Posted by
Andrews on Friday, December 12, 2008 9:40:48 PM
I know how little weight we should give to anecdotal evidence, but I noticed something yesterday while riding around the DC beltway on the way to my medical appointment. Whenever I saw a car with a bumper sticker saying "question authority" or on the "Bush lied, people died" theme, it was almost certain that that car would be one that would wait until the absolute last minute to merge, or to cut into a turn lane to get ahead of a traffic jam. For whatever reason, the more extremely liberal the bumper stickers, the more obnoxious the driver.
Of course, this is nothing new. My wife and I have both commented on how utterly obnoxious the people who shop in Fresh Fields/Whole Foods are, and most of them are sporting "Obama 08" stickers and telling us all about how much they care about the underprivileged. Of course, as I said to my wife, they love people in the abstract, they just don't have time to be bothered with specific people. They also are of that "healthy" set who claim to care about the world, but would bathe in the blood of babies if it could give them a few more days of youth or remove a couple more wrinkles.
Actually, this ties into a conversation my wife and I had about "eco-hipsters". She mentioned how they seem to have no qualms about deforesting the planet to set up inefficient "organic" farms so they can feel good about themselves, nor about flying in the flesh of every obscure plant and animal from every corner of the globe. However, the point my wife missed was the principle of modern environmentalists, best symbolized by the "carbon credit". Modern environmentalists don't want to be inconvenienced. They will make token gestures, like using a solar panel to charge their iPod, at least when it is convenient, or driving a hybrid, provided it isn't too small or uncomfortable, but most modern environmentalists don't want to give up their lifestyle. Sometimes they do it by pretending that electricity is "clean", and thus excusing their wealth of consumer electronics. More often they justify their environmental unfriendly living by forcing other people to be environmentally friendly. As I said, it is the carbon credit theory, "you be environmentally sound so I don't have to change".
Then again, I don't buy into 99% of the environmentalist message, so I could not care less. But for people who claim that we are destroying the earth, sucking up more than "our fair share" and who claim to case about others so much, the modern environmentalists certainly don't actually DO anything about their beliefs. They are akin to a man who claims to believe in the sanctity of marriage while having a dozen mistresses. Actually, they are even worse, as the cheating husband is only a hypocrite, the eco-hipsters are not only hypocrites, but they want to force others to live up to the standards they do not just so they can feel better.