3PI Eddie Fontaigne

3PI, Coal And True Compassion

When your mind loses contact with your heart you become a fool

Did you know all the states touching the Appalachian Mountains from Pennsylvania to Tennessee and North Carolina are Obama's “No Job Zone”? Well I didn't until I drove my parents through there this last week. I pride myself as a critical thinker so when I saw the big billboards, mostly in West Virginia, I thought their words were a bit of hyperbole. From the laid off coal worker's point of view there is probably little if any hyperbole on those billboards. For some of them at least, the letters on those signs could not be big enough, at least not until they reached all the way to the White House and crashed down on the president's desk. The most powerful man in the United States didn't just pursue policies that had the side effect of threatening their jobs, he directly targeted their jobs for extinction.

In 2008 Obama said in the context of describing his desired policies toward the use of coal, “If someone wants to build a new coal-fired power plant they can, but it will bankrupt them because they will be charged a huge sum for all the greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”

Apparently many people thought that was just tough talk from a candidate pandering to so-called “green” voters, and once in office he would take a more rational approach to environmental regulations and energy policy, yes even a more humanly sensitive approach. Now that his EPA has started to move ahead with unreasonable carbon dioxide restrictions on power plants that achieve exactly the meaning of Obama's words in 2008, building a coal-fired power plant will bankrupt whoever builds one and, even worse, those plants already in existence will need to be closed.

West Virginia's economy sits on the brink of something far worse than a depression. If the EPA and the president who sent them on this path of destruction aren't stopped, West Virginia could become a ghost state, and Appalachian areas of other states could become ghost regions.

I suppose some “green” people will see this as “environmental justice” and hope the absence of jobs in these places will cause the people to stop living there, and thus remove the human blight from the land, but I must believe these green Grinches have hearts buried somewhere in their beings that they just aren't listening to, and no, their hearts aren't wooden. No human being, being true to themselves, should want what is about to happen to these coal workers.

But I know how people can allow high ideals to separate their minds from their hearts. I've had it happen to me and I can tell you when your mind loses contact with your heart you become a fool, probably the worst kind of fool, a heartless fool. Long story short, I was once a neo-con who believed American workers losing their jobs to foreign workers was a “good in the long run” and “greater good” kind of situation. While I acknowledged the fear and suffering involved, I had so much faith in my ideals and the goal of world-wide economic opportunity and success for all through free trade and open markets, that I believed the bad was worth the pursuit of this “greater good”. Walking through ten to twenty virtually empty industrial and business parks and talking to those still desperately clinging to a means to feed and house their families cured me of that mental dislocation that had it out of touch with my heart.

Thus was born in me what I call “third person individualism” or 3PI. The simplest way I can describe it is that I believe individual dignity and liberty are more important than myself or any ideal I may hold to, for even if I believe in something greater than everything, my understanding of that is still less significant than the individual. Pursuing any ideal at the expense of individual dignity and liberty is heartless foolishness, if not worse.

In the case of President Obama's coal policy I cannot help but wonder if it isn't worse. At least the neo-cons believe in individualism. They may not appreciate its true significance when they welcome the migration of manufacturing jobs into the third world, but at least individual liberty is their professed cause. Obama's progressives seem to have no appreciation for individual liberty, and many of the greens seem willing to sacrifice, not just jobs but human lives to achieve their ends.

For 3PI the coal fight is about as close to the core of what matters as it gets. Coal is a cheap and plentiful source of energy. If, as 3PI does, you want to empower as many individuals as possible to achieve their personal goals, cheap and abundant energy helps with that like few other things can. Cheap resources promote individual independence. In contrast, when something becomes expensive, like health care for example, individuals are driven towards dependence. Thus the EPA's current path of destruction will cripple the cause of 3PI. More importantly, the EPA's current path is running over and destroying the lives of millions of people, some more directly than others.

It's a bitter irony that the Obama re-election campaign is currently trying to blame Mitt Romney for outsourcing American jobs while the president, through his EPA, is actively and very directly targeting American jobs and lives for destruction. A few billboards proclaiming “Obama's no jobs zone” can't seem to speak loudly enough. Individuals are suffering and the president's heart is clearly out of touch with his brain. That's right I said it. Too bold you think? Many West Virginians wouldn't think so. Think of them, pray for them.