Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
From an interview with Lester Brown, founder of the Earth Policy Institute, a man of whom Bill Clinton said “We should all heed his advice”:
You’ve talked before about the civilizational challenge that climate change poses, how confident are you that the human race is up to meeting that challenge?
We don’t know and there is no guarantee that we will. But we do know that change can come very quickly. Look how quickly the US restructured its whole economy in 1942. At beginning of 1942, the automobile companies were producing automobiles. By the middle of 1942 they were all producing tanks and planes. It didn’t take decades or years, just a few months and they totally converted. If they could do that then, certainly we can restructure the world energy economy today. What Roosevelt did was ban the sale of cars. He didn’t say they couldn’t produce cars. He just banned the sale of cars.
Would you like to see President Obama do that?
I’d like to see him ban the sale of coal and oil.
Dear heavens, the Imperial President should “ban the sale of coal and oil”? Oh, yeah, that’s the ticket. Some 40% of US electricity, lots of our industrial energy, and ~ 100% of our transportation fuel comes from coal and oil, so I’m sure that other than the small matter of impoverishment, suffering, death, and economic ruin, banning them wouldn’t cause any disruption at all … while I want to ask “is this Imperious Idiot for real?”, the sad truth is that Lester Brown is totally serious.
But even more frightening than the horrendous economic disruption and human suffering from such a suicidal course of action is that Lester Brown is advocating tyranny, and given his history, our Imperial President Obama would likely be more than happy to accommodate him.
As a candidate, Obama spoke out strongly against expanded executive power, saying in October of 2007:
These last few years we’ve seen an unacceptable abuse of power at home. We’ve paid a heavy price for having a president whose priority is expanding his own power.
and
I taught constitutional law for ten years. I take the Constitution very seriously. The biggest problems that were facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all, and that’s what I intend to reverse when I’m President of the United States of America.
After watching George Bush, Obama’s position on limiting executive power was one of the reasons I voted for him in 2008 … back before I realized that if Obama’s lips were moving, there were non-zero odds that he was lying, as in this case. Which is one of the reasons why I voted against him in 2012.
Now that he’s in power, and particularly now that he’s in his second term, he’s decided that he gets the last say on everything under the sun, and has presided over a huge increase in executive power, viz:
Whenever this Congress refuses to act in a way that hurts our economy and puts our people at risk, I’ve got an obligation as president to do what we can without them.
Despite being a “constitutional scholar”, he seems to misunderstand the separation of powers. He has no such obligation. It’s not his job to decide what “hurts the economy and puts the people at risk”, and more importantly, he has no such power. If the Congress decides not to pass a law, that’s their choice. The President’s job is to be the “Chief Executive”, and as such, the Constitution says he is to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”. Nowhere is he given the power to make or interpret the laws. That is the job of Congress on the one hand and the Courts on the other … and if Congress won’t act, well, tough. If you don’t like the Congress, vote them out of office.
However, obviously, neither President Obama nor Lester Brown see it that way. As we just saw with the new regulations involving coal plants, President Obama is more than happy to make new “environmental” laws by presidential edict. And I’m sure that both the Imperial President and the Imperious Idiot firmly believe that Obama has the power to ban the sale gas and oil.
The Founding Fathers were very concerned that the President should NOT have this kind of imperial powers, and for good reason. They’d seen the damage that strong-men had done in a variety of monarchies and tyrannies. So they devised a system of “separation of powers”—Congress makes the laws, the President enforces the laws, and the Supreme Court interprets the laws.
Sadly, we have fallen very far from that, and President Obama has done immense damage to that system by “solving” every problem, from glitches with Obamacare to interim appointments to immigration reform to destroying coal plants, by imperial proclamation. At this point, all I can do is fervently hope he doesn’t listen to Lester Brown …
Gotta say … 2016 can’t come fast enough for me.
w.
End Note: Please do not use this as a springboard for general political attacks on either side. There are lots of web pages for doing that. The issue here is the Imperious Idiot’s asinine proposal to ban the sale of coal and oil, and the Imperial President’s claim that he has the executive power to do just about anything, presumably including Lester’s proposed ban.
The Usual: If you disagree with something that I or anyone has said, please QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS YOU DISAGREE WITH. This avoids many misunderstandings.
The Interview: The full interview is here.
Tsk. Remember, “Barry” Soebarkah is a lawyer. As a “constitutional scholar,” he reads the charter of our republic’s federal government the way any shyster reads a contract or other structuring document, looking for loopholes through which he can drive to the attainment of his purposes.
