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Eco-Terrorism
shmert writes: "NYTimes has the scoop on some recent eco-terrorist activity. The most titillating being the torching of an SUV dealership. Wonder if this could ever lead to anything productive? Seems like I'd think twice about buying a new SUV if the tires got slashed every week. Although antics like this never really worked in those Carl Hiassen books." Are these sorts of actions justifiable? If one of the companies developing bio-engineered plants/animals messes up, the consequences to the rest of the world could be extreme and it's doubtful the company would be in any position to make restitution. Is it right to destroy property in an effort to prevent this sort of gambling with our quality of life? Is that the most productive way to deal with bio-engineering risks?
I am writing to you today to warn you of a serious ecological threat posed by Microsoft. I have proof that at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, WA, they are secretly growing genetically altered clones of Jon Katz in their PC's.
Furthermore, every box of Microsoft products you see on the shelves contains millions of microscopic genetically-altered pollen granules, sarcastically referred to as "bits". They even print on the box how many millions of these bits are in the box!
Please deal with this situation as you see fit.
Sincerely,
A Concerned citizen
I drive one myself. A Cherokee.
Is my 1994 6-cylinder Jeep Cherokee an evil yuppie SUV, or is it a 4X4 I use to tow my sailboat, get to backwoods campgrounds, and (sometimes) to carry lots of stuff?
I bought my Jeep before the acronym "SUV" was in common use, and I plan to keep it until that fad is over. Y'all can debate the merits of your Hondas and Audis or Acuras or whatever. I'm sticking with my old blue box until I either can't get parts for it any more or my eyes get so bad that I can't drive safely.
- Robin
Depending on where you live, how often does that really happen? In moderately deep snow, yes a 4WD vehicle is going to have an advantage. But not on ice. I've seen way too many SUVs and Jeeps whose drivers thought that spinning like tops and ending up in the ditch and/or hitting someone else. For all but the most extreme conditions, a front wheel drive car and an alert driver with a clue is sufficient. I've driven through enough blizzards to know that. My father spends a lot of time on the road (500-1000 miles a week before he retired..probably only 300 now) mainly in rural areas where 'on-road conditions often turn into off-road conditions'. Unless he needed to pull a trailer or haul a bunch of stuff with a pickup, he used a car and has said even he can't understand why anyone would need a SUV.
Look at the demographics of those who are buying SUVs. They are usually upper middle class & up people in urban and suburban areas (again not counting Hutterites =). These people are buying for status and for a perceived need that they _might_ use it for once or twice a year, if ever, instead of what they actually use it for on a day to day basis. Sure, having a 4WD may help you if you're in an area that gets socked with lots of snow. Get a Subaru or an AWD Audi if you don't think a FWD can hack it. But what's the excuse for those in the sunbelt states? I mean, if I bought vehicles on some rare need, I'd buy a Hummer with a .50 cal machine gun on the top so I could mow down rioters and drive over the pieces of shit.
If your CRV is only getting between 25 & 30, something is wrong with it. My parents' big ass Buick Park Avenue gets a consistent 28. My Mitsubishi econobox gets 35. You should be getting at least that if not more. I've hauled a lot of stuff in a similar Hyundai Excel (mattresses, a freezer, 10+ computers & monitors, dressers, a swingset, etc.) and even pulled a U-haul trailer cross country over the Rockies w/o any problems. Renting a small trailer from time to time isn't that big of a hassel.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
A sniper kills an abortion provider in Buffalo, NY, because he believes that abortion is murder, and that his single act of murder would prevent hundreds of children from being killed.
Was it justifiable?
An ecoterrorist group torches an SUV dealership because they believe that the increased fuel consumption disproportionately contributes to the destruction of the environment, and that their single act of pollution will prevent many others.
Was it justifiable?
If you can answer 'yes' to either of those questions, then you better damn well feel comfortable supporting the other. Left-wing or right-wing, the goals are irrelevant. You'd better be prepared to defend all uses of violent resistance, or agree that none are acceptable.
As a side question, what the hell did this have to do with "News for Nerds"?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Here in Western Australia, we have forest protesters. Nice idea, but the implementation is a little... well, lacking.
For example, they tend to litter. And to track a disease known as ``dieback'' through the forests because they don't take care to clean down their vehicles. And to chop down a lot of little trees in order to build a platform from which to protest about the decimation of big trees. What? Use branches instead? Oooh, we never thought of that... nor did we think that the locals, who depend on the forest products for their own livings as well as the survival of their townships, might be a tad upset by us disrupting their livelihood. Of course, digging out culverts to stop logging trucks is de rigeur, but the environmental damage which this does is not important. And so on.
