Euphemisms are the lifeblood of all political tyrannies. In the U.S., the IRS is called a “service” – but, just whom they “serve” is fairly easy to discern, especially if you decline said “service.”
The Federal “Communications Commission” actually doesn’t facilitate communications; it censors and it imposes fines, claiming “ownership of the radiofrequency spectrum.” The “Department of Defense” has not engaged in a constitutionally declared, defensive War since 1945.
And politicians worldwide use the terms “rules” and “regulations” in place of the proper words, threats and coercion.
Working hand-in-hand with generational normalcy bias and the rent-seeking power of politically-favored corporations to lever “regulations” against smaller competitors, politicians and bureaucrats continually increase the number of threats and coercive acts packaged within this euphemistic rhetoric. And nothing exemplifies this better than the ever-expanding list of threats issued by Richard Nixon’s obnoxious and constitutionally dubious “Environmental Protection Agency.”
Started by “Tricky Dick” via “Executive Order” in 1970, the EPA would not stand constitutional scrutiny even if it had been created via legislation, and it certainly wouldn’t stand up to moral, ethical, and economic analysis. Over the past four decades, EPA bureaucrats have “legally” attacked and bankrupted non-violent people, cynically claimed control over marshes and puddles, shut down entire industries, and increased the burdens on businesses and consumers to the tune of trillions of dollars. Its bureaucrats and political boosters have flipped traditional Common Law tort procedure on its proverbial head, claiming “harm” where there is none, claiming “victims” where there are none, and claiming the government can be a “victim” – which it manifestly cannot be.
Its so-called “CAFÉ (started in 1973, standing for “Corporate Average Fuel Economy”) Standards” are, of course, impositions backed by fines and legal action – impositions telling auto and truck manufacturers what their automotive lines must average for gas mileage – and they repeatedly have inspired car-makers to prematurely move to lighter, less-safe forms of manufacture, which has led to increases in crash-related deaths.
And now, the EPA thugs are ready to impose even more of their political will on an already suffering U.S. trucking industry.
Jack McEvoy reports for The Daily Caller that the Environmental Protection Agency “finalized a rule” Tuesday that will impose stricter exhaust emissions standards on new heavy-duty vehicles.
As McEvoy notes, it’s a regulation that will “significantly raise operating costs for truckers” and, by extension, will increase the cost of operation for businesses, and the costs of living for consumers.
It all revolves around the non-problem of nitrogen, which is the current bogeyman marching at the front of the Climate Cult parade that’s taking many economies – from Holland to Sri Lanka – over the aphoristic economic cliff.
“The EPA’s rule, which is more than 80% stricter than the previous regulation, will require large trucks, delivery vans and buses manufactured after 2027 to cut nitrogen dioxide emissions by nearly 50% by 2045, according to an agency press release. The agency’s rule is intended to push truckers to phase out diesel-powered vehicles and use electric vehicles (EV) instead; however, the compliance costs associated with such rules could suffocate an industry that is not ready to transition to EVs, experts told the DCNF.”
In other words: current lines of new trucks – already burdened by EPA regs – and older truck engines (as I reported in 2019 for MRCTV, rebuilt “glider kit engines” have been under attack by the EPA since the Obama admin) will be banned, threatened out of existence, in this, the so-called “land of the free.”
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And, of course, the sycophantic mass of media parrots who tout the coercive central government “regulatory” line -- promoting it as some palliative that will help “the average American” -- will assiduously avoid mention of the fact that these kinds of demands and impositions disproportionately slam smaller, independent operators, who don’t have the same margins that large, established corporate megaliths have acquired.
“‘It’s an overreach that is indicative of this administration’s tendency to set aside balance to achieve the goals of activists that they are politically aligned with,’ Mandy Gunasekara, a senior policy analyst for the Independent Women’s Forum and former EPA Chief of Staff during the Trump administration, told the DCNF. ‘It’s going to squeeze out the mid-sized and smaller trucking companies because they’re not going to be able to afford to purchase the new, extremely expensive equipment required to continue to do what they do.’”
Not to be contrarian, but part of what Ms. Gunasekara observed is euphemistic, itself.
To call this a mere “overreach,” per se, is improper. This is an attack -- unfounded, immoral, and unacceptable within the realm of civilized ethics, and it comes atop already strangling work regulations that make it nearly impossible for truckers to do their jobs.
The makers and operators of these trucks are not bringing direct harm to anyone, and if they WERE, the proper response is for an aggrieved party – a REAL person, not an abstraction called the government -- to present himself or herself with a claim for damages that can be brought to court and proven, before a jury of real people.
Adds McEvoy:
“The new rules are intended to phase out older trucks that emit more nitrogen dioxide and will push drivers to purchase electric trucks or newer models of diesel trucks that do not produce as much nitrogen dioxide when they burn fuel, according to the EPA.”
And, as Eric Peters, of EPAutos.com, has reported, that top-down, command-and-control mindset already is presenting many technical problems: from the EV’s lack of freight-carrying-power-over-distance, to the tedious and expensive length of time it takes to charge electric vehicle batteries, to the expensive and hard-to-mine elements needed for the batteries, to the environmental consequences of battery burial, to the potential for fire, to the trouble presented for electric charges when EVs are forced into cold environments, to the trouble EVs encounter regarding fuel portability. The realities of the market – i.e. what consumers actually want, and what can sustain and improve their living standards – eliminate EVs as viable, especially when it comes to heavy-hauling, like trucks.
“’If small business truckers can’t afford the new, compliant trucks, they’re going to stay with older, less efficient trucks or leave the industry entirely,’ Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association President Todd Spencer told trade publication Freight Waves. ‘Once again, EPA has largely ignored the warnings and concerns raised by truckers in this latest rule.’”
Of course it has.
Imagine if the EPA actually were a real business, asked by peace and the market to offer products and services, rather than imposing edicts and commands on people who risk their own lives and livelihoods trying to serve customers. Would they be able to force on others their fantastical, technocratic control-grid of collectivist ideologies and militant pseudo-intellectualism? Would they be able to tell others how to live and what to buy?
The answer tells us all we need to know about government versus the market.
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