Commissioner Erv Portman, a Democrat from Cary, called the idea of international intrusion into Wake citizens' constitutional rights "crazy" and "cockamamie."

Just what the little chip in your head told you to say, eh, Comrade?

For an organization that can't manage to tell Syria that killing its own people is kind of bad, that UN sure gets a lot done.

Comments

[RBM]

Republican and Tea Party groups across the country have recently stepped up opposition to local efforts to direct growth and conserve energy. They say such rules are part of an international effort to curtail individual rights as expressed by "Agenda 21," a broad, but non-binding resolution passed in 1992 as part of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

These efforts will be largely successful in the short term, not because the premise is correct, but because no pain has been inflicted by virtue of supply shortages. Once pain arrives, who knows what the rationalization is likely to be.

I used to think the German and US military statements were the most studied on the topic of energy, but am no longer sure about that; they suggested supply constraints a mere four or five years from now. However, the dampening in global demand has been broad and sustained. It seems, more recently, it might very well take a decade.

Welcome to peak-plateau oil !

[Prell_Shampoo_Fan]

I always knew that the 1992 UNCED in Rio signaled the end of individual freedom and liberty. Glad people are finally waking up to this tragic reality. It feels good to be a winner.

[designation]

2012's Amendment One is more of an "intrusion into Wake citizens' constitutional rights" than anything the UN can dream about doing, but I don't recall Wake County Commissioner Paul Coble saying word one about that clear and present threat to liberty on the May ballot.

[justcorbly]

Well, thanks, I missed that story this morning. And here I thought all the wack-a-doodles over here were busy trying to destroy the public schools.

Two thing of interest to me: One, that Coble seemed to equate the entire scope of human rights with property rights. The latter, of course, is a subset of the former and of particular importance to that subset of the population that owns property. An even narrower subset is comprised of those people who build things on various properties and then sell them. They would also be the humans whose rights are nearest and dearest to Coble.

Two, that preventing uncontrolled growth and saving energy -- two good and seemingly innocuous objectives -- have become the current bugaboos of the tinfoil hat set. These are the people who go to Barnes & Noble and complain that the X Files DVD's are in the fiction section.