On Wed, 17 Sep 1997 11:39:35 -0500, "John H. Casada" <casada at uthscsa.edu>
wrote:
>>Howard Olson wrote:
><snip>
>> The time has come to expose the baltant disregard for public
>> well-being that MTBE represents and call for the impeachment of any
>> politician who supports it. This is an excellent opportunity for
>> libertarians to expose the hypocrisy and malevolence of statism!
>> The government viciously and stubbornly refuses to acknowledge its
>> mistake and continues to pllute our bodies to coverup their
>> incompetence.
>>Whoa, Howard! Turn down the volume. First, I don't know how a chemical
>can represent blantant disregard.
California has mandated the use of MTBE in gasoline. It costs
quite a bit -- at least 5 cents per gallon to the consumer --
decreases mileage by enough that the claim that it _increases_
polution cannot be easily dismissed, and seems to be a boondoggle.
So it's not "the chemical" he's talking about, but the mandated
use of it.
> Second, your call for impeachment
>also seems premature. Do you have any information as to how the
>regulations came to be law? What interests were served? What are the
>existing studies that show health effects? You know, if you decided to
>approach this problem from a public education standpoint, the public
>might _vote_ out the policians who supported this (if they agreed with
>you).
It _was_ discussed, in detail, before the fact, and was rammed
down the consumers' throats. After being "in", it was evaluated
and shown to be "bad". But the powers-that-be conducted a media
blitz, insisting that it was "good" and that the opponents were
all kooks, and all efforts to have the _facts_ of the problem
_verified_ by an appropriate entity were rejected. The oil
companies colluded with the government to restrict supply (via
claimed "inability" to produce the modified gas that MTBE must
be added _to_) and raised prices via this restricted supply.
Prices are still up in California, "excused" by the change in
the gas. It's a little like the Tea Tax that the Bostonians
revolted against some time ago.
> Thirdly, you freely use words like "viciously," "stubbornly,"
>"hypocrisy," and "malevolence" but do not show how these apply to this
>situation. You seem to assume that simply noting that exposure to this
>chemical has adverse health effects justifies your name calling. Can
>there be no honest dissent with your position?
He takes for granted that everyone is from California and has at
least _heard_ how we got to where we are. It is, of course, not
true, that you all are out here, but since we _are_ the true
center of the universe, it does seem to us that everybody would
know what's going on here. 8)
>If you want to engage in productive discussion, may I suggest that you
>post a more complete account of your stance?
Yes, Howard, do that.
>Regards,
>John
- Lenny Gray -
