this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2025
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Putting aside that there is no world in which this person can be reasonably called an "environmentalist", can we blame her for her shitty reasoning, ridiculous beliefs, and bad-faith motivations? If you change laws to neuter local government in order to protect against this sort of bullshit you will inevitably shift the balance of power in favour of corporations that will misuse it.
A functional society requires some sense of civil responsibility in its people. If every single undesirable behaviour must be legislated against then 1) this probably will fail and 2) if it succeeds your society will no longer be free. Americans have for a while now focused on their rights without any thought to how to exercise those rights responsibly. This is an example of that. That other commenters may be consumed with mindless anger but under it lies this exact point.
To be clear, I'm not saying the rules shouldn't be changed. I'm saying that what any such change will do is shift the trade-off.
Only in the modern American mind, swimming in decades of rightwing ideology (yes, even among the left), is the government somehow a completely separate , disconnected thing from the people. It's not. Americans get the governments they deserve.
How about you actually take some interest in policy? What change do you want to make? Propose something, and remember that all the oil companies that want to frack in your backyard have rooms full of really smart people who get paid more than you ready to see how your policy change can be exploited to their ends.
I think your points are very agreeable. I don't disagree with most of that.
I do think your thinking is flawed in presenting the government regulatory environment as simply a dial to turn between corporations and regular people.
Do you play any games? Either board games or video games? I wish more people took an interest in game design, because it's a really complicated and fascinating field with a ton of relevance to social policy.
Instead of viewing the government as the decider between who gets to be the dominant force and who is the disadvantaged actor, we should try to design systems to counter balance effectively. A classic example is the division of powers between branches of government. That's a great idea that has worked pretty well, and most people understand.
In this case, I would suggest that there should democratic mechanisms that allow small groups to challenge intuitional power (including both corporations and the state) but also for bigger groups of people to challenge small groups. This woman files a lot of legal challenges where she has no real stake. There should be mechanisms for local residents and environmental groups to restrain some of the legal tools she's abusing. In other words, I don't want to empower the corporations she's fighting, I want to empower GOOD environmentalists (yes, she is an environmentalist, even if she sucks) to cut her off. Kind of like how many states are finally addressing the problem of SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) lawsuits.
We should have mechanisms to allow limits to the number and duration of challenges. A lot of this is about filibustering projects. Let people challenge them, but require these challenges to be adjudicated quickly and then place limits on repeat challenges and delay tactics.
Again, she's wrong and fuck her. But that's not a political project, that's just complaining. I'm proposing we put our energy where it makes a difference.