It's just a simple word. Why fear it?
Environmental law is rarely my friend. Alternatives which I believe are truly the most efficient solution to serious problems are rarely given what I would view as a fair hearing due to some of the biases of American politics.
Take for example our recent discussion of the Clean Water Act and non-point source polluters. A non-point source of pollution, to put it colloquially, is something which you cannot discretely point to. I can identify a pipe coming out of a factory, the exhaust port on a car, or the flow coming out of the municipal sewage plant. Identifying where pollution comes from when it seeps off of 80 miles of farmland is much more difficult and so merits being called a non-point source.
Compliance with the strictures of the Clean Water Act (which regulates almost exclusively point sources) is relatively high. More than 90% of municipalities are in compliance and over 95% of industrial point sources are in compliance. Yet, over 1/3 of the nation’s waters are heavily polluted, and in several instances to such a degree that they are virtually sterile. Why?
Non-point source polluters are the main problem. Nitrates from animal wastes run off from large farming ventures. Nitrates (from fertilizers) and sulfates (from pesticides) run off from fields into the local rivers and lakes. The professor today asked us to consider how we might go about solving the problem of non-point source pollutants.
Two words: Nationalize Agriculture.
People need to realize that our ability to exercise our freedom in not a right, but a privilege given to us by the government. Before government (in the state of nature) we all had freedom to do what we liked, but when we discovered that such a life was ‘red in tooth and nail’ (via Hobbes and to a lesser extent Locke), we abdicated our autonomy to a Sovereign who would adjudge disputes and create laws to govern us.
Rights are not absolute. “My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins” is a phrase used to describe this concept in some philosophical circles, but a better way to put it would be to say that ‘to the extent to which the exercise of my rights does not impede yours, I am free.”
Developing land to suit my selfish gain of material wealth is fine, to the extent that it infringes on the rights of no other beings. Unfortunately for free-market types, such cannot be said to be the case in virtually any sphere of life. When I pollute the water, I make that water undrinkable. People downstream can no longer fish the waters. They cannot swim in the waters. The smells that emanate from the rivers drive down property values for miles. Contact with polluted waters can lead to infections and death. And if consequences to humans weren’t enough, it amounts to wholesale killing of entire species and the ruination of numerous habitats.
If private land development cannot be exercised in a way which simultaneously respects the rights of others, it is not a right the government (an entity whose sole purpose is the protection of its members from aggressors, both internal and external) is bound to respect. Such polluters have declared war against the State, and as such the Sovereign is in his right to dissolve their rights in a manner to end their rebellion.
Another student today remarked that controls could be put in place, commenting that ‘if corporations couldn’t be trusted to have some ethics, big brother should step in and show them how to do it right.’ I agree, only let’s be honest and take him to his natural conclusion.
I wish people could think about government run industry in a way that did not bring to mind the coerced farm policy of Stalin’s Russia. Even our mother country, Great Britain, has turned over several industries to the government in the interest of serving the public in a more efficient and equitable manner.
Nationalized Agriculture. Think about it.
Take for example our recent discussion of the Clean Water Act and non-point source polluters. A non-point source of pollution, to put it colloquially, is something which you cannot discretely point to. I can identify a pipe coming out of a factory, the exhaust port on a car, or the flow coming out of the municipal sewage plant. Identifying where pollution comes from when it seeps off of 80 miles of farmland is much more difficult and so merits being called a non-point source.
Compliance with the strictures of the Clean Water Act (which regulates almost exclusively point sources) is relatively high. More than 90% of municipalities are in compliance and over 95% of industrial point sources are in compliance. Yet, over 1/3 of the nation’s waters are heavily polluted, and in several instances to such a degree that they are virtually sterile. Why?
Non-point source polluters are the main problem. Nitrates from animal wastes run off from large farming ventures. Nitrates (from fertilizers) and sulfates (from pesticides) run off from fields into the local rivers and lakes. The professor today asked us to consider how we might go about solving the problem of non-point source pollutants.
Two words: Nationalize Agriculture.
People need to realize that our ability to exercise our freedom in not a right, but a privilege given to us by the government. Before government (in the state of nature) we all had freedom to do what we liked, but when we discovered that such a life was ‘red in tooth and nail’ (via Hobbes and to a lesser extent Locke), we abdicated our autonomy to a Sovereign who would adjudge disputes and create laws to govern us.
Rights are not absolute. “My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins” is a phrase used to describe this concept in some philosophical circles, but a better way to put it would be to say that ‘to the extent to which the exercise of my rights does not impede yours, I am free.”
Developing land to suit my selfish gain of material wealth is fine, to the extent that it infringes on the rights of no other beings. Unfortunately for free-market types, such cannot be said to be the case in virtually any sphere of life. When I pollute the water, I make that water undrinkable. People downstream can no longer fish the waters. They cannot swim in the waters. The smells that emanate from the rivers drive down property values for miles. Contact with polluted waters can lead to infections and death. And if consequences to humans weren’t enough, it amounts to wholesale killing of entire species and the ruination of numerous habitats.
If private land development cannot be exercised in a way which simultaneously respects the rights of others, it is not a right the government (an entity whose sole purpose is the protection of its members from aggressors, both internal and external) is bound to respect. Such polluters have declared war against the State, and as such the Sovereign is in his right to dissolve their rights in a manner to end their rebellion.
Another student today remarked that controls could be put in place, commenting that ‘if corporations couldn’t be trusted to have some ethics, big brother should step in and show them how to do it right.’ I agree, only let’s be honest and take him to his natural conclusion.
I wish people could think about government run industry in a way that did not bring to mind the coerced farm policy of Stalin’s Russia. Even our mother country, Great Britain, has turned over several industries to the government in the interest of serving the public in a more efficient and equitable manner.
Nationalized Agriculture. Think about it.
posted by The Academian | 12:57 PM
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