Environmentalists in the US are against nuclear power, solar power, geothermal energy. They are against high-rise buildings and pro-golf-courses. They can be safely ignored since their stated goals and their actions can only be concordant if one assumes they're idiots or enemies.
> ...can only be concordant if one assumes they're idiots. It's unlikely they are...
Why would you say that it's unlikely? That's a very strange assumption to make - Hanlon has a whole razor about that. They're absolutely idiots. Or, put more politely and precisely, they're operating from intuition - "nature good, technology and/or human development bad" - without thinking about whether the ultimate consequences of what they're pushing for will properly advance their cause.
Can you please point me to a single environmentalist who is against nuclear power, solar power, geothermal energy, and high-rise buildings but is for golf courses?
I'm sure you can find plenty of people who check one or more of those boxes, but I'm interested to know if there's anyone who checks enough of them to be self-contradictory.
If you can't point me to one person who holds all beliefs, then you're falling for the classic fallacy of treating a group of individuals as if they were a hive mind. See comments about how "HN" both believes in unrestricted capitalism and supports privacy regulations.
What, 3 out of 4 isn't good enough for you? The high rise part of the comment is an example of "one of these things is not like the others" in that of course people all about the money will like high rises.
It also doesn't matter what you think Donald Trump does or does not believe. He has a 4 year track record, and is on record making comments about what he will do if elected again.
The Trump administration backed away from policies meant to reduce carbon emissions, and promoted policies meant to increase energy independence through increased reliance on and use of fossil fuels. The same administration also rolled back nearly 100 separate environmental regulations. It supported developing energy reserves on federally protected land, including national forests and near national monuments.
Trump himself has regularly expressed skepticism over anthropogenic global warming.
I’m… genuinely not sure you can reconcile this with a claim of him being an environmentalist on any axis.
I modified my original comment to replace "people" with "environmentalist" in the first sentence to clarify what I meant—you probably read it before I did that. Sorry.
Just so we’re clear, you’re asserting that Donald Trump is an environmentalist?
So we’re on the same page, Wiktionary defines that as: one who advocates for the protection of the environment and biosphere from misuse from human activity.
Fiscal conservatives in the US are against raising taxes, decreasing military spending, or cutting social security. They can be safely ignored since their stated actions can only be concordant if one assumes they are idiots.
It turns out, if you take a wide and varied group, put all of the ideas that any of them have in a bag and shake it up, then assign all those ideas to all of them, you can claim them idiots. Or bad faith actors.
When really it’s the cheap rhetorical trick that is the real sign of idiocy.
Actually most that I know are all in that bucket. The trick is that this raises the deficits which they then get to blame on the next Democrat in office. It’s a fun party trick.
Say what you will about “tax and spend” liberals but it’s a sight better than political faction that spends even more but forgets entirely about the revenue end of the equation.
The counter for that is that taxes change economic activity and so raising taxes doesn't bring in as much revenue as you would think because some activities are no longer worth doing (profitable) after paying higher taxes. (not to mention people looking for tax deductions).
Of course taxes are not a revenue optimization problem to those pointing the above out. It is the tax and spenders that should be looking at the above and are not (other than childish claims that trickle down doesn't work)
