Kick-the-can politics
Monday, January 29th, 2007 2:42 pm by NealRead Mark Steyn on the real energy crisis.
The other day I was reading an account of the latest genius idea from Britain. The carbon emission-trading system imposed by Kyoto is absurd and entirely ineffectual, but in London David Cameron now wants to apply it to hamburgers. Over there, a Big Mac costs three bucks or so. But, if children eat too many, the consequent problems of juvenile obesity will be a further strain on the National Health Service. So Cameron wants to impose some sort of Kyotoesque calorie-trading system on fast-food purveyors whereby McDonald’s would have some trans fat cap imposed on it to ensure they pick up the tab for what that $3 Big Mac really costs society.
And David Cameron is the leader of the alleged Conservative Party.
He’s also living in a country whose major cities have been hollowed out by Islamist cells. Nevertheless, as England decays into Somalia with chip shops, taxing the chip shops is the Conservatives’ priority.
The civilized world faces profound challenges that threaten the global order. But most advanced democracies now run two-party systems in which both parties sell themselves to the electorate on the basis of unaffordable entitlements whose costs can be kicked down the road, even though the road is a short cul-de-sac and the kicked cans are already piled sky-high. That’s the real energy crisis.
While obsessing over global warming and trans fats, our leaders downplay or ignore the Islamic threat to western civilization and the looming entitlements crisis. We are living in the time of kick-the-can politics.