I firmly believe that we ought to leave some forests - large areas of them - strictly alone, because the fact remains that we don't really know what forests are for or how they work, and messing with mysteries before they're unravelled is generally not a survival tendency. However, a consistent, rational and energetic education and lobbying campaign is going to do a whole heap more towards this aim than the vandalism supposed-short-cut. The real motivation of many eco-terrorists is instant heroism, a ``usefulness high,'' and it shows in their actions.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I was looking for a specific essay on this subject, that I've read before, but alas, I can't find it tonight.
See William Barhill, Focus: Early Warnings; Identifying Violence-Prone Police Officers, WASH. POST, Aug. 11, 1992,
at B5 ("The prolonged, unremitted stress associated with law enforcement often results in a build-up of undischarged anger
for a chance to explode").
In 1993 'only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The 'error rate' for the police, however, was 11 percent, more than five times as high.
Newsweek, November 15, 1993
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Surfing the net and other cliches...
(Who Meta-Meta-Moderates the Meta-Moderators?)
I'm one of the first (and probably loudest) to complain about the current intellectual property cartels and government enforced monopolies that threaten our free market system and, more importantly, our basic freedoms themselves. And while at some point revolution may be required to set things right, espousing such, much less persuing it in violent fashion, before every other nonviolent, legal means has been exhausted is just plain irresponsible and self-defeating.
Say what you like about Americans because they don't fawn all over your particular radical agenda, but as a whole the American people are pretty practical, and if you are to convince them of your views you must, in turn, provide practical proof, or at least strong evidence, of what you espouse. And no, appealing to authority isn't enough -- American's are notoriously unwilling to believe authorities for authority's sake -- you must provide cold, hard facts.
When the Boston Tea Party took place a majority (not all, but a majority) of the people were already convinced that they were being taxed into bankrupcy without representation, and with no means within the system to do anything about it. They were left with only two options: revolt, or be taxed into starvation. They chose revolt.
You, and those who espouse your, shall we say, questionable views, have many choices. You can speak out (freedom of speech is under attack, but not yet dead), you can protest, you can lobby government, you can raise consumer awareness.
But if you ever try to torch one molecule of my property I will do everything in my power to destroy you financially, physically, and mentally. As a citizen of a nominally free country there is nothing that compells me to adopt your point of view, and if you are thinking of using violence to coerce me into adopting your point of view you'd better be prepared to use deadly force, because that is exactly what I will use to defend my freedom against such an attack.
What is sad, really, are the people who can't be bothered to vote, can't be bothered to educate themselves on how our (still nominally) democratic system works and how to be effective in it, who choose instead to escalate every little cause to violent revolution before having even bothered trying any more peaceful and reasonable approaches in getting their views heard. Or, having had their views rejected, feel somehow that this gives them the right to undemocratically coerce the unbelieveing majority to adhere to their notions anyway through force of violence.
In a democratic system, even a nominally democratic system such as exists in much of the world today, the majority sets policy. If that majority happens to be wrong about a particular policy (e.g. the War on Drugs, allowing obscene copyright terms, allowing patents, etc.) then that is indeed a problem. However, I will take our dysfunctional democracy over your terrorism and autocracy any day, no matter how stupid the resulting policies are.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The solution is pretty simple, raise gas prices with gas taxes. Europe's gas prices are not magical, they're entirely the result of taxes. It works remarkably well. For instance, placing various restrictions against SUVs may reduce the number of SUVs on the road, but the fact of the matter is that Americans will still burn a hell of a lot more fuel than they need to for a number of reasons. First, and probably even more significant than SUV consumption, is the fact that most Americans commute further than they need to to work and other places. Second, relatively few Americans use mass transit. Third, most Americans, including most so-called environments drive excessively wasteful cars of various sorts. From sports cars, to cars with more HP than it takes to get the job done, to those 20+ year old cars, to Cadillaces, and others. Fourth, many Americans drive simply because they like to drive, rather than taking the train, for instance, they'll drive. Fifth, American car companies have little incentive to develop and manufature highly efficient cars _today_ because Americans express little demand for it. Fifth, few Americans carpool and share rides.
Raising gas prices by means of levying a significant tax on gas would make great strides to solve these problems, and do it in a far more equitable and reasonable manner than burdensome regulations. This way, those who really really do need or enjoy a more intensive vehicle, can still have it, for the most part, they'll just have to pay for it. This is the way everything else in our society works; the right to burn cheap fuel at cost to our highways, health, and the evironment is not written a right at all. It may hurt some people, namely the "poor", but not as much as you might expect. Many people can and would move, finding the costs of living somewhere else exceed the costs. What's more, the demand for mass-transit would rise, making it more accessible, cheaper, and easier for all.
What I would suggest is gradually scaling in taxes over a period of 10 years or so. Enough so that the various parties (e.g., transit authorities, builders, consumers, employers, etc) can plan around it.
/BEGIN RANT
Of course, most Americans would disagree, they would rather blame someone else than admit that they themselves are very much of the problem. They're all for the environment, until it comes to having to make sacrifice more significant than lip service; as long as (they think) someone else has to do the sacrificing it is fine with them.
