A Comeuppance For Green Whackos

Here in OC, there's a franchise of the Green Whackos team. They show up at public hearings and fight! fight! fight! against progress and reason.

One game they've been playing is against an ocean water desalination plant proposed by a company called Poseidon. Everyone likes de-sal, right? It saves the mountain streams and groundwater basins by using seawater to create fresh water -- good sense!

Not to them. They say teeny microbes will be killed in the process, and that brine (salt) will be dumped into the ocean. There's enough microbes and more than enough salty water to make those issues the dictionary definition of insignificant, but it doesn't stop the Green Whackos from being loud, rude and nasty about it.

Anyone with a reasonable thing to say gets shouted down.

Well, last Monday night, someone (a nice old lady named Mrs. Simms) stood up to them, and columnist Cindy Cross captured it in the Huntington Beach Wave:

It seems Mrs. Simms and her husband had gone to the meeting to voice their support for Poseidon.

They filled out their pink slips to be called as speakers and, as Mrs. Simms recounted, were asked by a man which side they were supporting. In answering that he was for the plant, Mr. Simms was then asked, “how much did they pay you?”

Now, this kind of sophomoric comment would not have surprised me, but it apparently took Mrs. Simms and her husband aback.

The poor woman was nearly in tears as she turned to the audience – grown ups, everyone – and registered her disgust and dismay at their behavior, both to her husband and throughout the public comments.

She talked about their behavior being completely contrary to how she had raised her children – and it made me wonder how these people were raising their children.

She beseeched those who found all manner of rude behavior to be effective elements of public discourse to practice sportsmanship and civility.

I doubt it will impact their behavior, but it was good to hear someone call them on it. At the very least, they will now have to own it.

Good for Mrs. Simms! Decent, honest citizens across the country are afraid to speak at public hearings because of the rude hostility they face from Greenies and NIMBYs and other fanatics against progress.

It's diminishing our Democracy, and we need more Mrs. Simms' to discipline these unruly, rude children in adult clothing.

Image: Eventprodux