exploiting

Stand Up Against the Exploitation of Tragedy

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Yesterday, when you opened Twitter and Facebook up, it seemed like one post or another was calling for people to “do something” about the “menace of guns” in our country, or improve the accessibility of mental health in our county.

I don’t oppose some of the those suggestions. Indeed, certainly we could probably do more ensure affordable and stigma free counseling was available to all. The President’s health law that passed in 2009, with Mental Health parity and a requirement for all to subscribe to a basic health care plan.

We could also consider some gun control restrictions — but the restrictions have to be reasonable in effort, and need to provide a very high standard against someone owning or possessing a firearm. It would have to require a judge, a jury, and a beyond reasonable doubt standard — as does any restriction of a constitutional right. We can’t just have government officials, on a whim, restricting people’s rights, because they don’t like their politics.

The Ledge

We also can’t just start stigmatizing or persecuting individuals just because we don’t like their views. We saw too much of that after September 11th. Rather then embracing conformity, we should embrace diversity, and encourage people of diverse backgrounds to be active and engaged members of our society. We have to stand up against political persecution. They may not be coming after you today, but your in line next.

What I fear, and already see is the worst coming out of people. People want to do something — regardless of what it means for our civil liberties. They want to stop violence, even if they really can not do anything. Even if it means hurting regular folks, they feel they must do something. This is plain scary.

Day is Done – Peter, Paul and Mary.

I think it’s time to step back, and put an end to this madness — the madness of saying we must do something now.

Exploiting the Drought for Ideological Purposes

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Last week, the Department of Environmental Conservation announced that they would be suspending all controlled burn permits state wide, and banning all outdoor brush burning through October 10th. What they conviently forgot to mention was under the DEC rules created by executive fiat by Pete Grannis’ DEC, that all outdoor brush burning is banned by DEC rule from October 15th to May 15th. Essentially they are banning all brush burning for the next year, but they didn’t want to sound like they were doing that.

It is pretty dry out. The fire danger is “High” in many parts of state, which is the second highest level under “Very High” which is usually reserved for when actual large brush fires have broken out and all outdoor fires — including small campfires and barbeque grills. Those kind of conditions are generally unheard of in the relatively wet eastern states, except maybe in snowless periods of the early spring before things green up.

In previous times, regulating and preventing brush fires was largely a local task based on county decision making, except in the Adirondack Park (where the Adirondack Park Agency had that power). County Executives or County Legislatures would proclaim a high fire danger and ban various types of outdoor burning — camp fires, brush burn piles, trash fires, etc. Counties would typically insitute such bans based on local conditions, not some broad state handed down decree. Such bans would be short lived, until the rains came, and soaked down the landscape.

The reality is at a state level, an unholy alliance of radical environmentalists and solid waste hauling companies have come together to basically ban all outdoor burning. Industry likes it to, because if you blame backyard brush and trash burning for air pollution, you don’t have to look at what’s coming up the smoke stacks. Environmentalists claim to be concerned about the smoke from burning brush, or for that matter anything besides fossil fuels in highly controlled conditions

They have yet to ban campfires due to pollution controls, probably due to the political backlash of outdoors recreationalists, but you know that’s next. They are already after outdoor wood boilers, and fireplaces, due to so-called pollution controls, while ignoring serious environmental problems that are from large industrial polluters.