Consider therefore what his actions thus far have told us about his purposes, emphasis on the concept of the Cloward-Piven strategy.
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America’s first Half-White Bolshevik President revealed himself to me when he was talking to a guy named Joe, who happened to want to be a Plumber. Sadly, Joe would have made a more effective Chief Executive.
Pray for stupendous Blow-back in November. A lesser Evil is is a lesser Evil.
Tucci78 says:
July 5, 2014 at 6:27 pm
If I were an optimist, I would hope that the maladministration of Baraq Hussein bin Obama al Indonesii, one of the surprisingly large number of Marxist Muslims in our world, would inoculate yet another generation against the siren call of socialism.
One of two things must be true. Either the Democrats are unfathomable idiots, who ignorantly pursue ever more destructive policies despite decades of contrary evidence, or they understand the consequences of their actions and relentlessly carry on anyway because they somehow benefit.
–James Simpson, 28 September 2009
How statists in both parties benefit is no mystery. Creating an ever larger victim class dependent upon the central government obviously benefits those who gain from an ever more powerful national regime.
Regarding the ban on the sale of cars I think there was a stockpile of cars. We can ban coal and oil and use the stockpile in the ground. 😉
In many countries around the world imported USED cars make up the majority of car imports. Cars do sometimes has an extended life.
What if the Roosevelt ban on cars lasted 20 years?
I’d like to see how you function over the ensuing 5 years. LOL.
Doug Allen says:
July 5, 2014 at 4:12 pm
I lived through it too, Doug. Goldwater stood against the VRA on the principle of limited government, not on any racist sentiment, and the VRA would not have passed without Republican support. The bill passed the Senate by a 77-19 vote, with Democrats in favor by a 3:1 margin, and Republicans in favor by a 15:1 margin. It passed the House by a 333-85 vote, with Democrats by a 4:1 margin, and Republicans by a 5:1 margin.
The revisionist history is that the Dems ever stood on principle for anything. With them, it is all about power. It is also revisionist history to say that “Most of the bigot Democrats, the Dixiecrats, became Republicans.” Most of the Dixiecrats retired as lifelong Democrats.
I never said the Republicans are angels. If they had any real power they would, no doubt, attract the power hungry. But, they have always been the Party of Individual Liberty since their inception. I stand by what I stated: Democrats have been, and always will be, the Party of Slavery.
Responding to RobRoy at 1:40 PM (“The second amendment to the US Constitution has nothing to do with hunting…”), on 5 July, at 4:11 PM george e. smith had observed:
I concur, and so have a great many experts on semantics and English usage.
Notably, in 1991 author J. Neil Schulman contacted Roy Copperud, a recognized expert on usage in the American language, and asked him to examine the text of the Second Amendment, which resulted in an exchange with Prof. Copperud that became the substance of an article published by Mr. Schulman in 1992 and which was incorporated in Mr. Shulman’s book Stopping Power: Why 70 Million Americans Own Guns (1994, 1999).
This article is online in multiple locations, under the title of “The Unabridged Second Amendment,” to which the reader’s attention is drawn.
george e. smith says:
July 5, 2014 at 4:11 pm “It also has nothing to do with militias.”
george, than why are a militia mentioned?
Certainly not to mean “nothing”.
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milodonharlani says:
July 5, 2014 at 6:07 pm
“People” means the same thing in the 2nd Amendment that it does in the rest of the Constitution.
Milo, I agree.
I guess I missed your point.
RobRoy says:
July 5, 2014 at 7:03 pm
The militia are mentioned as short hand for “kooks & crooks excepted”. “Well-regulated militia” had a specific meaning to the Founders & Framers, as per Blackstone.
Does anyone know what year and model this car is?
Tucci78 says:
July 5, 2014 at 6:56 pm
Tucci, Thanks for that “Copperud” link.
I rest my case.
“Would you like to see President Obama do that?
I’d like to see him ban the sale of coal and oil.”
Lester, what the hell do you suppose that would do to the U.S. economy?
Complete brainless idiots like him make my blood boil. AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!
Tucci78 says:
July 5, 2014 at 6:56 pm
Tucci, Thanks for that link.
I rest my case.
The militia of the U.S. consists of just about everyone. That’s probably why the term was used.
XL Pipeline.
