08-11-2020, 12:53 PM
(08-10-2020, 04:22 PM)Dill Wrote: Thanks again for the response and the links. I'm not challenging the corruption charges. I am just asking why the response should be to abolish an agency whose mission is to insure clean air and water, rather than fix it. It is not a private entity like the Trump Foundation or Trump University, set up to scan the public for individual profit, but an integral part of environmental monitoring and regulation enforcement for the nation, important to "the people's business." They also clean up pollution from chemical dumps and the like. Who would do that if they were gone?
The links you sent me include groups who expose corruption because they want the EPA to work for the common good, and groups who don't want the EPA to work for the common good, because they profit from its dysfunction and impotence. One way the latter do this is by creating the dysfunction/corruption they decry in government, in part by reducing government oversight. Then as the dysfunction intensifies, they use that as an argument for still more reduction. "Government is the problem."
The "orange man bad" article doesn't appear to make any "retractable" allegations, so this is not about the NYT's credibility.Trump IS reducing environmental regulations and opening previously closed public lands to oil exploration, right? Surely that reduction will have a greater negative affect on the EPA's ability to monitor and enforce environmental regulations than Obama's attempts to enforce regulation--assuming clean air and water is the goal. It seems to me he is doing to the EPA what he did to the CDC. In addition to massively cutting personal, he has also eliminated funding for climate research. We'll see the results down the road.
This puzzles me a bit too. You introduce "fraud" as a standard which disqualifies support for a president, but see Obama as the "total" embodiment of that, while embracing the "stable genius" Trump, the deal maker who was going to make Mexico pay for a wall, denuclearize NK, and give us healthcare package much better than Obamacare.
As far as shifting the EPA's relatively meagre (8-9 billion) budget towards healthcare gains or student loan relief, I'm thinking that the same folks who want all that EPA regulation and enforcement rolled back, the same folks who have done their best to repeal or neutralize Obamacare, would convert any money saved by abolishing the EPA into tax cuts.
Honestly, environmental sciences is my background, and I really have a lot of opinions on regulation, over-regulation, defunding, etc. I will say this, we dont need the kind of regulation that most people think we do, simply because by the nature of progress, technology is progressing in a way to make things cleaner, safer, more efficient, etc, without any regulation involved. Its just what people want. The problems a lot of people deal with now are leftovers from the ways things used to be done, and largely they are not done that way anymore, EPA or not. But companies still do shady things, and I get that. The problem is, what good do regulations to if the EPA can be paid off to ignore them? Often times the fines in place are not enough to outweigh the profits made, so they are completely disregarded. The EPA did some good things in the beginning and we needed some air quality regs --but we didnt need a new agency to get it lol. I am not against, very sensible, easy to understand basic regulations, but honestly the best way to go about all of it is just with regular people. Property owners. As of now we do have property rights in America. Landowners should be the ones suing these companies, and they should be allowed to. But the gov is largely pay to play across the board. They make it too hard to do that, because they protect big business who pay them, lobby and fund their campaigns. The truth is, if a stream is polluted by a mining company,. then everyone wh lives on that stream should be able to sue that company and it should be easy. No EPA needed. The DNR, is the best choice for anything related to that stuff. They have a waaay better record at dealing with conservation and doing it from a more fair and balances position. The EPA is rampant. They are a bunch of power hungry zealots, and should be completely defunded, imo. We dont need them to have some very basic regs in place to protect the water and air. We definitely dont need a bunch of shady backdoor deals going down behind the scenes. They are robbing us of money we need worse in other areas, like healthcare for instance.
Obama lied a lot, period. So many things he ran on he went the other way once he was elected. He extended the patriot act, he even created an even worse bill called the NDAA which is a massive invasion of civil rights. He was supposed to be all about civil rights!! He went after reporters too --like Sheryl Atkinson for starters. But many others also. Obamacare sucks, plain and simple. I'm not against healthcare at all, but what he did is not sustainable. Then he handed out billions and billions of dollars to "green energy" companies and they were all out of business very shortly after. That is our hard earned tax dollars! Imagine how many poor people couldve benefited from that money? Why isnt that talked about more? And also, he was our first black president in a country where blacks only make up about 13% of the population. Why in the living heck did racial tension increase under his rule? Electing the first black president shouldve put the "America is racist" argument to bed, but instead it got 10 times worse. I listened to him. He was the most divisive president Ive ever seen or heard in my life. Ever. Trump is not even close to creating the racial division Obama did, its just the liberals are stuck and cant hear because of their hate. Obama was the real divider and it hurt our country. His economics also sucked, plain and simple. Nothing about America improved under him it just got more chaotic and worse. He was a liar and a fraud. I was all about Obama or at least the idea of him, but he turned out to be Bush version 2. Fk him. And now its coming out that he spied on Trump and tried to undermine an elected president and all of that russia garbage were just lies? I hope he goes to jail. We dont need that in this nation.
I probably want a lot of what you want. I want peace and prosperity for all. I want a good economy, safety, solid, affordable healthcare, a clean environment, etc. But more big government isnt going to get us there. Regular people are far more effective. I put my faith in the small non-profit orgs out there volunteering to clean things up. Getting the locals on board, fundraising, etc. We dont need more "authority" or more policing, etc. We need less of it, and we need people, all of us to unite and step up to the plate and do our part. Freedom only works if you actually use it. A lot of ppl however, just want to sit back on their macs at starbucks and ask for more big government control, which drains our money and opens up more doors for corruption. Get off their asses and go clean up some trash. Ive been volunteering for over 20 years. I've been featured on 4 PBS specials for that very thing and you may have even seen me on one lol. I'll tell you what, the people I see out there getting their hands dirty are the sportsman. Hunters and fisherman makeup the largest part of the folks I've worked with who are willing to get their hands dirty and open their minds to work together for a common goal. Coal mine workers. Those guys are amazing and they do care way more than they get credit for. They do way more than these environmental computer-addict zealots who have giant internet voices. That is the real truth from my eyes. Id like to see that change.
