Ex-President of Maldives: ‘There’s Nothing More Conservative Than Conserving The Planet’

I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve come across the concept in the title of this post.  I’ve probably written it more than I’ve read it, but I’m not really sure. It sure is a catchy little son of a gun, isn’t it? Then why does it apply so poorly in today’s world?

Part of the answer, obviously, is partisanship. Whatever one group stands for, the other group feels the need to oppose. It’s possible that conservatives would absolutely love to be conserving the planet—if only those damn hippies hadn’t gotten there first. Here’s a little gem from the early days of Hollywood that makes that point.

The better answer is that not everything can be conserved at once; a great number of the things that people would like to conserve are mutually exclusive. A responsible policy vis-à-vis the environment is incompatible with conserving:

• A Libertarian (tiny government) approach to law-making.

• The “rights” of Big Oil to do whatever it wishes.

• The notion that corporations are people with First Amendment rights to spend as much as they wish influencing our elections. (Here’s a cartoon that speaks to this subject.)

As much as we’d like to, we can’t have it both ways.