At 4:12 PM on 5 July, Doug Allen had erred thus:
This reflects a common misconception about the history and Ur-nature of the Red Faction which does grievous injustice to plain facts well-documented in original as well as secondary sources, today even more readily available to the inquirer through the access provided by the Web. One very good clarification comes in a brief 2006 article uttered online by history professor Clyde Wilson on 12 September 2006, titled The Republican Charade: Lincoln and His Party,” from which is drawn the following:
The Republican Party had sprung virtually unaltered from the predecessor Whig Party (corporate lawyer Lincoln had gained the Republican presidential nomination in 1860 entirely on the strength of his support for Henry Clay’s “American System” of protectionism, fiat currency issue, and pork-barrel “public improvement” extraconstitutional government expenditures, the man being characterized throughout as “a good Clay Whig”) in an effort to shake off the New England regionalism of the Whigs as the Federalist Party follow-on, and thus improve the “court party” faction’s chances at the national power-grab needed to effect and enforce the Morrill Tariff.
Which tariff was the real cause of the War of Northern Aggression.
Jimbo, that’s about a 1930 Model A Ford?
nickreality65 says: “Janice, only a fraction of electricity is from coal (and NG makes CO2) and just how many electric cars is or can the grid support?”
Nick, your original question just dealt with whether there were ANY transportation fuels that came from coal. I do agree that only a fraction of electricity is from coal. However, in a metaphysical sense, some of the electricity generated by coal could be used to help charge a battery for an electric car. I will admit that I could have phrased my answer to you a bit better.
Lester Brown gets away with what went on during WW ll because most people don’t know what took place in manufacturing at that time.
Autos were still produced but only for military use and were painted olive-drab. 1942 model Cadillac cars were for generals and so on down the auto chain/military chain. FDR didn’t ban cars.
Cadillac also built tanks. Ford built trucks and half-tracks for military use.
Which tariff was the real cause of the War of Northern Aggression.
1828 tariff that had South Carolina wanting to secede and later Georgia?
At 9:33 PM on 5 July, Ed Mertin had asked:
For all practical purposes, the Morrill Tariff of 1861 was substantially a repeat effort to impose the 1828 “Tariff of Abominations.” Only worse.
Economist Thomas DiLorenzo published a very good brief essay on “Lincoln’s Tariff War” (6 May 2002), from which is drawn:
Lincoln called for the mobilization of armies and the imposition of blockade to no purpose other than to close the seceded southern states’ seaports to foreign trade, for Charleston and Savannah and especially New Orleans operating as effectively duty-free ports of entry for foreign manufactures would result in the diversion of so much trade from the northern centers around Boston and New York and Philadelphia as to utterly wreck the economies in the center of Whig – er, Republican – political power.
Source materials on this subject are in print and online, readily available.
Seems Lester Brown grew up on a farm during WW ll? Farmers had adequate supplies of gasoline at that time which they did also use for their cars and trucks.
Gasoline was rationed for city people.
Am getting rather tired of the fish-tales that are published now and passed off as truth.
“Barbara says:
July 5, 2014 at 8:28 pm”
And Ford donated all profits from sales of Fords in Germany to Hitler.
At 1:32 AM on 6 July, Patrick had stated:
Hadn’t that been in much the same way that businesses all over the Greater Chicagoland Area have spent most of the last century and more making “donations” to the Cook County political machine?
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There is no calculus involved. Nor differential equations. It involves the simplest of mathematics. As it turns out this really is “the most transparent administration in history!” All one need do is invert what Resident Obama says and the truth is laid bare. So-called “clean energy” cannot power our industries and society as they exist today, but it most definitely can power the fundamentally changed America Resident Obama envisions.
The success of his vision is already playing out. The Canadians will very likely pipe and sell their bitumen to China, as do we and the Australians with our coals. These energy sources will be used by supposedly less exceptional peoples than Americans. That is, of course, if you think the present crops of Americans convey exceptional-ism to any degree whatsoever.
The long march through the institutions worked. Get over it.
“US citizens get the government they deserve.”
No, in a democracy you get the government the major parties let you choose. Obama vs McCain/Romney was the choice between arsenic and cyanide.
My guess is that the Republicans will put foward another unelectable candidate in 2016 and throw the election to Hillary Clinton.
regarding being fooled by a politician – I freely admit I was always a strong GWB supporter, and I still think he was a very good man who honestly tried to do his best. But I also admit that he made more than his share of bone-headed, mind-numbing mistakes that I *never* saw coming, some of which I still don’t understand. (no need to list them, everyone’s been talking about them for years)
I won’t say I was fooled by him, he is who he is – but I learned that he had a far greater capacity for error than I thought possible. So that’s my mea culpa, and i doubt I’m alone.
also, in 2008, McCain wasn’t much better than Obama. That man never saw a war he didn’t want to get the rest of us in the middle of, and just might have had enough pull to pass cap and trade.