Wednesday 25 August 2010

The Rights Of Nature

"Changing your priorities for political action.

I do not begrudge anyone acting on values that I don't necessarily share (though I certainly don't wish the dolphins any harm), but your tactics can only work if we first demand the removal of the legal provision for expropriation.

To have even a remote chance of accomplishing that, we should work out a program of direct action to oppose the expropriation of land wherever it may occur on the grounds that this is a direct violation of a universal right to private property - not because of the extinction threat to pink dolphins. The threat to private property, though it is most obvious with land, has far more universal implications and in this way can affect anyone, whereas the threat to dolphins can only motivate a minority of people.

Only if respect for the inviolability of private property can gain popular support can there be a chance of removing the power for expropriation - which would then allow you to save the dolphins using a tactic like this.

Of course, the time scale is such that it may be too late for the dolphins. But it is not too late for the people of Taiwan who are elsewhere under threat of expropriation and it is not too late to save other aspects of the existing ecology.

You need to create political fear of violating private property if you are going to have a chance of success."
My comment here. They do have the correct tactic in mind, but the lack of any strategic context for it is a consequence of them being the kind of Proust-reading lefties that, in my experience, most environmentalists inevitably are.

Update: after suspending my disbelief and trying to help this TNCAHD guy, he kicks it back in my face. Fine, but reality will catch up with him and his pink dolphins sooner or later and I will not make it any of my business to intervene when it does. I'll give everyone a chance - but one only - I'm not going to waste my efforts on irredeemable fools.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comment moderation is now in place, as of April 2012. Rules:

1) Be aware that your right to say what you want is circumscribed by my right of ownership here.

2) Make your comments relevant to the post to which they are attached.

3) Be careful what you presume: always be prepared to evince your point with logic and/or facts.

4) Do not transgress Blogger's rules regarding content, i.e. do not express hatred for other people on account of their ethnicity, age, gender, sexual orientation or nationality.

5) Remember that only the best are prepared to concede, and only the worst are prepared to smear.