A top target of the extremists is ICLEI USA-Local Governments for Sustainability and its network of 550 local governments. ICLEI’s straightforward mission is to help communities define their own goals and plans to protect clean air and water, increase energy independence and reduce their carbon footprints. Its president and board chair, Patrick Henry Hays, mayor of Little Rock, Ark., says the work is more vital than ever as communities wrestle with record-breaking droughts, floods and other natural disasters. But tea party activists show up at community meetings to demonize ICLEI as an Agenda 21 plot to steal Americans’ rights.
I’ll freely admit to not smelling whatever the Tea Party is cooking. As near as I can tell, teabagger orthodoxy opposes anything and everything that might have any hope of making our world a better place. If it supports the common good in any shape, manner, or form, the Tea Party opposes it, and they’ll go to any length, no matter how impolite, obnoxious, and/or intellectually and morally vacant their orthodoxy might be.
I suppose if you live in a world in which conspiracies lurk around every corner, you might think that the evil, nasty, one-worlders at the UN are out to subvert our sovereignty, After all, what else could Agenda 21 possibly be, right? I mean, how else could you interpret an agenda that includes things like:
- Combating poverty
- Protecting and promoting human health conditions
- Promoting sustainable human settlement development
- Protection of the atmosphere
- Promoting sustainable agriculture and rural development
- Conservation of biological diversity
- Safe and environmentally sound management of radioactive wastes
There’s more, of course, but you get the point, right? I mean, what sort of bleeding-heart, Liberal, one-world, America-hating scum would back this sort of socialistic crap?
Well, for one, THIS bleeding-heart, Liberal, one-world, America-hating scum would…and does. How any lucid American could look at Agenda 21 and see black helicopters and jack-booted UN thugs usurping American sovereignty is beyond ludicrous. Then again, “beyond ludicrous” is just another day at the office for the Tea Party. I suppose I could be kinder and more politically correct in my description of members of the Tea Party, but if you’re going to act like self-absorbed, brain-dead zealots, it seems to me that you richly deserve being described as such. If you don’t like it, stop reacting and start thinking; you might be surprised at the positive things that might come of using your God-given intellect.
Oh, and to answer the question posed by the title of this post, I’m hoping the only acceptable purpose of government isn’t to enforce a narrow, mean-spirited agenda. You know, the one which defines “small government” as Job One…unless you’re talking about banning abortion, eliminating a woman’s right to control her body, and enforcing Christian prayer in public schools. Oh, and handing over some of your bodily fluids if you apply for welfare or unemployment benefits.
(Remember, “religion freedom” and “liberty” mean being free to force your religion and narrow morality on others.)
There are those who see Agenda 21 as a not-so-hidden plot sponsored by George Soros to further the implementation of one-world government. These folks really ought to have their daily Thorazine intake increased.
Teabaggers accustomed to seeing conspiracies in their sleep have managed to convince themselves that Agenda 21 threatens private property rights and will blunt our ever-acquisitive “I got mine, you can damned well get your own” ethos.
Land… cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice; if unchecked, it may become a major obstacle in the planning and implementation of development schemes. The provision of decent dwellings and healthy conditions for the people can only be achieved if land is used in the interest of society as a whole.
I’d say something about the Tea Party taking that quote out of perspective, but that argument would be lost on them. No, they’ve convinced themselves that among the aspects of American life that would be threatened by Agenda 21 would be things like:
- Private Property ownership
- Single-Family homes
- Private car ownership and individual travel choices
- Privately owned farms
Nothing could be further from the truth, but when you’ve convinced yourself that the UN is out to take away the aspects of American life that make this the greatest country in the world..well, being impervious to reason wouldn’t begin to describe your anti-intellectual hallucinated reality.
Republicans in Congress have put forward a transportation bill that devotes 100% of the appropriated money to roads. Gone would be the traditional 30% that has gone to things like public transit and other items designed to promote density, livability, reducing congestion. Why? Because the Tea Party hates ANYTHING that appears to benefit the common good…’cuz that’s Socialism, don’tchaknow??
The measure would devote the entire federal highway trust fund to roads, terminating a 30-year-old agreement, made with President Reagan’s approval, to apportion 20 percent of the gas tax-supported fund to public transportation. Transit would be invited to compete for general fund congressional appropriations each year — a scary prospect in a time of deep, impending cuts to the federal budget, with a requirement to show an “offset” in other federal spending for each transit dollar appropriated.
Transit supporters are outraged. Transit use, they argue, is rising nationwide. But many local systems are in fiscal jeopardy as more people — new urbanites as well as low-income people — rely on buses and subways to reach work, schools and doctors. The bill even halts assured funds for Safe Routes to School, a program promoting safe walking and biking trails.
Evidently, anything that threatens to decrease our dependence on fossil fuels and/or increase the quality of life for those who live in our cities is de facto Socialism….
And it’s not just bleeding hearts lining up against this bill. Opposition also comes from 75 national organizations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, AARP and AASHTO — the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, historically known as the “big roads” crowd.
So why is the Republican House leadership backing this bill? There’s a two-word explanation: tea party. “This is a gesture to the tea party Republicans who hold a balance of power in the Republican caucus,” asserts Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., an advocate for biking and other livability agendas. “It is part of a pattern,” he asserts, “where some of these people are agitating at the local level against rational land-use planning and zoning.”
The Tea Party, which might have possessed at least a morsel of a good idea upon its inception, has devolved into the modern-day equivalent of the 19th century Know Nothing Party. It’s difficult to know where to start when it comes to refuting the silly, paranoid arguments put forth by teabaggers…so I’m not even going to bother. I can only hope that the American polity will come to its senses before it goes back into the voting booth in November and puts even more brain-dead Tea Party crazies/know-nothings in office.
Yes, I do believe we get exactly the quality of leadership we deserve, but you’ll have to forgive me for being optimistic enough to believe that we deserve leaders who don’t drag their knuckles as they reflexively object to anything that doesn’t serve their narrow fear- and ignorance-based agenda.
WE DESERVE BETTER.