Me, I drive an SUV (97' Pathfinder), albeit a fairly low-impact one, so I'm hardly a saint. But then again, I'm not running around throwing stones at SUVs that happen to be twice as large and gas consuming as mine. Your car (whomever flames me) may be 60% more efficient than mine, but I'd be willing to bet that you fall into almost every one of my earlier points (hell, you may even waste more fuel than me when all is said and done). Nonetheless, I would support any politician that was honestly willing to tax gas, because it makes sense and it is ultimately necessary. Whereas bitching and whining about how I, or any other SUV driver, my car is 60% worse than yours, ignoring that you personally consume 5000% more energy than almost every other person on this earth is just plain silly, not to mention the fact that it misses the bigger picture.
/END RANT
Well, we're getting tired of the "have-nots" dictating to the rest of us what is and isn't fair, and using a government that we finance as an mechanism for preventing us from living the lives we choose
History would dictate that self-preservation alone should motivate the upper classes to temper the conspicuousness of their consumption (and the obnoxiousness of their contempt).
There's a lot more poor people than rich people, and the poor people have little to lose.
When the poor people are convinced that the rich are depriving them of living the lives THEY choose, there's usually big trouble...
---------------------------------------------
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Burning an SUV dealer to help the environment? The supposed "eco-terrorists" probably caused more pollution during that act than all of the SUV's on that lot would have caused during their operating lifetime. Think burning rubber, think burning seat material (usually has Poly Vynyl Chloride in it), etc. Not to mention that all of those vehicles will just be replaced, so they've done nothing but increase the SUV manufacturer's profits. And it will take more energy and more materials to build the replacement vehicles and rebuild the dealership, which is also counterproductive. The SUV dealer will file an insurance claim, so they won't be out that much. People who want an SUV will just buy one from another dealer until the dealership is back up and running again.
Eco-moronism is more an accurate term to describe this kind of stupidity than eco-terrorism. In order to be terrorism it would have to frighten people into changing their behavior. This kind of arson is more along the lines of senseless vandalism. It is not going to convince anyone to change their behavior. It is more likely to damage this kind of cause, because people will not be sympathetic to it if this kind of behavior is associated with it.
Even if it's well intentioned, the problem with vigilante justice is that there is rarely any justice in it. Just emotion. And thus it usually targets the wrong victim through ignorance.
The problem with Eco Terrorism is this: It leads to reverse terrorism.
If Ecoterroists burned the SUV of some of the folks I know, their "Innocent Media Spokesman" would have to watch his butt for a LONG time. When you play outside the "rules" don't be surprised of other folks come out to play too
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
Might want to look up whether you're really correct first. Start by debunking everything you read at junkscience.com. And saying "they're all liars funded by evil corporate interests" doesn't count. (E.g. The world is flat because the people who say it's round "are all liars and funded by evil corporate interests". "It's just common-sense." :)
I have a friend, who I have a lot of respect for. He and his wife (a lawyer) have looked at the path that this world set on and have decided to not have children. They feel that it would be quite unfair to bring children into the future that they see coming. They are living for themselves and leaving the world to whatever it comes to.
I see this as an act of desperation. I'm sure that if they thought that there was a real possibility of changing our course such that the future would be livible for their (would-be) children, they would do so, and have children.
Likewise, the eco-vandalism is an act of desperation. I, like many other environmentalists, feel that it is counter - productive. It is also against my own personal ethics. Unfortunately, these people seem to see no other course of action open to them. My own thought is that -- if that is the best that is possible, then they might as well give up and go home. Do like my friend, and just don't have children.
--
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
It breaks down to the right tool for the right job. Some people spend a helluva lot of time in their vehicles so I'm not about to claim they should not enjoy some luxury. And the soccer moms out there don't want to buy a mini-van because of the image of it being a soccer-mom vehicle, so they need a SUV with equal human cargo capacity. OK, fine (but it's still a soccer-mom vehicle!). But by golly, a Cadillac pick-up truck? Why? It's just ridiculous. You take a truck chassis, then over engineer the shit out of it to make it drive like a car. Just buy a friggin luxury car and if you really need to go to Home Depot to haul some goods once in a while, rent a real pick-up truck...
It costs $50,000. I'm at a loss. A pick-up truck is supposed to be a REAL utility vehicle, not some super-luxurious penis-enlarging toy. Just look at this thing.... Is someone going to haul a load of manure in this thing? Or throw a bunch of lumber in the back? What good is it for?
Oh, and for our foreign readers, you can't imagine how big that really is from the pictures. Here's a hint. The wheels are 17 inchers and they look tiny compared to the rest of that vehicle.... It's 221" long, 91.5" wide, and 75.6" tall.
(On second thought, you probably STILL can't imagine how big it is since the measurements aren't metric... :)
"Terrorism" is just another word for "counter-propaganda propaganda."
