Lessons From *That* 10:10 Ad

It’s gone viral. So many of you are aware of a certain gory ad from environmentalists promoting 10:10, a UK campaign to cut carbon emissions by 10%.

I will post the ad here with the **STRONG WARNING** that it is both disturbed and disturbing. I made myself watch the whole thing just now, and . . . it is chilling.



The reason I find this so chilling, other than the disturbing imagery, is I know my history. The 20th Century was marked by regimes which slaughtered tens of millions for the common good, of course, because they would not go along with the regime’s group think . . . or simply would not go along well enough.

Regimes and ideologues of the Left were (and are) particularly prone to slaughter of non-supporters. Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, etc. To be blunt, Hitler (if he really was of the Right) and scattered Rightist tin pot dictators were far less prolific in slaughter than the Glorious People’s regimes. In the 20th Century, the Left demonstrated that it believes its causes and its power far more valuable that the lives of those who do not adequately support them.

And I see in this 10:10 ad the same mentality found in the mass murderers of the last century: an insufferable self-righteousness, overconfidence in the rightness of their cause and of their power that justifies virtually any means, and a callousness toward human life that even becomes casual. Note how easily the actors literally “liquidate” those who do not go along with politically correct groupthink. And how could those behind the ad produce it if they did not also have a low view of the lives of those who do not support them?

Hyperenvironmentalists are particularly prone to these qualities with their sometimes outspoken thinking that having too many polluting humans around is a bad thing.

(Disclaimer: I support conservation and environmental causes with donations of money and land no less. My beef is with environmental extremists and other brands of Leftists.)

In short, although I don’t think hyperenvionmentalistism=genocide or even that Leftism=genocide, this 10:10 ad quite literally displays the same sort of mindset that resulted in the genocide of tens of millions in the 20th century.

This is a good moment to get to the heart of why this blog took more of a turn toward the political in 2008, a turn I know many readers found unpleasant. I saw a rising danger from the Left. And events are proving me correct. And the danger from the Left is much more than matters of administration and economy, as important as those are. No, matters of freedom and slavery and of life and death are at stake. For the Left again and again and again has shown a profound disregard for human freedom . . . even the freedom to live.

The 10:10 ad may be only a small part of that history of profound disregard for freedom and life from the Left. But we ignore it at our own peril. History demonstrates that also all too well.