More Closet Cleaning

Once upon a time, Bugwit aspired to be a political writer. No shit. Yeah, I used to care about the world, back when I had a brain. I ran across this piece from my old political blog and was amused by it. This is one my favorites, and I hope you like it, too:

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George Will is Crazy

George Will is nuts. I think that when the Soviet Union collapsed, his brain couldn’t handle the loss of its reverse-compass and slowly but surely ceased to function. December 15th’s (2005) opinion piece (Our fake drilling Debate) on the Arctic Nation Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) proves it. Here’s the summary sentence from Will’s column:

"If geologists were to decide that there were only three thimbles of oil beneath (ANWR) area 1002, there would still be something to be said for going down to get them, just to prove that this nation (cue pomp and circumstance - bugwit) cannot be forever paralyzed by people wielding environmentalism as a cover for collectivism.”

Collectivism. There’s the crazy I was talking about. Plus, the man is suggesting that we should drill in ANWR just for spite! And the paranoia! He actually thinks that liberals don’t give a damn about ANWR; we just oppose drilling because we’re communists! I know, I couldn’t believe it either. He doesn’t know what year it is. Communism is dead and discredited. Why is he still ranting about an extinct threat? It’s like lying awake at night worrying that a tyrannosaurus might leap through the window at any moment.

Plus, the Soviets were not exactly tree-huggers. The Czech Republic is still cleaning up the environmental mega-disasters left by the USSR. China is fast become the world's biggest toxic dump.

Here’s where here he really goes off the deep end:
 

“But for many opponents of drilling in the refuge, the debate is only secondarily about energy and the environment. Rather, it is a disguised debate about elemental political matters.

For some people, environmentalism is collectivism in drag. Such people use environmental causes and rhetoric not to change the political climate for the purpose of environmental improvement. Rather, for them, changing the society's politics is the end, and environmental policies are mere means to that end.”

Sure, he can still turn a phrase that would make William F. Buckley proud, (just an aside: does William F Buckley strangely remind you of Margaret DuMont?) but unlike Buckley, Will's arguments make no sense. Will is saying that liberals aren't really interested in protecting the environment. It's all just an elaborate plot to convert the U.S. to a communist society. 

Now, anyone knows that this can't be  because Democrats never plan ahead. The calling card of the democrat is lack of guile. Even conservatives think so. It’s one of the many things they hate about progressives. Liberals just aren't down with the big secret plans. Like gossipy seventh-graders, they blab every government secret as soon as they learn it. Republicans are the plotters. Remember Watergate? Big plot. Iran Contra? Bigger plot. Project for a New American Century (PNAC)? Biggest plot ever!
Never heard of the PNAC? Republicans decided in 1997 that we should invade Iraq in order to secure the oil resources and create a base from which to conquer the Middle East, and therefore dominate the world. And we’re the ones with big, evil plans? Everyone knows that the most complex Democratic schemes involve having furtive sex and then ‘plotting’ to deny it.
 

“The unending argument in political philosophy concerns constantly adjusting society's balance between freedom and equality. The primary goal of collectivism -- of socialism in Europe and contemporary liberalism in America -- is to enlarge governmental supervision of individuals' lives. This is done in the name of equality.”

Really? ANWR is about liberals' desire to grow government and micro-manage the lives of Americans? Who was the only president since WWII to reduce the size of the US government? Reagan? Nope. Bush I? Uh-uh. Bush II? Please! Comrade Clinton, of course.

On the other hand, who flew to Washington in the middle of the night to illegally interfere in the affairs of Terri and Michael Schiavo? Who wants to deny women their right to decide how to manage their own pregnancies? Who wants to prevent people from dying with dignity at a time and method of their own choosing? Who reviles the ACLU, whose only mission is to prevent the government from overstepping its bounds where constitutionally guaranteed liberties are concerned? Who wants to use the NSA to spy on thousands of American citizens? Liberals or Republicans?

Here's another snippet:

“People are to be conscripted into one large cohort, everyone equal (although not equal in status or power to the governing class) in their status as wards of a self-aggrandizing government. Government says the constant enlargement of its supervising power is necessary for the equitable or efficient allocation of scarce resources.”

He’s describing Soviet-style government here, so make no mistake: if you are against drilling in ANWR, he just called you a communist.

“Therefore, one of the collectivists' tactics is to produce scarcities, particularly of what makes modern society modern -- the energy requisite for social dynamism and individual autonomy. Hence collectivists use environmentalism to advance a collectivizing energy policy. Focusing on one energy source at a time, they stress the environmental hazards of finding, developing, transporting, manufacturing or using oil, natural gas, coal or nuclear power.

That is a truly intellectual-sounding passage. But, here in his most pedantic 
paragraph lies the error that undoes his whole thesis: While suggesting that constant Soviet shortages were artificially created in order to keep a thumb on the populace, Mr. Will forgets that if the shortages were intended, then the Soviets could have corrected them whenever they wanted. But, at the end of the communist era, the Soviets desperately needed to increase production of anything that would bring them hard currency, but they could not. Collectivism failed because it was inherently and horribly inefficient. The shortages were caused by the flawed theory of centralized planning, not by totalitarian politics. This fact unravels Will’s entire premise.

Also, Will never explains how fuel shortages must translate into a communist takeover or why such shortages could not lead to a radical right-wing revolution. In fact, one could make a pretty good case that scarcity has already lead to an ultra-conservative takeover. Scarcity of oil, security and a clear enemy to justify a huge military have all been used as excuses to chip away at our constitutional rights.

Since Will’s column makes no logical sense, its only value, if you can call it that, is as McCarthyist propaganda. It’s a cynical Ann Coulter-style hate piece prettied up with pedantic prose, as only Will can shovel it. His only goal is to get the reader to associate environmentalism with liberalism with communism. The rest of it is filler. 
 
I don't think George Will is sincere in these beliefs. One would have to be crazy to think these things. But if he is, then he must be in a care facility somewhere, seeing Bolsheviks under every bedpan, oblivious to the fact that communism is long dead and no longer useful as a hoodoo to shake at the reactionaries. On 9/12, all the other conservatives switched to using terrorism in that role. Maybe Will’s celebrated intellect, pre-programmed to red-baiting, just could not accept that the foundation of all its arguments and actions no longer exist. And like the movie cliché where the evil computer cannot accept contradictory information, Mr. Will’s brain shorted out and caught fire.