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
BTW, some of the first gun control legislation in the USA was designed specifically to prevent blacks freed from slavery from owning guns with which they could defend themselves against such attacks.
I mean, what the hell kind of anarchist golfs? "Say, Moonchild, what say we get in a quick nine before we torch that Land Rover dealership?" I guess you have to have a hobby outside of blowing stuff up.
But I've got to agree that grass is a bad idea. There are dozens of better ways to fight erosion, that don't require you to use massive quantities of poison and fertilizer. In the town I grew up in, there was a pond at the bottom of a large hill. The hill was covered with nice houses with nice beautifully manicured lawns. One spring a lengthy rainstorm sent runoff from all these lawns downhill into the pond. A day later, all the fish were dead--poisoned by all that fertilizer and insecticide. Eventually fishing in the pond was banned; what fish remained were incredibly toxic.
The moral of the story is that just because one or two people doing a thing is harmless doesn't mean the thing remains harmless when done by a hundred thousand people.
--
This is not my sandwich.
Actually, there's a natural "tax" (or behaviour disincentive) with SUVs already: they consume more fuel and subsequently cost more.
Ever think to question why people are buying these vehicles - especially when the sticker is $10K+ over a midsized auto, the fuel costs are 50% to 100% more, and insurance isn't any cheaper? If these values proposed are so critical, why aren't we all driving Metros?
I think you'll find a good amount of buyer behavior associated with:
- safety: the lack of enforcement of drunk driving laws (especially violations across state lines which keeps 15+ incident repeat offenders driving), irresponsible drivers with irresponsible cures (ban cell phones while permitting applying makeup or eating burger king in the car) and other factors encourage folks to adopt other means to protect their family.
- utility: SUVs not only get the family around in comfort, but allow for folks to pick up home improvement supplies, load up gardening materials, etc.
We've already got enough taxes on behavior and laws on intent. Take responsibility for your life and let others be responsible for theirs.
*scoove*
When someone drives 50 miles each way for their commute, alone, in a 3 ton truck, something is not right.
So steal their money from them via taxes (and give the money to whom)? Afraid to allow them to be stupid and suffer their own natural consequences?
I drive a large diesel truck since its required for operating my orchard, as well as being used on the job building rural telecom networks (yea, it's my truck and I bought it. Bite me). You may see me driving 50 miles alone to the city to a meeting, or perhaps a run for orchard supplies. You'd better believe I'm aware of the cost (why do you think I bought the Diesel? 21 MPG highway vs. 10 on the gas engine, and compatibility with biodiesel which I can't wait to run), but then again, it's apparent I'm more aware of the situation than you are.
Per family incomes being too high, god bless them wherever they are at. If they're being foolish with their money, the next (or potentially current) recession will cure that stupidity.
Since these folks are already accountable for their higher costs, potential economic risks, loss of money that could be used for other things, etc., and that doesn't satisfy you, it's apparent that there are more fundamental reactions at work (e.g. class/income jealousy, relativistic justification of theft, etc.).
As we say in our parts, "Mind your own damn business."
*scoove*
The environmental damage from the burning of the dealership is just the thing they are trying to prevent. Funny that they don't seem to recognize that.
Environmentalists --
They destroy the environment by burning vehicles (and the fuels contained within) to help the environment. The logic is this -- if nobody can drive any of those SUVs, then the potential savings of 10 (or more) years of pollution has been saved x (Times) the number of vehicles destroyed.
The logic is sound, but it's a good thing they're all a bunch of pussies. A really good environementalist plot, if they TRUELY believed in it, would be applied more librally to other facets of life.
A TRUE environmental ploy should be all inclusive! Why stop at SUVs? Go for the sport cars, luxury vehicles, and anything not absolutely essential for daily activities. With that being said, there would only be a good market for small, efficient cars, and medium sized, useful trucks. Nothing else should be allowed.
They should then move on to other wastes. Such as pregnant women, since each baby born generates hundreds of thousands of pounds of waste material per year (in the form of both natural, and un-natural wastes such as post-consumer product and secondary polution). Children should only be manufactured for the purposes of racial procreation, and of course to increase the manual labor workforce. Children can be used as effective workers.
They could then of course destroy all domesticated animals, since the sheltering and caring for such animals produces extra waste (both economic and ecological) as it creates a very large pet care produt industry, one that surely generates extra garbage and other waste matrials each year. Only animals with actual value producing attributed shall be allowed to consume resources.
After they have eliminated all non-critical vehicular transport, children, and domesticated pets, they should turn to their own yards, where they are putting precious land to waste by growing grass instead of produce. This must be rectified by using every square foot of land to it's fullest potential.
Since maintaining the home-grown produce would become a full time job, not to mention one that provides self sufficience, there would be no need for jobs other than things such as paying utility bills, which an Environmentalist wouldn't wish to continue doing anyway since Power and Water utilities tend to be rooted in environmental damage. Instead, everyone should just dig a well and learn to live without central heat and air. Television is dying anyway, and without radio, the RIAA would be a problem that just vanished on it's own. As for the rest of the media, nobody would miss them. And the internet? Who uses it anyway?
