#SkipTheStraw? Seriously?

Have you noticed that some restaurants have stopped providing you straws for your drinks, unless you ask?

I’ve had it happen twice. I expect it will be a lot more often as word spreads.

I read that in the Middle Ages, insanity used to spread through towns at lightning speed. One person would say something irrational, and then everyone would believe it, and it would quickly spread as truth.

I don’t know what it was like in the Middle Ages. But it’s sure like that today, in politically correct America, where irrationality, hasty generalizations and emotional reasoning rule.

What in the hell is going on? Are we in the new Middle Ages?

And what about the increased likelihood of getting or spreading colds or other illnesses by drinking out of a cup without a straw? Don’t healthy humans comprise part of “the environment”? Or is this anti-straw campaign after something totally different?

One local restaurant in my town has a sign on the tables saying, “In efforts to decrease our environmental impact, we have joined the nationwide effort to reduce the use of plastic straws. We have to make a change for our environment! We’re willing to make the effort; are you? Simply, #SKIPTHESTRAW”.

What’s interesting about this sign (aside from the bad grammar) is the unstated, unqualified acceptance of the term “environment”. No argument – even a false one – is offered to explain why straws are bad for the environment. It’s as if the word “environment” were the equivalent of … well, I don’t know, “God”.

All you have to do is utter the phrase, “For the environment” and you’re off. No facts, logic, persuasion or reasoning is required.

If it’s true that most people buy it, then Nazi Germany – or some other even more horrifying equivalent – is just a calendar year or two away. Let’s hope that most people don’t buy it.

By the way: Even if “the environment” is all that matters, then why does it? Does the environment serve human needs or do humans serve the environment?

If the environment serves humans, then some explanation as to why using straws is a bad thing would be required. “If you use straws, then you’ll choke to death, or get a disease.” But that’s not what this campaign is about, because that’s not what environmentalism is about.

Some people will say, “Sea turtles — they must be saved!” But there’s no way to prevent human action from affecting other forms of life. Are sea turtles more important than human life? And what about other forms of life that sea turtles might harm? Should sea turtles be punished for that? Nobody wants to have these discussions, because they know it’s totally irrational to put sea turtles above everything and everyone. So instead they just say, “The Environment”. And it’s a psychological and intellectual show stopper, because nobody wants to be seen as daring to question, “The Environment”.

Environmentalism is an urban religion. It’s a fanatical and fundamentalist religion. We’re talking about the Puritanical, man-hating, life-on-earth hating kind of religion. There’s no reason or logic to it. It’s not about human welfare. It’s about supporting the environment for the sake of supporting the environment. Translated this means: “You have to leave earth in the same state it would be in had mankind never existed.”

That’s what the environmentalists are after. It’s Puritanical hatred of the secular masking as faux twenty-first century, enlightened and educated science. It’s NOTHING of the sort. Fall for it, and you’re falling for the most toxic idea out there today.

My advice: In overwhelming numbers and with unwavering pride, we all have to say, “I’d like a straw, please.” It’s about a lot more than straws. We need a campaign to support human enjoyment and comfort with life on earth to counter the rabid, modern-day Puritanism of these environmentalist freaks.

I’m sick of environmentalism. I want a pro-life, pro-human movement to counter all this absurdity and insanity.

Unless you truly hate yourself and your life, you should too.

 

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