Cap carbon and trade away your freedoms

Carbon legislation will give government control over just about everything and that is what this is really about.

Cap McCain’s hot air

Nothing is produced without the use of energy. Fossil fuels provide nearly 80 percent of all energy in the U.S. and virtually all energy used in transportation. Should government gain control over private use of energy, government would most certainly control a most important source of production.

Consider what the sources of production are: raw materials, or natural resources; the energy required to convert raw material to product; and the initiative to do it. Through a whole range of land use control laws and regulations, government effectively controls the use of land and the raw materials it contains. Pending legislation, if enacted, will give government control over every drop of water in the nation – essential to all production. John McCain’s cap-and-trade proposal would give government absolute control over energy use.

What then would distinguish the U.S. from any other socialist nation?

It would not be the Congress. Congress has allowed, and often even assisted, the executive branch in the usurpation of its policymaking function. Congress is rapidly becoming little more than a rubber stamp for policies designed, implemented and enforced by the executive branch of government. Again, what distinguishes the U.S. from other socialist nations?

It certainly is not individual freedom. The freedom Americans once had to own property and control the use of it, to dig a well, to irrigate crops, to cut trees – now requires the permission of government, as is the case in other socialist nations