...
Thank god the environmentalists are too narrow visioned to see the RIGHT way to make the rest of us miserable! Their uncreativity is a good thing.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
What, you say? Arson is not an act of violence? Tell that to the firemen who risk their lives trying to put it out! One of these days, one of these arson fires IS going to kill someone... I wonder what these twits will say then?
In Arizona, it is legal to shoot to kill to stop arson of an occupied building. Maybe these clowns should come to Phoenix. We would show them a good time!
Of course, one of these loons was here. He was showing his love of the environment by burning houses under construction next to our mountain preserves. Never you mind that he himself had a house on the preserve! Never you mind that burning these houses added pollution to the environment, and used up water and wood - which these environmentalists are supposedly so much in love with.
There is no excuse for destroying private property in a democratic society. If this were a dictatorship, then the destruction of the dictator's property would be OK. But these days, people seem to believe that just because they don't like something, they can violate the law and peoples' rights with acts of violence! They seem to think that because a "corporation" is an owner, it must be evil - so go ahead and destroy its property. Well, how many of these people have pension funds invested in corporations? How many other people lose some of their savings as these corporations lose money and opportunity.
These ecofreaks are nothing more than misfits. They are poorly informed about environmental issues, and are rather narcissistally pretending to be heroes and heorins... but really they are just scum.
The only good weather is bad weather.
I'm sure it's more like these are isolated instances, and may not be tied to some conspiracy. Maybe these are disgruntled workers or plain accidents. The fact that the police have no leads is very suspicious. Maybe blaming eco-terrorists is a way to explain it away; kind of like blaming space ships for "crop circles". So while I wouldn't suggest that the stories are being made up completely, I wouldn't be surprised if there were pressure from the white house or their lobbying interests to blame the incidents on a huge environmental terrorist group, just for the sympathy.
In fact, before I start chasing "eco-terrorists", I'd investigate those incidents at SUV dealerships a bit more. I keep hearing that large, gas-guzzling SUVs are cheap these days: Lincoln is selling their Navigator at 0% financing, and you can buy a Chevy Suburban for $6-8k off. Typically you don't discount a "hot" car, even it it is at the end of a model year. From what I've heard, with gas prices where they are, it costs about $80 to fill up the tank on one of those behemoths. Maybe they're torching their own inventory. I mean, car dealerships are always saying how crazy they are.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Even the full size domestic 'sports coupe' designs are either being discontinued, or re-introduced as little tin cans with tiny little minimal displacement engines.
Sure, some people are swayed by marketing, but many people buy SUVs because they are the modern equivalent of the full-sized passenger car, a breed killed off by mandated mileage requirements and emissions laws.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
The big problem I see with current trends (especially in the U.S.) is that nothing we're doing is sustainable. We're using up our natural resources at a frightening fast rate. We're still polluting like mad, we're pumping tremendous amounts of C02 and methane into the atmosphere and eventually we'll kill off the human race or just most of the planet. If every one in the world lived like the US did, we'd need 3 Earths to handle the demand on natural resources.
Unfortunately, from the extent of your hyperbole above, it sounds like you've adopted the opinion of a very few, largely-self-styled experts as if they were handed down to Moses on stone tablets. (Sorry -- it really is tough to avoid the "religion" metaphor when discussing these things.)
Are you aware that as recently as the 1970s we were supposedly heading for another ice age? At least, we were according to the same clique of "environmental scientists" who are now telling us we're heading for imminent global heat death.
The effects you're talking about constitute, in the words of Carl Sagan, "extraordinary claims." Do you really think it's unreasonable for us to demand "extraordinary proof" to go along with them?
In short, read what you're writing, for Pete's sake, and understand what you're asking of the rest of us. If you successfully convince me to buy that happy neo-Malthusian crap you're selling, you'll have compelled me to rearrange my lifestyle more drastically than anything short of a severe car crash, life-threatening disease, or limited nuclear war could have done. I'd have to destroy my own car (of course, we ran out of fossil fuels about 10 years ago according to the prevailing environmental opinions^h^h^h^h^hscience of the 70s era, so no great loss there), stop washing my clothes, and swear not to reproduce (of course, not washing my clothes should take care of that problem nicely).
No, I'm not going to take decisions like this lightly... and no, you're not going to win me, or any other typical American I know, over to your cause by resorting to violence and vandalism. At a minimum, it's going to take irrefutable proof of anthropogenic contributions to global warming and undeniable evidence of consequential harm. We don't have that right now, and we won't for a long time, if ever. Will it be too late then? Maybe.
