The other day a Facebook friend posted a link to this video criticizing carbon cap-and-tax. I watched. Not long into the video I realized that while the criticism of the current cap-and-tax bill was good, the proposal to replace the current bill was no better. I soon realized I was dealing with the liberals’ liberals—the real true believers.

Socialism, it has been said, is the system where two wolves and a lamb vote for what to have for dinner. Well, this video represents the two wolves arguing over how to cook it.

Perhaps one of the most memorable lines from the clip involves the EPA official saying that “carbon offsets won’t work” because “they can’t be certified or verified as real additional reductions,” and the video shows a quotation from a letter on Government Accountability Office letterhead saying, “[I]t is impossible to know for certain whether any given project is additional.” Miss lawyer adds her two cents: carbon offsets “make easy profits for offset investors while increasing the risk of climate disaster for all of us.”

“Disaster” statements like this expose these people as true whackos. They really believe that unless we reign in carbon emissions we will have a bona-fide global catastrophe. The polar ice-caps will melt and flood all our port cities. They are apparently completely snowed-over to the fact that global warming has nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with wealth transfer and the control of individuals and businesses. These guys truly believe that the agenda is really about saving the environment. And so they endorse a proposal for across-the-board taxes on carbon emissions. Such taxes would make the cost of current energy sources (fossil fuels) higher than the cost for alternatives like wind and solar. They think they can really get harsh enough taxes passed essentially to stop the production and consumption of coal and oil—a multiple-billion-dollar-per-year industry that funds conservatives and liberals alike. These people are truly out of touch.

To show just how out of touch they really are, listen to their reasoning for their choice of terminology in the phrase “carbon fees”: “We think that the term ‘fees’ rather than the ‘tax’ is most applicable because this is not a charge on income or property, but rather a targeted charge on a substance that is doing a major environmental damage.” It would take a true-believer to ignore all common sense reasoning and accept this semantic rape as logical.

This is nonsense, of course, because the real reason they prefer the term “fees” to “tax” is because “fees” makes for better PR. If they could call a “tax” a “bonus check” they’d do so, and you can bet their lawyers are working on it. But the ridiculousness of the argument comes in their claimed contrast between “a charge on income or property” versus “a targeted charge on a substance.…” I still LOL when I read that. And does someone (a coal mine or oil company for example) happen to own this “substance”? Yes? Well then, doesn’t that “substance” qualify as “property”? What moron would not see this at first glance? Only a true believer. True believers notwithstanding, the proposed “fee” is a “tax” on coal miners’ and oil companies’ property and income pure and simple. These people expect us to buy these arguments. They’re completely out of touch.

They are in-touch about one thing, however. They are completely in-touch about the scam that cap-and-trade will be. Their criticism of that system is accurate. Whacko liberals are good for at least one thing: exposing the evils of mainstream establishment liberals. The cap-and-trade bill will do nothing but create a system in which utility companies pass taxes onto consumers in the form of higher prices, thus letting the “real culprits” off the hook. If government issues price controls, power companies will not be able to produce power cheap enough to meet the demand ay the artificially low price, and consumers will experience shortages—rolling blackouts and brownouts—which the liberals will then blame on the power companies.

A cap-and-trade bill will do nothing but create a huge bureaucracy (always a liberal goal) to regulate industry (a liberal goal) and control the masses (a liberal goal) by empowering government (a liberal goal) to tax corporations (a liberal goal) and receiving praise from their peers and dupes (the ultimate liberal goal). Once they succeed in this idiotic charade, the power corporations (which are infinitely smarter than the liberal schemers) will simply raise their prices in order to account for the taxation. These particular whackos are more forthright than their establishment brethren: they want to cut out all the buying and trading charade from the mix and go straight to the taxation. This way they can pretend really to sock-it to those big mean power companies. Then, they will take the balance of tax money paid by the power companies and give it (just like Robin Hood!) back to the poor huddled masses—us!

Except, after the power companies raise their prices due to the exorbitant taxes, we’ll actually need the returned taxes in order to pay our utility bills. And are we supposed to think that the huge bureaucracy required to impose and enforce the new regulations will cost nothing? Of course not. Much of the tax money will flow into the pockets of the regulators, not all to the taxpayers. So the taxpayers will have a net loss, the power companies will remain the same, and the bureaucrats will line their pockets. Same trick as normal—only this time under the guise of saving the environment.

Good for those who see through this nonsense, and through all the forms of liberal schemes of theft. Shame on these whackos who wish to out-liberal the liberals. The only way to stop a liberal is to cut her funding. Don’t let them impose another tax: call you Senators and Congressmen; let them know where you stand.

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