Why won't Conservatives conserve?
In this interview, David Frum, now with the American Enterprise Institute, and a former speechwriter for President George W Bush, pushes our personal freedom buttons: <i>“Look, Gore-type environmentalists have been wanting to take your car away for 60 years for whatever reason they can find. If it wasn’t global warming, it would be something else. This is what they have always wanted to do. They have wanted to take away your car. They don’t like suburbs. They want to stop the trend of American life. We are not trying to achieve anything other than a cleaner environment. That’s it. We have a more limited and more rational agenda than they do.” </i>
http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=CD614215-B28F-49CC-9B6A-F669CB65EC7E
Frum doesn't say <i>which</i> environmentalists began clamoring to take your car away 60 years ago, though. US environmentalism goes at least back to Ben Franklin, but looking back 60 years, we find the very influential<i>A Sand County Almanac</i>.
http://www.aldoleopold.org/about/almanac.htm
The Almanac features Aldo Leopold's <i>Land Ethic</i>, which proposes ethics that lead to the conservation of wildlife:
<i>All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. His instincts prompt him to compete for his place in that community, but his ethics prompt him also to co-operate (perhaps in order that there may be a place to compete for).
The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.</i>
http://home.btconnect.com/tipiglen/landethic.html
The Land Ethic's final lines address technology:
<i>By and large, our present problem is one of attitudes and implements. We are remodeling the Alhambra with a steam shovel, and we are proud of our yardage. We shall hardly relinquish the shovel, which after all has many good points but we are in need of gentler and more objective criteria for its successful use.</i>
Compared to the rhetoric of today, the Land Ethic is an entirely reasonable plea to temper the use of technology while recognizing that said technology has value. One would think that such "limited and rational" conservation would be the hallmark of any conservative ethic, but for politicos like Frum, ownership trumps stewardship and "gentler criteria" is an excuse to accuse frugal stewards of eco-fascism.
http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=CD614215-B28F-49CC-9B6A-F669CB65EC7E
Frum doesn't say <i>which</i> environmentalists began clamoring to take your car away 60 years ago, though. US environmentalism goes at least back to Ben Franklin, but looking back 60 years, we find the very influential<i>A Sand County Almanac</i>.
http://www.aldoleopold.org/about/almanac.htm
The Almanac features Aldo Leopold's <i>Land Ethic</i>, which proposes ethics that lead to the conservation of wildlife:
<i>All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. His instincts prompt him to compete for his place in that community, but his ethics prompt him also to co-operate (perhaps in order that there may be a place to compete for).
The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.</i>
http://home.btconnect.com/tipiglen/landethic.html
The Land Ethic's final lines address technology:
<i>By and large, our present problem is one of attitudes and implements. We are remodeling the Alhambra with a steam shovel, and we are proud of our yardage. We shall hardly relinquish the shovel, which after all has many good points but we are in need of gentler and more objective criteria for its successful use.</i>
Compared to the rhetoric of today, the Land Ethic is an entirely reasonable plea to temper the use of technology while recognizing that said technology has value. One would think that such "limited and rational" conservation would be the hallmark of any conservative ethic, but for politicos like Frum, ownership trumps stewardship and "gentler criteria" is an excuse to accuse frugal stewards of eco-fascism.
