Friedman Argument

I meant to get to this last week when it came up over cocktails at The Passenger,* but I have a mild proposal: I suggest changing the fallacy we now call The Strawman Argument to the Friedman Argument.** Because this is five different kinds of crazy:

So either the opponents of a serious energy/climate bill with a price on carbon don’t care about our being addicted to oil and dependent on petro-dictators forever or they really believe that we will not be adding 2.5 billion more people who want to live like us, so the price of oil won’t go up very far and, therefore, we shouldn’t raise taxes to stimulate clean, renewable alternatives and energy efficiency.

This is just ridiculous. In the last election, the only candidate who offered a real plan for simultaneously increasing energy output and reducing emissions was John McCain. I refuse to listen to someone call himself a “green hawk” who doesn’t seriously advocate increasing our nuclear output. A crippling carbon tax is simply a nonstarter politically, as is seriously cutting back on energy consumption with the technology we have. Wind and solar power are both pipe dreams.

And, just so we’re clear, the only people who think that a massive population reduction is coming is are those on the left. They’ve been predicting it for a few decades now. Population bombs, starvation, riots, etc. etc. Projection, I think it’s called.

*If you’re in DC and enjoy craft cocktails, you should check it out; it’s the new joint from Derek Brown (The Gibson). I had a fantastic, fantastic manhattan last week.

**See what I did there? I traded the “straw” out for “Fried.” Freaking brilliant.