What's So Liberal about Environmentalism, Anyway??
This is a question I've never really been able to find an answer for. The best thing I've come up with is to say that, like so many things baldly labeled "liberal", it's based on a superficial understanding of the world. Whether this superficiality is intentional is another even more interesting question, in my opinion. But let's ignore that for today, and take a closer look at environmentalism. At its heart, environmentalism means having a concern for the welfare of the natural world around you, and then acting on that concern to avoid depleting or destroying the nature wherever you can. Now, parse that sentence and see if you can spot the place where the term "liberal" is usually attached. Go ahead, I'll give you a second to look...did you find it? That insidious, viral, despicable word? That one word that should be stricken from the vocabulary of any self-respecting conservative? In case you missed it, the word is "welfare" which, to most Americans, connotes big government and poorly designed, ...
Posted on September 27, 2007 7:01:48 PM EDT
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