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The western world at the crossroads to Fascism

By Justin Jefferson - posted Tuesday, 22 December 2009


Besides, politicians are just as motivated by money as other human beings, perhaps more so - or have we discovered in politicians a race of angels, as the big-government brigade seem to assume? What reason is there to think that a desire for confiscated money is nobler than a desire for money voluntarily handed over?

All human action is an attempt to cause the environment to be changed so as to be more satisfactory to human wants from the point of view of the person taking the action. There are not many universally true statements about human action, but this must be one of them.

Ironically, while environmentalists never tire of saying that human beings are part of the environment, for some reason they think humans are the only species for whom it is immoral to use natural resources so as to live and reproduce.

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Human use of the environment is by definition an improvement to the environment, otherwise it wouldn’t happen. Before my house was built, the site was natural: stones, grass, insects. I could lie there naked, on the stones, exposed to the weather, getting bitten by insects. But now I lie in pyjamas, under bedclothes, within four walls, and that satisfies my human wants more. This change to the environment has improved environmental values from my point of view.

But you might say, what about the reduction of forests since timber was used to build my house; and the pollution from fossil fuels used to heat it? Well they affect other people, and therefore other people may have a legitimate countervailing interest in my use of natural resources. But this just confirms what we have already seen, that environmental values are only about the countervailing human interests in the use of the same resource. That doesn’t mean that there are environmental values over and above human values, nor that the decisions about environmental values should be made by way of government and power, rather than by way of freedom and property.

A governmental power to manage the environment, or control the use of carbon, cannot be anything but a totalitarian power. Since all human activity affects the environment and uses carbon, a power to control these things is a power to control all human activity - that’s what totalitarian government means. Hitler was democratically elected, and his views on lebensraum and the Jews were already known. If that is not a disproof of the assumption that democracy will save us from the logical consequences of letting governments assume totalitarian powers, nothing is.

The Australian Constitution provides that the powers of the federal government are limited to a list of powers given in the Constitution. “Managing the environment” is not one of them. But obviously if it is accepted to be a valid function of government, it would subsume all the other powers and totally subvert the constitution and the possibility of limited government and of a free society.

The western world is on the brink of sliding into fascism with the rise of a creed that government has and ought to have the unlimited power to control any and every aspect of human life that affects the environment or that uses carbon, in other words, everything.

Don’t kid yourself that totalitarian power is going to be any more humane this time around than it was last time, nor confine itself to what is convenient and safe for you, especially when so many environmentalists openly pretend that they speak for values above humanity, that human population is the problem, and that unlimited political power is the solution.

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About the Author

Justin Jefferson is an Australian who wishes to show that social co-operation is best and fairest when based in respect for individual freedom.

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