Diversity of narrow-mindedness...

It's been bugging me lately...

I have been spending my last few hours at a free market conference that was slightly more conservative than libertarian. (Though I make a clear distinction, as does my hero Hayek, many people do not) One of the presentations got me thinking...

The way The Endangered Species Act of 1973 has been enacted breaks the same fundamental pillars as does the abuse of Eminent Domain.

I have a moral dilemma. I value endangered species. There is a real long term cost to letting species go extinct across the world; but on the other hand, I value private property and the right people have to do what they want with their property. Prosperity stems from the voluntary exchange of property, which creating value for those involved and disperses out into society through secondary and tertiary. Get in the way of that process and you're bound to piss people off.

Maybe there is already... but there should be some serious environmental economic analysis based on a cost benefit model--which includes long term analysis--that sheds some light into the actual benefit, subjectively and monetarily, there is from saving a single species.

It gets me frustrated when conservatives have a tendency to discount the value of species diversity when in reality they have a problem with the policy approach taken in the 1973 Act. Harp on command and control don't take it out on the warm fuzziest. It's ok to not want species to go extinct. It's back tracking when people who have legitimate arguments against regulatory and legislative abuses take low blows against Endangered Species themselves. The Polar bear may actually be in danger (it may not but that's a different story). That should worry all of us. Policy is where the battle is, not with closed minded low blow tag lines that just make people frustrated.

Bringing it home: The use of the 1973 Endangered Species Act is a perfect example of a Bootleggers and Baptists theory of policy. A moral argument drives the masses while side standing business stand to gain from regulations by burdening their competition. This is dirty business. This happens everyday, and the playing field is in policy. The real issue still stands. Species are going extinct. I care about this and you should too. The correct approach is getting away from out-of-date 1970's command and control policy that allows for companies to manipulate the system to their own benefit, therefore leveling the playing field for competition while replacing older policy with smarter up-to-date policy that actually works to help endangered animals while not incentivizing plunder.

Clowns. People who walk the party line and stab out across it with cheap shots that just piss people off are clowns. Republicans are rational, Democrats are rational, all politicians want to help the world, and think that they actually are. What a diversity of narrow mindedness we have.