser rates than in years past, and this figure continues to fall yearly. Other problems facing kids, such as childhood obesity, all the nonsense on the television and in the media, and the glorification of anti-culture culture is on the rise, and much more dangerous. Continue Reading
I came across something rather interesting online the other day, and I’ve now had some time to dwell on it. It’s a video of Australian Professor Ian Plimer discussing what he calls a new religion in radical Environmentalism. For those interested, here’s the video (about 5 minutes long).
Now, professor Pilmer has made some very interesting points here. Regardless of how you feel about global warming or any other environmental subjects, its hard to argue that the paralells between the formation of major religions and environmental fundamentalism. For those who didn’t feel like watching the video, here are some of the main points.
Religion doesn’t have to be part of a church
Religions gather support by fear, that if we don’t change our ways we are in trouble
Religion must make sacrifices in order to save ourselves
Religion tries to make sense of what is currently going on in the world
New Religions come through during the decline of old ones
Religions label non-believers as heretics and refuse to accept their arguments as valid
Modern environmentalism fits all of these and more. Desipte the fact that there have been thousands of global warmings and coolings over time (and at least four threats either way in the past hundred years), we are being told that this time, we have something to fear, that we have comitted great sins (co2 releases, pollution) and if we don’t repent immediately (pay the government to “fight” global warming), we are going to hell (the world will burn with all of us on it). It’s not hard to see where things line up. Despite science disproving global warming, the environmentalists only listen to the science that wants to prove it. Many of the followers are fundamental and very radical in nature, outright demanding that man act NOW or you are seriously part of the problem.
In short, the professor is right: anyone who blindly believes something without examing all sides is no better than the other. The Environmentalists are no better than the Creationists. Those who attempt to shove global warming down our throats are no better than those who tell us that man lived at the same time as dinosaurs.
However, where I differen from Professor Pilmer is on the accusation that this is, in fact, a new age religion. Something that just came out of nowhere, has caught fire like some sort of fashion fad or the latest Hilary Duff. When in fact, environmentalism is not new, the people who believe in this have been around since pre-christianity, they are just flying under a new banner.
The modern environmental movement is nothing more than a revitalization of the wiccan paganism that thrived before Christianity. As Christianity spread (after it came about of course), it had ripped through the big cities, saying that they had seen the truth from a savior and were willing to spread this messgage at all costs. Those in the cities took larely to these new ideals (eventually) and those who didn’t get the message quick enough were the rural farmers and people who had for many years, simply worshipped the land. They were labeled as heretics and ignorant non-believers who were merely clinling to ways of the past, as there was no “proof” for what they believed in worshipping something just because they always had, and that the proof lied in what the Christians had seen in Christ.
Well ladies and gentlemen, it’s the exact same thing today. One thing has remained constant is that religous history tends to repeat itself over time, be it from similar themes in different faiths to the destruction of the old religion to make way for the new one.
And it’s happening again.
Global warming theory spreaded quickly through the liberal cities of the world, and if you look around today, where are the most die-hard Bible-thumping Christians? They don’t live in the city. They don’t live in the suburbs. They live in the rural areas. They’re the people who have “Christ is Lord” written on the roof of their barn, which you can see plain as day while driving down the interstate. And just as Christianity converted the city dwellers and moved outward, environmentalist pagans are started from the inside and are working their way out towards the forestral frontier (which may be the final frontier) of Christians.
Except this time the tables have turned.
This is the old Pagan forest druids, the native American tribes, and Wiccans, and the countryfolk of old reborn into a modern, liberal, focused machine. And they are having their revenge on those who persecuted them in the past, only instead of being a religion with a church, they are calling themselves lightened to science. This all despite the fact that the average Buddhist has a better understanding of enlightenment and the average Scientologist has a better understanding of science (its ironic, but in a sad way).
Due to the nature of this beast, being political and not theological, they have adopted a political mantra as well. Each religion needs a Hero and a Villain, be it Zeus and Hades, God and Satan, or The Flying Spagetti Monster and a giant fork.
The hero of Environmentalism is the Earth, but if that is indeed the case, who is the villain?
There are essentially two villains in the environmentalist religion. The first is a carry over from the ancient pagan days, where it is simply man that is the cause of the problems, and that we must in a sense hate ourselves and what we are in order to save things.
This is equally as ridiculous as the episode of The Boondocks were Uncle Ruckus formed a church telling african-americans that God “hates darkies” and you must reject yourselves to be saved and enter white heaven. Video to illustrate point:
The second villian is a new one. The claim is that we are not just problems in ourselves, but we have created an industry that nurtures and promotes the destruction of the Earth (or in this case, God, however you want to look at it). That industry is production of goods and services. It is a system that encoruages us to make as much as we can, get as good at is as we can, and profit as much as we can. The environmentalists have a devil in the form of Capitalism. This is why they are looking at the government to save them from the horrors of “global warming” and the system that they are saying caused it.
Hence, we can gather two points of conclusion:
Anyone who is a radical environemntalist cannot rightly identify with any other faith.
You cannot call yourself a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew, or anything else if your time of worship is spend worshiping the earth and little to nothing else. Your God is the planet, nothing else.
Anyone who is a radical environmentalist is a socialist and/or a communist. Anyone who attacks the free market and competition in favor of strong government controls to preserve nature is a socialist. Rightly so, the more extreme position of everybody working together to achieve a positive society in so there is no competition, is a communist.
Nature has it’s ups and downs in temperature, just as the stock market does in it’s own nature of working. These entities regulate themselves and always have, government interference will not make things any easier and will only be used to strengthen the power of those already in power to opress the people in to doing what they want. Except this time, it isn’t the King of England demanding that his country be Catholic, it is people like Al Gore demanding that we all give ourselves to the Earth. Either way, Capitalism is wounded with every stride this new religion makes.
And if history continues to repeat itself, we are in serious trouble.