But then, I'm willing to bet that somehow, things aren't quite as bad as you're making them sound.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
She is practically booed every time she tells someone that she works in genetics
:-(
That really sucks. It's no different from the Catholic Church's persecution of Galileo and Copernicus, if you think about it. When a gang of ignorant religious wackos (which is what this tree-spiking, library-burning, SUV-vandalizing thing is: a religion) disagrees with you, it's unlikely that your differences will be resoved in any civil forum.
Unfortunately, the enviro-wackos won't be happy until we're all living in trees and caves. They simply aren't interested in solving the problems of how to clothe, feed, and house six billion+ healthy homo sapiens at anything beyond a subsistence level.
Make no mistake: today it's the "rich" who are their targets of convenience. Tomorrow, it will be you.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
Doesn't surprise me. The number of individual armed citizens with a whole station worth of police oficers to back them up if they kill somebody wrongly is rather low. The average armed citizen has far more liability to worry about than the average LEO does. Behavior follows suit.
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
Those acts were acts of war against non-civilian, combatant targets in the context of a declared war. That is not terrorism, it is called guerrila warfare.
Burning the dealerships is not the way to combat this problem. I was hoping that gasoline prices would stay high this summer (they are much cheaper in the US than other countries). But they seem to be heading back down now as well.
I would love to see SUVs included in the federal bill that mandates a fleet average for gasoline mileage from a car company. Either that or taxing cars/SUVs that get really poor mileage (some sort of environment destruction tax) would help flip this recent trend.
Let's not even get into the problems SUVs cause on the road by decreasing the visibility of those around them . . .
1. Releasing a little mercury will not destroy the environment as much as 100,000 miles on the engine... with gasoline and oil.
2. See #1
3. Freon (R12) hasn't really been used in cars since 1994... meaning these SUVs did not have it.
Ever need an online dictionary?
If it is, be prepared for more and more of it to exist behind walls. Gated communities are already multiplying--get ready for that trend to super-accelerate. The more intelligent and reasonable won't fight back through counter-terrorism, they'll start to leave. Be prepared to have these bio-terrorists auditing YOUR lifestyle, and trashing elements of it when they don't approve. Your silent approval of this sort of activity will mean that eventually you'll find these folks on your doorstep. You reap what you sow.
For example, how many Slashdot readers work with computers? Really? That many? Well, did you know that computer research will eventually lead to artificial intelligence, and with that the end of the human race? So of course you won't mind if I break into your house with a crowbar to rectify the situation. Or maybe I'll just wander by Slashdot headquarters one of these days with a few gallons of gasoline. Think I'm wrong about my macabre predictions? Prove it!
The fact is that this kind of unilateral action is simply NOT right. You want to protest? Get a bunch of friends together and burn your own damn SUVs. Support scientific efforts to determine whether or not the risks outweight the benefits when it comes to GE crops and plants. But DON'T talk to me only about risks with no mention of benefits. I consider the prospect of the continued disease and death in the developing world to be a risk. I consider the notion of ploughing under every arable acre of North America (to make up for the lower yields we see with chemical-free, GE-free farming) to be a risk. You want me to respect your opinion? Then do the F*CKING work, or shut the F*CK up.
One last note: do think that these actions are reasonable because the police sometimes seem to sympathize with these activists and condone their crimes by botching the investigations of these crimes? Then consider the company you're keeping. The police who wouldn't investigate crimes against blacks in the South. The state that wouldn't protect the rights of Jews in Nazi Germany. The right to security of person and property goes both ways. You don't give it, you don't get it.
In a world without walls, there is no need for Windows.
How about:
ALL gasoline, diesel, coal, and ethanol powered vehicles of any sort? They aren't as bad as those terrible SUVs but they do pollute the environment!
Why stop at vehicles? We certainly can't use any fossil fuels for generating electricity! Think of the pollution!
After that we'll take on nuclear power: musn't forget the eco-lessons of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl!
Next I nominate commercial farming. Who needs food, anyway?
Last, but certainly not least, we have to stop the spread of entropy! If we don't, the universe will certainly die of it!!! Sure, this means completely obliterating life as we know it -- as well as most of the rest of the contents of the universe -- but the end certainly justifies the means, right?
--john
Regardless of how you feel ethically about what the Eco-Terrorists are doing, there are two *major* points to consider:
... as did our organization.
1. Terrorism has one, and only one effective place in revolutionary history. Terrorism is a very effective way to dissuade a colonial pover from maintaining its commercial operations in your country. However, all attempts to use terrorism against domestic authority result instead in a backlash against the terrorists; there has been no occasion, historically, where this has not been true. In fact, this principle is so effective that from 1970-72 the FBI's COINTELPRO branch used it to destroy the Black Panthers, simply by having undercover agents urge them on to more and more outrageous acts (more about this later).
Thus, whatever you feel about the goals of the "eco-terrorists", their methods will, if anything, cause the opposite of the desired reaction. Non-violence is not just ethical; it's essential for survival.
