Candy For Idiots

Don’t get me wrong, I support a private companies choice to run their businesses as they see fit and I will never deviate from that ideal. However, while I support their right to make choices, I won’t support their decisions by giving them my business.

There have been several airlines in the past few weeks which have closed their doors due to bankruptcy. Skybus has gone under, Mesa Airlines is on the verge of a bankruptcy, ATA Airlines has gone under, and pretty much every major airline is hiking prices and fee’s to compensate for the price of fuel.

While I don’t want to get into global warming in this post since my previous entires pretty much point out my position on the myth, I do want to point out that the global warming craze is one of the major factors for rising fuel prices. Ethanol, a product used to reduce the amount of fossil fuels used in oil production, is making the cost of jet fuel rise, as well as food prices, but that also is a whole other post… The point is, gas is high, fuel is high, and jet fuel is REALLY high right now. What does the largest airline in the country do, in such a horrible economic time such as this?

Well, this email I received from Delta pretty much explains their stewardship…

Subject: Carbon Offset x 2

Visit delta.com for all your travel needs—near and far. Take advantage of our Best Fare Guarantee and book your next flight (while avoiding up to $25 in booking fees!). You also can reserve hotel rooms or car rentals, sign up for real-time flight information and check in online. Then visit our Delta Blog to see “under the wing” and behind the scenes as we share stories on ideas, changes and our people.

Body: Let’s match green for green.

To celebrate Earth Day on April 22nd and in partnership with The Conservation Fund, we will match all carbon offset donations made via delta.com during the month of April.

It’s easy to offset your carbon emissions when you purchase a ticket at delta.com. And, 100% of the donations will benefit The Conservation Fund’s Go Zero^SM program, which plants trees to fight climate change.

This is just one part of our Force for Global Good initiative that strives to protect the world we fly everyday.

I’m not so blind to know that this is simply a PR scheme and that Delta is catering to the ignorant who are apart of the global warming hysteria. However, Delta just came out of bankruptcy, is in a great position to get back on their feet, and they are literally wasting money by matching carbon offsets.

If you’re not familiar with what a carbon offset is, let me tell you. The idea is for people who account for a lot of green house gas emissions and who feel just plain awful about the way they terrorize mother nature, can purchase these magical credits to account for their depraved lifestyles. So how exactly does this idea affect the change that we need to save the planet? Let’s explain it a little further…

A company will sell you a carbon offset, or a billion, they don’t care. The more they sell, the richer they are. Well, say your carbon footprint is 13.5 tons of green house gas emissions each year (which is on the high end). Say mine is only 5 tons per year. I can sell you the 7.5 tons I’m NOT USING OR NEVER WOULD HAVE USED so that you can feel better about yourself and so that you never technically go over “footprint”.

If you’ll notice, you never actually did anything whatsoever to help save our planet. You’re still emitting the exact same amount of green house gases you would have emitted otherwise, only you were a complete and total moron because you paid someone else so you could do it. Hello?

The real problem, however, more than Delta’s complete idiotic campaign to match your complete and idiotic act of actually purchasing these carbon credits, is that all three presidential candidates believe in this farce and want the United States to purchase these offsets from other countries who don’t exactly emit as much pollution as we do. Again, the same concept applies. The US emits about 20% of the earths total carbon emissions. Mexico, South Africa, Iran, Indonesia, and France only emit a combined 7.6% of the earths total carbon footprint. France, using 1.4% total can tell the US that, “hey, we’ll cut our emissions to 1% and sell you the remaining .4%.” What happens is France raises their taxes on corporations, fuel, consumption, etc. in order to lower their emissions by driving up the prices of everything, and the United States raises taxes so that we can afford to purchase these carbon credits and output more emissions.

The point is, you are doing literally NOTHING to curb carbon emissions and you are doing everything to raise prices of goods, raise taxes, and create more government control over your life.

I travel extensively in my line of work, and I fly a lot. I will avoid flying Delta at all costs because of their stance in this issue. They could invest this money by making sure their planes are safer by hiring more technicians to repair planes, which adds jobs to the economy and provides better safety for those who fly in their planes. Instead, they’re WASTING their money purchasing the equivalent of magic beans, to grow massive stalks, to reach the fictional giants on top of the clouds.

The following is a collection of my favorite quotes from Ayn Rand. I hope you find them as powerful and thought-provoking as I do.

Government “help” to business is just as disastrous as government persecution… the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off.

“Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy … Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions.”

So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?

The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.

There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil.

“Great men can’t be ruled.”

“The most depraved type of human being … (is) the man without a purpose.”

“The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.”

“The [U.S.] Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals … it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government … it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizen’s protection against the government.”

“A rational man is guided by his thinking – by a process of Reason – not by his feelings and desires.”

“Capitalism is the only system that can make freedom, individuality, and the pursuit of values possible in practice.”