The Green New Dumb

All Hail the Great and Mighty Plan to Save All Mankind! Humankind? No need to run afoul of the great gods on intersectionality.

But alas, all creatures shall be saved from a miserable demise…sans farting cows.

I recall being in my mid-twenties and thinking the profundity of my ideas were lost on a generation of the human race. That my then meager lot in life precluded me from sharing the visionary brilliance that swirled about the grey matter encapsulated within my brown mulletted dome.

Lucky for me, there were plenty of folks around to remind me that I wasn’t all that and a bag of neurons. Such is not the case for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) D – N.Y..

On February 7th, the new congressperson announced the Green New Deal (GND). No more than mere weeks in to her congressional tenure, she has taken it upon herself to be the savior of planet earth. Even Barack Obama waited a few years until his presidential nomination to declare that the rise of the oceans would begin to slow and our planet heal.

Her being the guardian angel earth notwithstanding, the original version of the accompanying GND FAQ (dated February 5th) on Ocasio-Cortez’s page is the real eyebrow raiser.

Though the details of the GND will be explored here, let us first deal with the lies.

The original version of the FAQ is spectacularly dumb. So dumb that AOC and her surrogates straight up lied about the originally published version. A version with farting cows and government largess for peeps unwilling to work. Unwilling. Courageous souls as they are, they said they did not publish a version with all that. They said it was the work of nefarious Republicans.

And they say Trump’s a lier.

On Friday, Feb 8th, AOC adviser Robert Hockett went on Fox News’s Tucker Carlson and suggested, “She tweeted it out to laugh at it.” Regarding the cows et al . “If you look at her latest tweets, it seems that some, apparently Republicans, have put it out there. I don’t know the details.” (emphasis mine).

If it were only cow flatulence that were at issue, funny enough, but the proposal is a work of fiction hoping for magical ponies, on cotton candy clouds, playfully frolicking with unicorns on the back of the Loc Ness monster.

The GND is a creature of impossible leftist dreams. And they can’t even honestly live up to their own dopey ideas. So Hockett and Ocasio-Cortez lie.

The Faux Mobilization of Leftist Dreams

You have to hand it to the Democrats, the talking point memo distro list is in full effect. Like piranha feeding on the chum of public attention, Democratic presidential candidates are all over this Green New Deal. They heartily support it. Even if they hadn’t read it. They sing songs from the same leftist hymnal. You can hear them repeat the same points.

How do you get people to mobilize for a sum total overturn on the economy?

According to Cory Booker, “There’s a lot of people now that are blowing back on the Green New Deal. They’re like, ‘Oh, it’s impractical! Oh, it’s too expensive! Oh, it’s all of this!'” He continued, “When the planet has been in peril in the past, who came forward to save Earth from the scourge of Nazi and totalitarian regimes? We came forward.”

Common to leftist justification is calling for urgency. To the left, the sky is always falling. Prior to this announcement, AOC was tellin’ us we had only twelve good years left on the planet. Get to it people! Carbon’s-a-Wastin’!

According to the 2019 Pew Research poll of political priorities, citizens rate Climate Change as number 17 on the list of priorities. The economy being top of the list. Climate didn’t even hit the top ten.

For an environmentally indifferent electorate, the left thinks this WWII comparison is the best strategy? It’s pretty funny. The left seems bent on this ‘GND is WWII’ meme. That we must mobilize, now! Like we did for the second great war…or going to the moon or something.

Hot tip though; following Pearl Harbor, 91% of Americans favored entering the war. Of course we did. We got bombed.

What the Democrats don’t seem to get, likely due to an inferior history education, is that a year and a half prior to Pearl Harbor, at the time when Germany first invaded Europe, 93% of Americans did not favor war. Did not.

This is why AOC pitched the ’12 year imminent threat’ deal. No threat, no one cares. What I’d like to know is, at what point will AOC et al tell everyone about WWII rationing?

In order to succeed during WWII, the government needed schemes to pay for the effort. One of them was shared sacrifice, like rationing. Have no doubt this is the eventual socialist goal. At some point they’re gonna be taking away iPhones for the greater good. I’m sorta joking but sorta not.

