Re: Environmentalism & the US Constitution

[BLHamrick@AOL.COM]

In a message dated 6/9/2003 3:16:45 PM Pacific Standard Time, jjcohen@PRODIGY.NET writes:


> Anyone care to join in a class action lawsuit???


That certainly is an interesting concept...and, I suppose, along the lines of my pondering a way to sue certain environmental interest groups for waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer funds.  Certainly, some sanity has to be brought to the table in this arena, because it has been sorely lacking in our legislative, executive and judicial branches for many years now.


The legislative and executive branches court the vote, and no politician wants to be the one to make people "less safe."  It appears that since they can't really understand the science underlying their decisions, they figure that if they pander to the NIMBYs and alarmists, they will have the greatest chance of making it at least appear that they care about their constituency.


The courts (in at least some decisions I've read), when challenges have been brought against some of the ridiculous laws our elected officials have wrought, have basically said, Congress, you made your bed, lie in it.  I'm thinking specifically here about the "Delaney Clause" case (Les v. Reilly, 968 F. 2nd 985, 9th Circuit, cert. denied), wherein the 9th Circuit essentially said zero means zero, and you can't define some de minimus limit, and the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal, but there are other examples.


What does that leave us with?  How does one re-introduce common sense into our governmental processes?  The administrative agencies are frequently referred to as the headless fourth branch of government, but, in truth they are still subjugated to the political winds, as agencies of our executive, and subject to control via our legislative bodies' hold on the pursestrings; they are not free to act on common sense alone.


We know from the "Term Limits" case out of California that the argument that the people are too stupid to govern themselves is a losing argument, as it should be, but what then must be done to mitigate the extremist, squeaky wheels that use myths and hyperbole to coerce popular support for a cause that fills their non-profit coffers, but offers little if nothing, and potentially causes harm, to the public in general?


The public may have a full and vested right to make any stupid decision it wants, but when that decision is tainted by a concerted campaign of disinformation, the propagators of that disinformation should be held accountable.  After all, there are laws against false advertising to protect individual consumers; certainly, there should be something to address the harm-at-large perpetrated by special interest groups that repeatedly dis- and mis-inform the people on matters of great public importance.


Potential solutions to this dilemna, welcome.


Barbara