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01/04/2005: "Dittoheads Emerge when Limits Loom"

Environmentalism is a particular hot button for Dittoheads because their perceived entitlement originates not due to accident of birth (as with immigration) or constitutional right (as with RKBA), but directly from God Himself. Dittoheads are convinced that Earth’s resources (and indeed, the entire Universe) were fashioned and are maintained expressly for the benefit of Mankind. They see the environmentalist’s core axiom - that these resources will inevitably be exhausted unless growth is constrained – as heretical. After years of considering this question, I’ve come to believe that the right wing’s faith-based sense of entitlement to all of Earth’s resources is the single most dangerous challenge facing humanity. Of all the challenges before us, it is the one that is both least disputable and most disputed. It cannot be logically contested that at some point we will exhaust the finite resources on which modern society depends. We can say with virtual certainty that at some point in the future our descendents won’t be driving down to the gas station to tank up. They’ll either have an alternative way to run their cars or they’ll be back to a non-automotive lifestyle out of the 19th century. We have a moral responsibility for ensuring that a sufficient proportion of the bounty of cheap fossil fuel energy is invested to find alternatives that cost the same proportion of today’s family budget (or better). In other words, society needs to start weaning itself from limited resources before those resources are gone, if we are to meet the responsibility laid on us by the Founding Fathers to “ensure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” This is a challenge because unprincipled individuals gain easy attention, wealth, and power by saying that such investments and the sacrifice of opportunity they represent aren’t really necessary. And they’ll make their argument by saying that we’re all entitled by God to use His creation any way we choose. That’s why we have Dittoheads, and that’s why their legions are growing. The most dangerous are the Dittoheads - and the politicians who pander to them - who, ignoring the many biblical lessons on wealth and stewardship, actually believe that consumption is a God-given right.