2. In all probablity, some of the "eco-terrorists" are CIA operatives *posing* as radical environmentalists in order to inspire a counter-reaction. Think about whose father remains the de-facto "old man" of the CIA, and which U.S. executive officer is currently have a lot of trouble with environmentalists in Congress.
You may be ready to dismiss this as "conspiracy theories", but it's not far-feteched at all. When I was a member of a certian radical environmental organization ('scuse the vagueness, this could still lead to legal trouble for me) we decided the best way to stop a certain factory operation was to unionize the factory workers. Two undercover FBI agents in our organization (as it turned out) used the organizing effort to sneak into the factory and sabotage the equipment, against organizational policy. The result nearly killed some of the workers and the unionization effort broke up
-Josh
Yes, a 1997 Honda Accord pollutes more than a 2001 Ford Excursion. The Accord first met LEV requirements in 1998, and the 2001 Exursion is LEV certified. The Excursion may use twice the gas, but it has lower emissions per mile than does the Accord. The Exursion will more quickly deplete us of our fossil fuel supply, but the greenies want that.
I'm somewhat biased, as my life was saved by our suburban when a drunk driver smashed into the back of us at 55mph (It also saved the lives of the five teenagers in the Hyundai Excel in front of us). Personally I prefer full-size pickups myself, but I can entirely understand the reasons people buy SUVs. No I don't need one, but I also don't "need" a 15k RPM hard drive and a gig of RAM.
Is torching an SUV dealership justifiable? Michael, are you a complete moron? Could someone please add a checkbox to slashcode to filter out articles that are complete RADICAL left-wing bullshit? Some of us here are just programmers who want to hear about the latest technology... and I can't readily filter out articles related to "Science" to obtain this!
--
"Are these sorts of actions justifiable?"
No.
"Is it right to destroy property in an effort to prevent this sort of gambling with our quality of life?"
No.
"Is that the most productive way to deal with bio-engineering risks?"
No.
Problem solved.
Honorary Member of Jackie Chan's Kung Fu Process Servers
"environmentalists are ... nihilists" environmentalists are the furthest thing from nihilists. We believe that mankind has a future, and the best way to assure that is to moderate our consumption to stay in line with our ability to produce. We're working to provide for our children. Who are you working for?
"Environmentalism is *not* a science." Of course it isn't. It is a political movement, backed by *everything* science has told us over the last 50 years about sustaining humanity's future.
I won't even get into your absurd attempts at psychoanalysis. Please put down the Ayn Rand (a religion if ever there was one) and grow up.
consume more fuel and subsequently cost more.
where is the method to collect money from the SUVs internal-combustion-engine for the *POLLUTION* it causes.
The problem with free-market economics vs. Environment is that the capitalists are *NOT* paying for the destruction, there should be a mechanism where the economic system takes these into account. Until there is - your argument is moot, becaues you adovate the needless, selfless destruction of something that you do not own, and argue that the economics are the only relevant issue. Frankly, the economics are broken and unhealthy. This is another point where capitalism fails as a way to organize our affairs.
Yeah, I drive a big SUV. A 3/4 ton, 4x4, 1985 Chevy Suburban, to be precise. Big honkin' truck... and I live in an urban area, so I guess I'm scum, right, michael?
Of course, you might want to know why I own such a truck, before you set fire to it or slash my tires.
When I bought the truck (used; think of it as recycling), I was living in Colorado's San Juan mountains. My wife was an EMT and Red Cross manager in a small mountain town 50 miles from the nearest hospital; I helped out search & rescue when some urban nitwit got lost in the wilderness. A big truck was a necessity, not an ego trip...
Now I live in the Tampa-St. Pete area of Florida -- quite a change, from mountain wilderness to seaside retirement mecca. A good job brought me down here -- and I'm still driving the big truck. Why?
Well, my wife continues her Red Cross work -- we often have supplies to move, or people to haul. And in the event of a hurricane, my fully-loaded medical kit, big winch, and four-wheel drive might just save someone's butt or property.
As for the environment -- well, let's just say I've got plenty of scars to prove my devotion to mother earth. Who set you (or the Earth Liberation Front) up as gods to determine who is being morally correct or not? Maybe the owners of that SUV dealership are scum -- or maybe they're damned fine citizens who work hard to make the world better.
We have a society of law, michael. I'm sure you appreciate such laws when they keep numb-nut right wingers from slaughtering gays, or when copyright protects some precious piece of "free" software. But you're perfectly willing to break the laws that protected you when a moral high horse takes you for a ride...
--
Scott Robert Ladd
Master of Complexity
Destroyer of Order and Chaos
All about me
I am extremely disappointed with how environmental groups have handled the whole "GMO" (a term I hate as it encourages the notion that a Holstein cow or a iceberg lettuce is a naturally occurring, "unmodified" creature) thing. Sure, care needs to be taken. Arguably a lot more care needs to be taken. But environmentalists have jumped on this bandwagon because it's an easy way to frighten donors and activists, without the slightest regard for the facts. Even responsible groups like the Sierra Club and Greenpeace have gone for emotion over reason.