That’s the silliness of the call for urgency. The left wants to deep six American prosperity. The electorate doesn’t think Climate Change is that big of a deal. Somehow the left thinks this urgency stuff will work.

Shush You with All That ‘Too Expensive’ Stuff

Like Booker said, doubters say the plan is too expensive. The Green New Deal plan is for us to be all carbon neutral in 10 years. But the cost estimated as high as $49 trillion dollars. Should you dare ask about that cost, and who wouldn’t, how dare thee ask?!

You see, hyperbole of world wars, or the ‘we went to the moon’ talk, is part of the leftist shell game. Hard and logical questions are the achilles heal of the left. Asking how much the GND costs is one of those hard questions.

In other policy ‘ideas’, Ocasio-Cortez has told us that costly programs can be paid for by funeral expense savings to fund Medicare-for-All, or that there were military accounting errors of nearly $21 trillion even though the United States hasn’t spent $21 trillion on military in our sum total history!

Math is a fuzzy subject for AOC. She with a major in economics. If you ask about funding, it’s pretty obvious why you’re told to just zip it. Still she persists with her fanciful financing schemes.

To pay for it, AOC first wants to disabuse us of the mistaken idea that ‘taxes pay for a hundred percent of government expenditure.’ She says they don’t. A knee-jerk reaction would be to ask, ‘Well, what does pay for government stuff?’. She states further that government projects are paid for by, “…deficit spending and other kinds of investments – you know, bonds and so on.” Not sure what ‘so on’ might be.

To AOC, money magically materializes by waving governmental wand. This fanciful approach to money is due to her believe in the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) of economics. The idea that debts don’t matter. Even Krugman says it’s ok so it must be cool. Like so much else on the left, just adding words like ‘justice’ or ‘rights’ to an idea, it will magically work. Adding ‘Modern’ to a bad idea makes it no less bad.

AOC states, that MMT absolutely must be a part of the conversation.

Greece failed because of debt, as the EU will tell you. Even the EU expects that each member country not push past a certain amount of debt. Yet, Greece failed.

Why?

Unless, like Greece, you intend to default on debt obligations, debt costs money. Those bonds? Borrowing? They gotta be paid back. Further, debt slows the economy and investments as well as job growth essentially halt. Wanna know what eventually has to pay for all that? Taxes.

Or unicorn money.

They Say GND Ain’t Socialism but Socialism is Awesome Anyway

During the State of the Union, President Trump told the American people that we will never be a socialist country. The grumbling from Democrats et al in attendance was noticeable. Despite liberal cries that they don’t want a socialist country, the lack of protestation is telling. When Trump said we’re not going there, AOC had found her grumpy bear.

Why then do they try to convince everyone that socialism works? I perceive the answer to be; ‘You righties lie that we liberals want socialism. We don’t. If we did, it would be awesome though.’ You get the idea.

The FAQ explicitly states thusly, “That’s why we must utilize World War II era and New Deal-style financing which commits to long-term benefits instead of short-term quarterly returns.”

In the event you did not know how World War II was financed, “The U.S. government financed a massive expansion of the nation’s defense industry, so that by 1945 the government owned billions of dollars worth of factories and machinery.” (emphasis mine)

Definitionally, owning the means of production is socialism. Not the Danish socialism-lite that lefties would like us to believe in, but USSR-style government owning industries. Get ready for bread lines.

This is an industrial takeover. Stating thus is not hyperbole. Read on…

Further in the FAQ, “Merely incentivizing the private sector doesn’t work…” Continuing, “We’re not saying that there isn’t a role for private sector investments; we’re just saying that the level of investment required will need every actor to pitch in and that the government is best placed to be the prime driver of the investment program. Given the magnitude of the current challenge, the tools of regulation and taxation, used in isolation, will not be enough to quickly and smoothly accomplish the transformation we need to see.”

Like any investment, there must be a return on investment (ROI). Does the GND have an ROI? The FAQ continues, “…government can take an equity stake in Green New Deal projects so the public gets a return on its investment.” (emphasis mine)

Get that? Government equity. That’s a polite way of saying the government will own the means of production. You can tape a picture of the Mona Lisa on a stick figure, but it’s still a stick figure underneath. Equity is ownership and and the stick figure here is socialism.

