Dear Editor,
Windsor County Sen. Dick McCormack (D-Bethel) recently opined about the climate crisis and how government must implement “a worthy and non-negotiable response” to this crisis.
What is this “worthy and non-negotiable” response? In the summer of 2018, the “new” Act 250 commission was busy crafting this response. The commission’s purpose was to realign Act 250 in order to address the climate crisis. The following legislators and senators served on this commission: McCormack, Rep. Amy Sheldon, Sen. Chris Pearson, Sen. Brian Campion, former Rep. David L. Dean and Rep. Paul Lefebvre.
The worst idea to come out of this commission was to “encourage” rural Vermonters to move into a compact urban center. The idea being that rural Vermonters create too much carbon, therefore our lifestyles are undesirable and must be eliminated.
“Keep in mind that Vermont covers an area of less than 10,000 square miles. Vermont’s geographic area occupies 5/1000 of 1% of the planet’s surface. Vermont has less than 1/100th of 1 percent of the world’s population. Our population is around 620,000. The energy consumption of Vermont is the lowest of all 50 states. Since 1990 Vermont’s forests have removed more carbon dioxide than Vermonters have produced emissions.”
The commission’s use of the word “encouraging” is the nice, green-washed way of saying “forcing.”
Government is power, Legislation is force. The law is force. This is why special interest groups spend so much time and money lobbying the government. History is full of examples of governments using force in violation of human rights, which include the right of property ownership.
Hitler “encouraged” Jews into ghettos and concentration camps. Stalin “encouraged” the relocation of millions of his fellow citizens into the gulags of Siberia. The Chinese government, as I write this, is “encouraging” the relocation of 250 million of its rural citizens into high rise apartments in cities. This could never happen in the United States, right?…Wrong! The U.S. government has a poor track record of “encouraging” its citizens into compact urban centers, internment camps or reservations. From the 1830s until the 1870s, Native Americans were forcibly moved off their ancestral lands onto reservations. During World War II, Franklin Roosevelt, a progressive Democrat, relocated Japanese Americans into internment camps. During the Vietnam War, the U.S. government forced rural Vietnamese citizens into strategic hamlets. Politicians through ignorance or outright deception or simple ruthlessness justify these actions by using the bogeyman of an imminent “crisis.”
The constitution of the United States is supposed to protect our rights to property and liberty. “America’s Founders understood clearly that private property is the foundation not only of prosperity but freedom itself. Thus, through common law, state law, and the Constitution, they protected property rights-the rights of people to acquire, use and dispose of property freely,” according to Roger Pilon of the Cato Institute.
McCormack claims to be a staunch civil libertarian as well as an expert on the constitution. I am told he carries a copy in his pocket and reads it before each legislative session is convened. I believe this. I think he knows exactly what it says and what it doesn’t say, to the last letter.
He just doesn’t care.
A common denominator for all these dispossessed people I have mentioned, is that they were disarmed of their weapons. Their right to self defense was legislatively removed.
It should come as little surprise that McCormack has a voting record that proves he is an enthusiastic advocate of restricting the right to bear arms.
Stu Lindberg,
Cavendish
