Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Thought of the Day
I'm talking, of course, about the wind farm menace.
It divides once-happy communities; it blights cherished views; it wipes between 25 per cent and 50 per cent off property values; it causes insomnia, depression, palpitations, anxiety, sickness of all kinds; it enriches the cynical, greedy few at the expense of the many; it drives up energy prices; it kills birdlife and bats; it destroys jobs (creating only fake, taxpayer-subsidised ones), it does nothing whatsoever to benefit the environment, let alone arrest "climate change."
That such a hideous menace could be allowed to stalk the land under a New Labour administration I could just about understand. But under a Conservative prime minister? Never! Or so one might reasonably have thought.
Wind farms, after all, are antithetical to pretty much every one of conservatism's most basic principles.
They trample on property rights, stealing homeowners' tranquillity and the value of their single most important investment, with not a scrap of apparent guilt or compunction, let alone compensation.
They place collectivism – and a peculiarly bastardised, ill-considered, ill-justified collectivism at that – before individual self-determination and liberty.
They pervert the free market, whose successful operation Britain so desperately needs if it is ever to crawl out of this (largely state-created) depression. Scarce resources are diverted from the productive sector of the economy into an industry which no one, save a few rent-seeking parasites and environmental zealots, wants or needs – and which would never survive without massive subsidy because it has no real economic value.
They are the antithesis of the commonsense, empiricism and pragmatism which are at the root of conservative tradition. Wind farms don't work. They're expensive. They're unpopular. There is no evidence that they offer any benefit to the country whatsoever. So what conservative in his right mind would insist on building more of them with money we haven't got?
James Delingpole
It divides once-happy communities; it blights cherished views; it wipes between 25 per cent and 50 per cent off property values; it causes insomnia, depression, palpitations, anxiety, sickness of all kinds; it enriches the cynical, greedy few at the expense of the many; it drives up energy prices; it kills birdlife and bats; it destroys jobs (creating only fake, taxpayer-subsidised ones), it does nothing whatsoever to benefit the environment, let alone arrest "climate change."
That such a hideous menace could be allowed to stalk the land under a New Labour administration I could just about understand. But under a Conservative prime minister? Never! Or so one might reasonably have thought.
Wind farms, after all, are antithetical to pretty much every one of conservatism's most basic principles.
They trample on property rights, stealing homeowners' tranquillity and the value of their single most important investment, with not a scrap of apparent guilt or compunction, let alone compensation.
They place collectivism – and a peculiarly bastardised, ill-considered, ill-justified collectivism at that – before individual self-determination and liberty.
They pervert the free market, whose successful operation Britain so desperately needs if it is ever to crawl out of this (largely state-created) depression. Scarce resources are diverted from the productive sector of the economy into an industry which no one, save a few rent-seeking parasites and environmental zealots, wants or needs – and which would never survive without massive subsidy because it has no real economic value.
They are the antithesis of the commonsense, empiricism and pragmatism which are at the root of conservative tradition. Wind farms don't work. They're expensive. They're unpopular. There is no evidence that they offer any benefit to the country whatsoever. So what conservative in his right mind would insist on building more of them with money we haven't got?
James Delingpole
Labels: James Delingpole quote
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 2:22 PM 