I'm a long-time Sierra Club member and put in some time trying to correct some basic misunderstanding on the part of the anti-GMO project leader. She wrote me some courteous responses but ultimately had nothing to say beyond some nonsense about how everyone should eat "natural" foods.
The real tragedy is that the alternative to insect-resistant potatoes isn't that people are going to start eating acorns and grass. They're going to keep eating food that's been drenched in pesticides, fertilizers and hormones, much of which winds in rivers and oceans. We'll have missed the chance to make the world cleaner and safer and the guilt will be on the heads of the activists who couldn't be troubled to educate themselves and their leaders who knew better but decided to attack a convenient boogeyman instead of addressing the real problem.
By the way, the appeal of casually destroying other people's work is indicative of how overrun Slashdot has become by people who have never created anything useful in their lives, but base their self-esteem on how much they can claim other people owe them. No one who has genuinely invested his or her life in creating -- art, software, a business, knowledge -- could be so blase about saying "Well, I think this is bad so I'm going to destroy it."
I'd question how this all fits in with Michael's smarmy "anti-censorship" views but, at this point, the utter hypocracy of Slashdot editors is so self-evident it hardly bears mention.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Hmmm... No.
Anything else I can help clear up?
---
The kicker here is a crappy gas mpg tax already exists - for cars - SUV's are exempt. Adding insult to injury, they are exempt from lux tax as well... no wonder abominations like the lincon navigator exist.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Your parents didn't get approval to have you share the planet with me. May I kill you? Why should I care what they, or you, think of my "personal actions".
The environmental damage from the burning of the dealership is just the thing they are trying to prevent. Funny that they don't seem to recognize that.
These actions are justifyable from a moral standpoint. When the established government is commiting crimes, the only way to respond to that is overthrowing the government (something that could take 100's of years through democracy, and even then it's not guarenteed success. If lets say the green party got the next president, I find it very likely that the armed forces in cohort with the corporations would arrange a coup d'etat.)
The other way is civil disobedience. That's how the civil rights movement won in the 60's. Now, 40 years after, I am sure most people agree that the civil rights movement did the right thing. If they had obeyed the government, U.S would still have been an apartheid state.
Getting rid of the SUV's could be done really easily: Introduce extra taxes for vehicles with bas gas milage. And on top of that, have taxes on gasoline. We know from experience that increasing the proce of gas will steer consumers towards more efficient cars. That's how the U.S. car industry almost died in the 70s and 80s. Many countries have extreme gas taxation. The consumers complain, but it works. Fewer cars are on the road, and the cars are smaller. The only way to speak to consumers, is through the wallet.
Unfortunately there is absolutely NO political will to get these taxes in place. I'd alomst be tempted to have U.N. collect these taxes, because the environmental damages are not constrained to the habitat of the perpetrators. If you want to play environmental pig, you have to pay the price.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
It seems to me that torching an SUV dealership would release a lot of non-environmentally friendly garbage into the air. Kind of counter productive for the eco-terrorists when you think about it.
In Oregon recently, some eco-terror people recently burned down a bunch of trees that were genetically modified for purposes of bio-remediayion. It amazes me what ignorance people display through much of eco-terrorism. I consider myself to be a pretty environmentally friendly guy. However, I also happen to be in love with someone who is a researcher in plant genetics (lucky me!), and I've learned how ignorant I was. I used to be one of the people how vowed against all Genetically Modified Organisms(GMO), now I see a great deal of value. For example, in some countries, many people have vitamin deficiencies that can lead to blindness (I think this is vitamin K but I can't remember). Some researchers are working on (or may have finished) corn that grows with the vitamin in it. They did this using genetics. Now go tell a few million parents that their children can grow up without blindess. This corn has no impact on the environment that is different from regular corn. This does not mean that GMO companies should be allowed to act with impunity; and most geneticists agree. There needs be very careful controls on the development and use of GMO's. (Monarch butterflies being a good example of the potential problems). How 'bout another sample: Bio-remediation. What if we created a harmless bacteria that can clean up toxic waste. I know someone working on such a project. She is practically booed every time she tells someone that she works in genetics, but it seems to me like she is doing some very interesting work. In conclusion, if we can create wood that is more efficient, crops that are disease or weather resistant etc, we can solve a lot of problems. Let's just be careful when making them. I heard a quote from a geneticist talking about creating "hardier" crops through Genetic Modification. He said, "The person who has no food has only one problem. The person who has food has many problems." I think his point is well taken, by me at least. That, for those of us who have food, it is easy to complain about GM stuff. And for those who would destory this kind of work, maybe you should go to the far east and tell two parents that their children are going to have to grow up blind, because you destroyed the test field where the GM corn was being grown. -Hobo
--Stupidity is Self Curing!