Conservation or Preservation?

Is progressivism anti‑progress?

Posted April 22, 2005 5:30AM PDT

Earth Day is a good idea. It is good that we should celebrate our planet. Good stewardship is a good idea. In practice, however, April 22nd has turned into a day when progressive‑liberals climb into their SUVs and drive to environmentalist events where they celebrate soviet‑style social planning that produces more rather than less harm.

Like HOV lanes. In theory, it's a great idea: encourage everybody to ride together. In practice, it's a disaster. Instead of significantly reducing the number of vehicles on the road, the reduced number of lanes increase traffic congestion, which increases pollution, oil consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and time wasted. Yet, in the face of all the negative outcomes, they remain. It's insane.

Meanwhile, the progressive‑liberal anti‑growth, anti‑choice, anti‑progress crusaders climb proudly to their podiums to rant and wail that the lead‑filled sky is falling upon a rapidly dying Earth and we need to gag down more of their soviet‑style prescriptions to cure the complications caused by their previous nostrums.

The National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, is a good example of this. Under NEPA, I have seen landowners told they cannot build a shed or a coop or a fence because a seasonal stream or puddle makes it a "wetland." I have seen many and heard of many more landowners who responded to such decisions by quietly draining the area, thereby destroying the wet of the land. Conserving wetland is a good thing, but the outcome of imperial preservation attempts has been to destroy it.

The prudent thing to do is to fix the laws. Preservation works poorly because it views human nature as an outside agent. Like an invasive species, which, since it can't be eradicated, must be harshly controlled. Conservation, on the other hand, sees humanity as being part of nature. Part of "God's plan," a strand in the web of life, or however you prefer to see it, we are part of this place. So it makes sense to include human nature in our conservancy.

Among other things, that means laws which allow for growth, which encourage progress and prosperity. Mitigate the impact, encourage efficient and effective use, but embrace change, for change is with us, always. Progress and change, however, are diametrically opposed to the progressive‑liberal agenda, which would do anything to maintain soviet‑style control over everybody, from folks who just want to build a shed to corporations that want to bury everything under mountains of concrete and steel:

Our waters are less toxic today, but America's political currents are infinitely more poisonous. … What's in store for the National Environmental Policy Act? Masters of the House want to weaken the federal law, and gut provisions giving citizens the right to take legal action. This would push state environmental agencies to ease permitting requirements. … The law is not perfect: Forests are felled to accommodate its paperwork. Still, fair deliberation and needed adjustments are one thing, dismantling is quite another. — In the Northwest: Environmental hearing may be deaf to dissent, by Joel Connelly, Seattle Post‑Intelligencer, April 22, 2005

The law is nowhere near perfect. Thanks to progressive‑liberal preservationists, our roads choke on congestion while the HOV lanes sit nearly empty. Suburban sprawl is ever more pervasive as people flee life under the thumb of the progressive‑liberal ideologies.

We need more, not less development. Like Fully Contained Communities, which, like European villages, allow for urban centers to be built with wilderness buffers. And we need regulations that make sense. Laws that let folks build their sheds or fences, and do the things that humans do, without compelling them to destroy habitat to do it.

Women and PTSD

Are women more susceptible to PTSD than men? Maybe not.

Posted April 11, 2005 4:30AM PST

We knew it was going to happen. When feminists demanded that women be allowed to serve in the military on the front lines, we knew women would be sexually assaulted. We just didn't know how bad it would get.

In 2003 and 2004, 147 sexual assaults were reported in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait and other active-deployment areas, according to Pentagon figures. But the numbers represent only a small fraction of attacks. A study by the Department of Veterans Affairs shows that 75 percent of assaulted military women never tell their commanding officer. — Vet becomes crusader for victims of soldier rape, by M.L. Lyke, Seattle Post‑Intelligencer, April 11, 2005

Feminists, of course, have a knee‑jerk response to statistics like that. From Robin Morgan to Andrea Dworkin to Susan Brownmiller to Mary P. Koss, they all portray the same ugly picture: It's part and parcel of the evil nature of men to rape women.

What conservatives know that liberals won't allow, is that feminists are half‑right. It is part of the evil nature of men to rape women. The other half of what's true, is that it is also part of the evil nature of women. Violence and violation, that is. Malice is an equal‑opportunity employer, as a close friend of our family demonstrated to me over the weekend.

"I won't have nothin' to do with Indian stuff" she snapped as she tossed some pictures of a tribal function down on the counter. "I was born here, too, and I don't get nothin' for it; why should they be any different!" she growled rhetorically. "Bill Gates' kids were born here, too," I joked, "and they're getting more than any of us can imagine." Grumbling under her breath, she turned back to her work. She has her moments, but she's part of the family and we all love her. She also demonstrates that nobody is immune to malice. We are all subject to having our moments.

Conservatives preach against malice even as we acknowledge and accept that it infects us all. Preaching isn't about condemnation, but exhortation, instruction and encouragement: the other side of punishment is forgiveness. A concept which, particularly in progressive‑liberal circles, is applied or withheld to classes of people: those who agree with them are to be forgiven everything, while those who disagree, are to be forgiven nothing.

Which brings us back to sexual assault of women in the military. We knew it happens, and we knew it would happen more as women pressed further into the service. But between feminists' vilifying men as irredeemable and the inevitable backlash against women that was coming and now is here, the problem is worse than we feared. One result, is an examination of the extent to which women suffer from post‑traumatic stress disorder:

Studies indicate that women exposed to trauma are 2 1/2 times more like than men to develop PTSD. They typically experience more symptoms than men and endure a longer course of illness, often accompanied by physical problems.

If the trauma is sexual, the women's PTSD rates are even higher. — Vet becomes crusader for victims of soldier rape, M.L. Lyke, Seattle Post‑Intelligencer, April 11, 2005

Several years ago, while working with male sexual offenders incarcerated at the Monroe Correctional Complex in northwest Washington state, psychologist, football coach and equal rights advocate Paul Shaner Sr. observed that female victims of sexual assault display the same body language and same emotional distancing that boys do.

This "emotional armor," as some call it, is the result of male socialization, according to feminists, and it's bad and needs to be weeded out.

Not to advocate for emotional armor, but it's not just the result of male socialization. Women play a part in the process. As we all knew, despite the formerly shrill denials from feminists, women indulge in plenty of bullying. When studies began to emerge documenting the rampant girl‑on‑girl bullying, feminists tried to blame it all on men. But nobody believes them, today. What isn't so well‑studied is the extent of female‑on‑male bullying.

The characteristic traits of PTSD that mark women who have been traumatized by sexual assault in the military are pervasively displayed among American men. Why? Part of the answer is the extreme degree to which feminists have attacked and vilified men, during the past 40 years. What can we do about it? Treat men, boys and masculinity with more respect. What will be the result? Men will, in turn, treat women, girls and femininity with more respect.

These, conservatives and liberals of all flavors should agree, are desirable, positive outcomes. I hope so, because I'm getting tired of people teasing me when I admit that I get misty every time I hear Sandra Bullock say, "it was while you were sleeping."