When environmentalists attack

After the successful "environmental" campaign against IU's proposed golf course last spring and the unsuccessful protests against the construction of Deer Park, a terrorist group named ELF (Earth Liberation Front) reared its ugly head by attacking property that members thought sat in the Lake Monroe watershed.\nDemocrats such as Monroe County Commissioners Vice President Brian O'Neill seemed surprised.\nThe Monroe County Democratic Party shouldn't be surprised. When you build an outhouse where the courthouse used to be, you're going to attract flies. And the rhetoric local Democrats have been spouting is like a siren song to those flies.\nWhat we haven't seen from both Democrats and the local environmental "activist" crowd is criticism of development that has been approved of on the Democrats' watch. Not far from campus, for example, is Deer Park. The developer, Michael Fitzgerald, has been linked to Democrats, including City Councilman Jeffrey Willsey.\nNot only that, we are seeing a Democratic Party of candidates spouting dubious environmental policies based on junk science. And they have no economic policy besides higher taxes and ludicrous regulations. (Guess who gave you the 1.6 gallon-a-flush toilet, known as the "two-flush" toilet? Clinton-Gore's EPA. According to the Washington Times, in Virginia, where a black market of workable Canadian toilets has flourished, the 1.6-gallon toilets are known as "Gorelets.") \nEnvironmentalists ' real, honest environmentalists, not the extremist types ' already know this. \nMore than 25 years ago, Greenpeace was founded in the basement of a Unitarian Church in Vancouver, British Columbia. One of many founders was Patrick Moore, Ph.D. Moore, an environmentalist to this day, now regrets his involvement with the career activists. His words five years ago ' on the Web site of the Heartland Institute, www.heartlandinstitute.com ' seem eerily prophetic of acts of violence we have seen from ELF. \nMoore wrote, "… eco-extremists tend to be \n• "Anti-technology and anti-science. (They) entirely reject machinery and industry; they invoke science as a means of justifying the adoption of beliefs that have no basis in science to begin with.\n• "Anti-free enterprise. … (They) are basically anti-business. They have not put forward an alternative system of organization that would meet the material needs of society.\n• "Anti-democratic. Eco-extremists do not tolerate dissent and do not respect the opinions and beliefs of the general public …"\nMoore wrote that the political legislation eco-crusaders would offer is the most dangerous element of their extremism: "In the name of 'speaking for the trees and other species,' we are faced with a movement that would usher in an era of eco-fascism." \nUnfortunately for Monroe County citizens, the Democrats are trying to stack county government, which they already control, with the same kind of politicians who run the city council ' types that decried the construction of a local Wal-Mart and oppose the construction of Interstate 69. \nSince the Democrats already control the city and county government, expect the local business community to suffer. Expect Monroe County's economic reputation as a place to do business to worsen. \nAnd it won't just be the job market that suffers under this leadership. Indeed, the Democrats, who screamed loudly in 1995 about affordable housing, now want to make it less affordable. \nOne Democrat, Scott Wells, appearing on 1370 AM, WGCL July 31, proposed increasing the cable franchise fee from 3 percent to 5 percent; county building fees from 10 cents a square foot to 16 cents a square foot; and proposed a brand new 10 cent per square foot "rainwater tax." He said this would pay for development "up front," but what it would do is pass on the costs of housing to consumers, driving up rent and mortgages.\nWhile such facts are always inconvenient to these politicians, they won't get in the way of their political quests. IU students wondering if they should register to vote here need to seriously consider these facts. Lower rents may depend upon it.