Urgency, Resolution, and Government Money

When I was a kid, there was a cement business just across the bridge from my home town. The business's slogan was, "Find a need and fill it."

Here's what I think (not that you really care, but this is cathartic): there are those who have taken that slogan and perverted it into, "Create a need and fill it."

Today I read in James Taranto's Wall St Journal column, that "James Lovelock, the maverick scientist who became a guru to the environmental movement with his 'Gaia' theory of the Earth as a single organism, has admitted to being 'alarmist' about climate change and says other environmental commentators, such as Al Gore, were too." Apparently Mr. Lovelock is writing a book in which he says climate change is still happening, but more slowly than he previously believed.

"Climate change" (which used to be called "global cooling" before the temperatures began rising, and used to be called "global warming" before the temperatures stagnated and then going back down) is a myth. "Cyclical climate variations" is real.

I think Al Gore and his cronies peers have "created a need" by going on the alarmist warpath, shouting to everyone near and far that the sky is falling  the earth is warming we've de-stabilized the Earth's climate. And now here's someone who is saying that the climate variations have slowed.

What do you want to bet that the next thing we hear is, "We have no idea how high the temperature would have risen if we hadn't begun our work when we did", or "What if we hadn't started work when we did", or "See? We told you it was rising and now that it's beginning to stabilize it's proof our efforts are paying off. The Money We've Spent was WELL WORTH IT!"

"Oh By The Way: We need more Federal funding to continue our obviously-valuable and life-saving work!"

If it weren't such a predictably pathetic pattern, it would be almost laughable.

Global Climate Change is today's application of the pattern. General Motors is one from the recent past: "What if we hadn't intervened? GM would be out of business. We saved hundreds of thousands of jobs." (Well, no; GM would have been permitted to fail, employees would have found jobs at their competitors to support the increased demand from consumers who still wanted vehicles but could no longer get them at GM dealerships, and we'd have had a wake-up call, jolting us from our slumber about the free market. And quite possibly, we'd have seen other auto manufacturers rise, like Kia, Yugo, Hyundai, and Daewoo. And we wouldn't have experimented with billions of taxpayer dollars invested in a failed electric car.)

Or Health Care: "Millions of people don't get the care they need. We have to do something." (Well, no: anyone, at any time, was entitled to health care even if they didn't have insurance, by simply going into any public -- and sometimes private -- hospital's E.R.)

Okay; what's the point? The point is, life goes on, the free market works, and -- predictably -- people will try to scam us for our money. Everyone's gotta make a living, right?