This week we read about a couple of arsons in the Seattle area at nurseries, thought to be an expression of outrage by persons opposed to genetic engineering. My point last week, not made very well perhaps, was that this kind of behavior grows out of elevating protecting the environment to a religion. To my way of thinking sometimes harming the environment is bad, sometimes it s good. It benefits humanity. The Mayo Clinic, The Getty Center, the Lincoln Memorial, Monticello, Coit Tower and the Smithsonian Institution, just to name several of tens of thousands if not millions of developments, are sited on land that was once pristine wilderness.
Religion is about absolutes.
The environment should not be. Some people in Oregon are joining the national movement toward reconsideration of term limits. Efforts are underway to put a measure repealing term limits for state legislators before voters this year or next. They are finding that in the state capital there the legislature is run by a bunch of rookies scurrying around trying to reinvent the wheel or looking for their next job. Maybe it s time for Californians to also reconsider term limits.