And I reciprocated .......
I was quite fond of Virgil's "Goode News." Virgil had some peculiar views. He was proud of them. They marked him as a maverick, not a marionette. Your newsletters have consistently pointed to the latter. I think I've expressed myself on that point repeatedly. I won't belabor.
A couple weeks ago, I wrote on the subject of your evident glee in thwarting the private property rights of St. James College, and your gratuitous parroting of unfounded and pejorative characterization by the looney fringe of the motivations and actions of our President. Also, you were proud of legislation that guts humane and wholesome laws, rather than fully fund their enforcement, and encourage Lawrenceville's participation in upholding the Rule of Law.
None of the recent response to my email addresses my concerns, but neither does it reinforce my concerns. You speak as a Congressman -- saying essentially nothing, but in a way that reflects a consideration of broad concerns which indeed have thwarted even the heroic efforts of Bush 43 to bring about a consensus. We are a similar age. If my father has his way, I'd have been Hampton-Sidney class of 1976. Instead, I went to Carnegie Mellon, and remember a fondness of Woody Guthrie, especially his Hobo's Lullaby and Los Gatos. That was 1948. It ain't going away. They ain't going away. I remember at Carnegie being a fan of Milton Freedman. Funny how Chile suffered under his advisorship. Funny how Alan Greenspan regrets the failure of objectivist ideology as a governing principle. Funny how those same principles failed Bremer's consulship in Iraq. YOU AND PAUL RYAN ARE IN THRALL TO A PROVEN FAILURE. -- but I digress. Dr. Freedman spoke of voting with your feet. What is more violent? The intrusion of our borders, or what is necessary to deflect that intrusion? Are people coming here to be given stuff? I think not. They want to be safe. They want to pursue aspirations. They want to be Americans!
I digress again. I was doing Census work in 1999 in the orchard country around Covesville during harvest season. When I had car trouble -- who came to my aid? Not the priest. Not the Levite. THE SAMARITAN! I'm proud to have such neighbors. I wish the law would adapt to the facts on the ground rather than promote violence to alter those facts. In fact, I demand it. Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, and Pope Francis all demand it. And that is a much better governing principle than the "Triumph of the Will" philosophy prevalent in the Bush Administration. Perhaps Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan and Ayn Rand aren't so bad after all -- it's the Leni Riefenstahl aberration of the wingnut Right that screwed up Chile's and Iraq's economy, and are working hard (out of Wichita) to undermine our own.
In closing -- I wasn't particularly pleased by your response to my email, but was at least pleased to not be so aggressively and egregiously displeased as is routine from you weekly newsletter.
Friday, August 15, 2014
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Bobby Hurt is pissing me off yet again.
Rep Robert Hurt of Virginia's 5th Congressional District (our Represntative from Wichita) sends out a weekly email, touting the Kleptocrat party talking points. Last week, he was calling our President bad names. I sent a quick note there, especially in light of his pride in the interference in the private property rights of a local entity. Didn't blog it. This week it's a repeat of the "House Republicans have paved the way for the rape of our communities and wage-enslavement of our neighbors, BUT THE SENATE WON'T YIELD" trope that shows up every few weeks, on slow news weeks (or embarrassing rich news weeks).
I just cutting and pasting what I wrote. Maybe a few links thrown in for context...........
I've written in the past advocating private and public infrastructure investment. It would be nice to see a US Govt balance sheet where debt was balanced against income-generating assets. Then your 17 Trillion figure would be, hopefully, a net positive, and not a bankrupt government.
But my concern is the recent report that greenhouse gas emissions from Alberta oil sands are projected to exceed by a factor of three prior projections. And yet, with our cooperation or without -- say a British Columbia route to China or a Saskatchewan route to Europe -- extraction, refining, and combustion will proceed. Those gases are there, like it or not. (OR pretend it doesn't matter or not).
