IMAGINE A ‘PARTY X’ that was actually committed to opposing statism ,and to advocating for free enterprise. Imagine such a party had a cabinet committing to rolling back the state, and an environment minister brimming over with ideas to do that.
Over the last week, I’ve been throwing out the sort of environmental policies such a party (and such a minister) could advocate. Seven simple policies using present-day political realities to roll back the state without introducing any new coercion along the way.
I conclude today with an idea and an invitation. The idea: a Kyoto Plan that makes the whole thing plain. The invitation: you’ll find that at the end of the post.
7. The Kyoto Plan for Tax and Regulation
Here’s one last suggestion that sums up the aim of all seven environmental policy planks presented so far. A plan explicitly designed to clean up the human environment, using the language of those who seek to shackle humans in the name of trees, rocks and mud puddles.
If you recall, to save earth’s environment from man’s allegedly climate-changing pollution the Kyoto Protocol to which Simon Upton signed us up required carbon emissions to be cut to 1990 levels by 2010. Which was never going to happen.
Whether or not you accept either the science or the politics behind that notion, however, it certainly concentrated minds on the proposition and elicited great pressure to achieve the goal, or something like it.
So what I propose—what a Party X could proposes—is to do something similar, but in the name of human freedom instead of human bondage.
What I propose quite seriously is a similar protocol to limit a far more serious and provably destructive pollution: the legislative pollution emanating from parliament that punishes achievement, destroys freedom, and requires the productive to go cap in hand to the unproductive just to ask permission to produce.
And along the lines of the Kyoto Protocol, I’d make it one that restricts the levying of taxes and the emission of regulations to 1990 levels, by about the time of the next parliament.
That shouldn’t be a big step to take, but it would at least concentrate minds on the enormous stack of new rules and regulations pouring out of parliament every year. While the jury is still out on the possible destructive consequences of emissions of carbon dioxide, there is no doubt at all of the destructive consequences of the emission of new taxes and ever more intrusive regulations.
Time to put a stop to the explosive growth in these emissions. 2014 works for me. Now would be better.
* * * * *
That concludes the series as written.
But now you’ve seen how easy it is to devise reforms that advance freedom one step at a time without implementing any new coercion, why not have a go yourself? I invite you to post in the comments your own ideas on reform in any policy area. And I invite members of political parties who claim to stand for freedom and small government to give serious thought to making their’s a property Party X, instead of just lapdogs to power.
THE COMPLETE SERIES:
INTRO: 'What Would 'Party X' Do About the Environment?'
PART ONE: Un-taxes
PART TWO: 'A Nuisance and a BOR.'
PART THREE: Making Life Easier for Small Consents
PART FOUR: “Iwi then Kiwi” - A Unique Privatisation
PART FIVE: A Very Special Carbon Tax
PART SIX: A Fishy Story
THE SERIES IS BASED ON THE PRINCIPLE DEVELOPED HERE: 'Transitions to Freedom: Shall We Kill Them in Their Beds?'
3 comments:
That's an excellent series on environmental issues and protection of the commons. My favourite is the one way bet on CO2 via carbon taxes so Alarmists can put "their" money where their mouths are. They say the science is totally settled, there are no ifs buts or maybes, it's a done deal, warming is coming.
My theory, based on cloud, snow cover, contrails insolation reduction, chlorophyl cover versus desert cover, combined with sun-spot cycles is that reglaciation in 2020 is a possibility, with a Little Ice Age more than likely. The solar cycle has entered another minimum [as predicted by me 3 years ago http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=25243817 and many others earlier.
High CO2 production might just avoid the worst of it if the Warmists are correct.
OT: Kronic and other synthetic cannabinoids have been temporarily banned by Cabinet under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, in preparation for amendment legislation to permanently ban the products next year.
I'd like to see an general age of adulthood. Rather than mucking around at the fringes with drinking ages and drink-driving limits make it simple; if you're old enough to vote & fight for your country you're also old enough to have a beer on the way home from work.
One law for all adults!
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