74 Million Houses

You can shout ‘socialism!’ from the rooftops and most people will give it a shoulder shrug. It’s an abstract. People don’t really care about the abstracts. World War II in Europe was an abstract in America up and until America was attacked. Then it was real.

One of the skills of the left is keeping policies abstract but still connecting it personally to individuals. It truly is a skill.

Socialism is one of those concepts the right can’t seem to overcome in messaging. The folks in the United States aren’t actually pro-socialism but aren’t exactly against it either. To permeate all the political noise, a message has to be tangible.

Thusly, AOC’s FAQ states, “…projects include upgrading virtually every home and building for energy efficiency” (emphasis mine).

Every single home. All of them. All 74 million houses. Seventy Four Million. Absurd.

This means that at low estimated cost of $25,000 per house to solarize with 74 million houses. we’ll be dishing out $1.8 trillion to just add solar panels on everyone’s roof and about $103 billion to re-insulate. It’ll cost us near $2 trillion just to update everyone’s house. That does not include all the other buildings that need upgrading.

Big numbers mean nothing to people. The size of the numbers is out of touch for most. However, every home in the United states is going to get a knock on the door. The government is going tell every single homeowner, ‘it’s your turn’.

As Ronald Reagan said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.””

That knock on the door for your home ‘upgrade’ will not be optional. It will not be when it’s convenient to you. The government will have rules on what they will and will not do. Your house needs some other updates? It’s coming out of your pocket.

The government will enforce the greening of your home. Like with healthcare, if you didn’t have insurance, you were likely to dish an average of $1400. Whether or not you had the money.

The flowers-and-butterfies aspect of the Green New Deal utopia, that we’ll hold hands and breath clean air, will be subverted by power seeking bureaucrats. The Department of Energy will have an enforcement team and you will not be allowed to dissent.

Sounds like a conspiracy? The EPA and IRS have enforcement officers. When the government wants to compel your conformity, it comes with a warrant in your name.

Social Justice Climate Change

Lastly, within the actual proposal it states, “climate change, pollution, and environmental destruction have exacerbated systemic racial, regional, social, environmental, and economic injustices (referred to in this preamble as ‘‘systemic injustices’’) by disproportionately affecting indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth (referred to in this preamble as ‘‘frontline and vulnerable communities’’)”

The climate has been racist? How? It doesn’t matter. You can’t propose anything leftist without social justice something-or-other.

There’s a reason why. The right should be very careful. It sounds silly but there is a reason social justice clap-trap gets buried in leftist ideas. You see, if you do not support the proposal, you’ll be branded a racist. Be clear about this point. The left cannot make an argument without invoking a victim.

Not only will you be branded a climate denier but also a racist. Remember that the leftists don’t want to argue facts. To combat this, they build in victims.

Social justice within the proposal is not on accident or a leftist fever dream, it is an intentional trap. Don’t fall for it.

Put a Fork in It

You’ll note the upheaval with Mitch McConnell’s call to vote on the Green New Deal resolution, Democrat Senator Markey stated, “Don’t let Mitch McConnell fool you: this is nothing but an attempt to sabotage the movement we are building.”

It’s so awesome that you don’t want to vote on it?

Markey went on, “This isn’t a new Republican trick. By rushing a vote on the #GreenNewDeal resolution, Republicans want to avoid a true national debate…”

That is to say, the “debate” where leftists get to call Republicans deniers and racists. Remember that the left bakes in weapons to their proposals so as to weaponize.

The longer this green policy slop get to marinate in the public square, the more the left will use it as a cudgel to beat Republicans. Mitch’s instinct to kill it early is the right one.

The idea for the right is to force the left to actually go on record, vote on it and talk the specifics. The more obfuscation from the left, the better. Markey’s lament that there was no debate is the point. The left gains nothing without the debate. Without the opportunity to create villains out of the rich and brand Republicans as evil.

Most Americans still do not favor socialism but don’t know how socialism will invade their life. No matter the wide-eyed earnestness of a know-it-all twenty something former bartender, the citizens need to understand that this is the kind of thing that the left does to take over your life.

Someone just needs to tell Americans this is how it happens.