TAX CARBON!!! Build the pipeline, and tax carbon. Tax Western Virginia coal carbon. Tax the release of methane by fracking operations. Tax cow flatulence. Don't indemnify groundwater contamination and other externalities of extraction and transport. In fact, write laws which make it a rebuttable presumption that contamination originates from extractive use or transportation spill of the contaminating substances, with specific, preferably treble penalties. PAY AT THE PUMP!!!
Stop the subsidizing of harmful externalities. Create systems of compensation and remediation. Then, we will end up paying more money for our BTUs, entirely voluntary, when we pay at the pump. The system you are perpetuating with your very un-Republican objection to cap and trade, is one of violent coercion where I am enslaved by the consumer of cheap energy, who pollutes my air, my water, my vistas, my sacred natural spaces, even the very weather, to keep fuel cheap, at his neighbor's expense. I should think Ayn Rand would abhor the kind of coercive violence you have been advocating. And certainly Pope Francis has expressed his explicit abhorrence.
TAX CARBON!!! perhaps Cap and Trade. PAY AT THE PUMP!!! These are not socialist values. THESE ARE CHRISTIAN AND AMERICAN VALUES. INVEST IN INFRASTRUCTURE -- the Whig and Republican parties were born on that value. In times of cheap capital -- Where are the investments in low-unit-cost, large-capital energy production and conservation projects? Private projects? You, in your committee assignments, have and have squandered opportunities to alter that. Where is the information, transportation, electrical distribution, waste disposal, water impound, and other investment, both public and private? Why is Congress wanting to see America squander the Whig/Republican ethic that fed our prosperity? Why is Congress facilitating the erosion of the physical and moral fabric of America to subsidize the Plutocrats and Kleptocrats, who impoverish communities when they come waltzing in with their unregistered private equity advisors.
I just cutting and pasting what I wrote. Maybe a few links thrown in for context...........
I've written in the past advocating private and public infrastructure investment. It would be nice to see a US Govt balance sheet where debt was balanced against income-generating assets. Then your 17 Trillion figure would be, hopefully, a net positive, and not a bankrupt government.
But my concern is the recent report that greenhouse gas emissions from Alberta oil sands are projected to exceed by a factor of three prior projections. And yet, with our cooperation or without -- say a British Columbia route to China or a Saskatchewan route to Europe -- extraction, refining, and combustion will proceed. Those gases are there, like it or not. (OR pretend it doesn't matter or not).
TAX CARBON!!! Build the pipeline, and tax carbon. Tax Western Virginia coal carbon. Tax the release of methane by fracking operations. Tax cow flatulence. Don't indemnify groundwater contamination and other externalities of extraction and transport. In fact, write laws which make it a rebuttable presumption that contamination originates from extractive use or transportation spill of the contaminating substances, with specific, preferably treble penalties. PAY AT THE PUMP!!!
Stop the subsidizing of harmful externalities. Create systems of compensation and remediation. Then, we will end up paying more money for our BTUs, entirely voluntary, when we pay at the pump. The system you are perpetuating with your very un-Republican objection to cap and trade, is one of violent coercion where I am enslaved by the consumer of cheap energy, who pollutes my air, my water, my vistas, my sacred natural spaces, even the very weather, to keep fuel cheap, at his neighbor's expense. I should think Ayn Rand would abhor the kind of coercive violence you have been advocating. And certainly Pope Francis has expressed his explicit abhorrence.
TAX CARBON!!! perhaps Cap and Trade. PAY AT THE PUMP!!! These are not socialist values. THESE ARE CHRISTIAN AND AMERICAN VALUES. INVEST IN INFRASTRUCTURE -- the Whig and Republican parties were born on that value. In times of cheap capital -- Where are the investments in low-unit-cost, large-capital energy production and conservation projects? Private projects? You, in your committee assignments, have and have squandered opportunities to alter that. Where is the information, transportation, electrical distribution, waste disposal, water impound, and other investment, both public and private? Why is Congress wanting to see America squander the Whig/Republican ethic that fed our prosperity? Why is Congress facilitating the erosion of the physical and moral fabric of America to subsidize the Plutocrats and Kleptocrats, who impoverish communities when they come waltzing in with their unregistered private equity advisors.
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