What Does Dudley Drive?
A recent Washington Post article on the looming fight over President Bush's nomination of Susan Dudley to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) noted Dudley's "personal commitment to environmental stewardship," citing that Dudley and her husband "drove hybrid cars before hybrids were cool."
The various groups opposing Dudley's confirmation were not impressed. Under the heading "A Hybrid Car, An Environmentalist Does Not Make," OMB Watch's "Reg Watch" pooh-poohed Dudley's driving choice and editorialized that Dudley's personal commitment to environmental conservation is irrelevant -- indeed "bizarre" -- if not matched by a commitment to government mandates and regulations
In Dudley's worldview, there's no inconsistency between making the personal choice to save on gas, while opposing standards to keep our air clean and our cars fuel efficient. Seems bizarre? It's called Dudleynomics.Apparently to the folks at OMB Watch it is "bizarre" to believe that not every good action must be mandated by the government. The only "inconsistency" on Dudley's part is recognizing there is a difference between a virtue and a requirement (and, by extension, between a sin and a crime). If that's an "inconsistency," than I'll gladly join the ranks of the inconsistent.
Related Posts (on one page):
- What Does Dudley Drive?
- Desperately Smearing Susan:
- Congratulations to Susan Dudley:
It's always been a defining characteristic of Puritanism that the masses must be driven to virtue at bayonets' point. Liberalism (and its handmaiden, environmentalism) is simply the present-day manifestations of Puritanism, which is why Massachusetts went from Puritan to Liberal without breaking stride.
Yes. Give that that man 10 quatloos for the best insight of the week.
My unscientific impression is that most often some kind of "liberals" are the target.
It appears to me that not much and only a few can escape being labeled. This open division makes me wonder where it is going to lead us all.
Let me assure you, I personally fit neither category, choosing my leanings by the issue, based on the information I am able and willing to gather while pursuing a life. The ubiquitous "experts" barely figure in my decision making, as I can no longer be sure they present me with a non-partisan picture.
One thing I certainly learned is that I don't give a flip about what label people put on me because my politics don't fit their cookie-cutters.
I'm certainly open to argument from just about any angle of the political scale. But when the words "should" and "must" start getting tossed around, I tend to tune out and dismiss the speaker. If the best they have to offer is labels, then they've very little to offer.
My unscientific impression is that most often some kind of "liberals" are the target.
Well since most of society's ills are caused by collectivists masking as liberals, it is no wonder that the libertarian readers of VC are often pointing out the liberals' guilt.
That is a very alien concept here in the Middle East.
**air pollution in urban areas, acid rain, water quality, ozone layer thinning, etc.
Case in point - the catalytic converter, whose special place in regulation has locked technology in this function at in the mid 70's and which may (if the epidemiological analsys of platinum compounds on rodsides holds up) have been single-handedly responsible for the growth of asthma.
Now of the government would *only* set goals...