[wackdeafboy]

A dumbass boy becomes a smart boy!

Wow. I had one of the best conversations yesterday with someone from a group called Penn Environment. A grassroots lobbying organizaiton whose mission states the following:

We all want clean air, clean water and open spaces. But it takes independent research and tough-minded advocacy to win concrete results for our environment, especially when powerful interests stand in the way of environmental progress. That's the idea behind PennEnvironment. We focus exclusively on protecting Pennsylvania's air, water and open spaces. We speak out and take action at the local, state and national levels to improve the quality of our environment and our lives.

Very noble cause. Coming home from work I notice a gentleman on my porch knocking on my door so I invite him off my porch and on to my steps for a chat. He stated his pitch about collecting signatures to lobby the government to "help the environment, create jobs, and stimulate the economy." Lucky for him, I was there to talk to him.
As usual, I started out by thanking him for his efforts, commended him on his cause, then asked him the ultimate question...how does all this work? More specifically I asked how does what you're doing create jobs, help the environment, and stimulate the economy? He mentioned reducing carbon emissions by issuing a carbon tax.
I asked the next important question, where do carbon taxes come from. His response was taxing businesses, so my next question was and where do they get the money to pay these taxes. Deer in headlights followed by, "well do you know?" I smiled and said "Yes. You, me, and everyone else." I asked him if he owned a business and the government taxed his business based on x, y, or z, would he pay those taxes directly from his income, or would he pass that cost onto the consumer. Then I asked how long would it take for all this "greenwork" to take effect, considering how we'd have to dismantle the whole energy industry and rebuild it. He paused then you could see the lightbulb going off in his head. He had a look on his face like he just saw a ghost.
It was like when Ed Norton realized he was Tyler Durden at the end of Fight Club (spoiler alert). He summed it all up himself right in front of me within a matter of minutes. He said "so by introducing a carbon tax, which will fall on all of us consumers increasing the cost of goods, while our wages stay the same if not continuing to decrease, there's really no incentive for a business to find an alternative energy source if all they'll end up doing is charging more for their services."
The gentleman was a college student working a summer job going door to door collecting signatures. I applaud his efforts and his passion for wanting to make a better world for the future, but most of these "green" advocates and "carbon tax" advocates have no idea what the ramifications are.
Then I pulled the ace out of my sleeve and told him who I am, what I do, told him all about sound money, he brought up how he wanted to learn economics, so I put him on the mises.org path, gave him a copy of "Common Sense: Revisited" gave him an H.R. 1207 flyer (he was blown away that we have 11/19 PA congressmen as co-sponsors), Campaign for Liberty brochure, my contact info, and a solid handshake.
Bottom line is it would've been very easy to kick this kid off my porch, I was tired, I was holding a heavy bag, I was hungry, and all I wanted to do was go inside, hug my daughter, and flop on the couch for 10 minutes. Instead I sat, listened, showed respect, and gave this kid the best education he could've gotten. Actually all I did was got him to question what the ramifications of his actions were, once he thought about it, it hit him like a ton of bricks. He was sharp as a tack, and who knows what he'll become, but I know he heard me, and I know it took some deprogramming of my thinking to get me to wake up and end up where I am now. "We'll see" said the zen master.

Many starfish washed up on shore. A young boy started picking them up and throwing them back into the ocean. Someone saw what he was doing and told him that it was pointless, that there were too many to save, that it wouldn't make a difference. Throwing another starfish into the sea, the little boy responded, "It makes a difference to this one."