The Republicans for Environmental Protection (REP) is just one of the groups desperately trying to hop on the green bandwagon...no matter how loopy their rhetoric or how much their unscientific and counter-productive policies would cost the country.The Republican American has a revealing report.
Founded in 1995, REP seeks to save the planet through decidedly un-Republican, big-government socialism...
REP says it exists to counter assertions that "no 'real Republican' wants to protect the environment or believes in conservation" and that real Republicans think "regulatory reform and property rights are more vital than laws to prevent the extinction of species."
This argument is too flimsy and lazy to call a straw man. "Real Republicans" favor environmental protection and conservation, and support many of REP's goals. Where they and REP diverge is on the tradeoffs and remedies that extremists champion. To achieve what REP wants in the authoritarian manner it proposes would require a massively expensive, despotic government that routinely would trample personal and economic freedoms.
Everyone wants "clean air and water," but are the incremental improvements REP et al. demand worth draining billions from the economy every year; imposing punitive taxes and regulations; eroding Americans' standard of living; and sacrificing constitutional rights? REP seems to think so because it sees environmental protection as a with-us-or-agin-us proposition, requiring at the very least the demonization real Republicans who seek honest debate and rational, proportional solutions.
