Not Tired of Winning Yet
The Keystone Pipeline has been revived.
Abandoning Keystone was one of countless sacrifices Americans have been forced to make to the Church of Global Warming. It’s interesting to note how the anti-Keystone case was made largely on safety grounds during the previous administration’s long delay of the project, but today climate change is the most widely cited objection to the project in media reports.
For example, the New York Times wrote on Tuesday, “Studies showed that the pipeline would not have a momentous impact on jobs or the environment, but both sides made it into a symbolic test case of American willingness to promote energy production or curb its appetites to heal the planet.”
Even a former head of the State Department’s energy bureau under Obama, David Goldwyn, told the Times that Keystone “has never been a significant issue from an environmental point of view in substance, only in symbol.” The rest of us are tired of footing the bill for environmentalist symbolism.
Obama’s action was seen at the time as “strengthening his hand” for what proved to be utterly worthless climate talks in Paris. The American people are thoroughly sick and tired of sacrificing their prosperity so left-wing leaders can act like big shots at luxuriously catered climate conferences.
They’re also tired of making sacrifices so environmental groups can feel good about themselves, a theme that comes up repeatedly in discussions of Keystone XL over the years. Pipelines are safer than any other means of transporting oil; the network Keystone XL will plug into has been running just fine for a long time. The amount of oil it will move is significant, but hardly enough to figure in any credible argument about the fate of the planetary environment.
Any married man who has ever suffered a recurring discussion with his wife over some matter you believed settled long ago may recognize the pattern here.
The masculine mind (which many men possess) is results-oriented. He does not care about your feelings, he cares about getting the task done. He cares about practical rather than symbolic victories.
The feminine mind (which far too many men possess) is process-oriented. She cares about your feelings. She feels that, like a small child being well raised to have good character, once your character is trained to behave a certain way, the results will take care of themselves. She cares about symbolism, because symbols is what stirs and motives the spirit.
The two minds are complementary. When in conflict, the womanly mind tends to lose in the short run and win in the long run. Hence, a conservative (who tend to be masculine minded) tends to win in politics; but a leftist (who tend to be feminine minded) win in the culture, hence win in the long run, because the generation of children they beguile with their utterly symbolic thinking eventually comes of age, and eventually gets tenure. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.
So, here: the Keystone Pipeline would be a safer and better way to move oil, threatening less damage and less severe than shipping or trucking the same volume, and the Leftist insisted on a real sacrifice for the sake of a symbolic propitiation to Mother Gaia. But blocking the pipeline was increasing the risk to the environment in the name of decreasing it.
Gun-control is likewise a symbolic issue. Factual studies showing that more gun ownership decreases gun violence is neither answered, refuted, or even noticed by Leftists, except to sneer. The real world is not their concern. To voodoo doctors, the doll is a real as a man. To Leftists, symbolic gestures count because they show one’s inner enlightenment: the fact that the gesture is counterproductive is not even an issue for them.
This is where the stereotype of women being illogical and impractical arose. They are not, in fact, illogical, but it is feminine logic, which puts feelings above fact, and moods above matter. Any bad side effects resulting from the counterproductive policies can be cleaned up by the men.
Long past time for the masculine mind to return to political discourse. Long past time for self-destructive and self-defeating policies and laws to be cast aside, and for the government to do those things governments needs must do, instead of making symbolic gestures whose results are the opposite of what is allegedly intended.
And, no, I am not sick of winning yet. Trump is getting to work much more swiftly than I would have believed possible. It is almost like he is not a politician who makes promises to get elected. It is almost like he is a businessman who makes a contract for a job and gets to work on the job immediately.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
