I'm a fan of a good conspiracy theory. I particularly like the one that suggests that George H.W. Bush killed JFK -- the "evidence" is that the elder Bush is the only American over the age of 55 who doesn't have perfect recall of exactly where he was when Kennedy was killed, and he was in Texas that day (at the time, Bush owned an oil company headquartered in Houston).
There's another conspiracy theory that goes with that -- that George W. Bush killed JFK Jr. That one's fun in that it hinges on the idea of GHWB killing the first JFK. The evidence for this is even thinner -- that Republican Presidential politics requires, like a street gang, a member get his first kill to join (I have not yet seen a Nixon killed RFK theory, but if you know of one, spill); and that the only group incompetent enough at coverups but powerful enough to black out the "obvious coverup" in the media was employed the following year by the Lesser Bush Administration.
Now, imagine if your state legislature passed a resolution condemning the Georges Bush for their role in the murders of the Johns Kennedy. Because that happened to me this week.
United Nations Agenda 21 is, perhaps, the most innocuous thing ever put to print. With all the legislative authority of Taming of the Shrew, it suggests, in tepid prose, that if it's not too much trouble we'd all prefer if you don't poison our air and water and maybe we should do something to help all these poor people and, if you don't mind, we should probably also make sure the planet can maintain a human population indefinitely, or at least until our grandkids are dead (preferably by natural causes).
And the Kansas House has passed a resolution which "criticizes U.N. Agenda 21 as a covert plot to destroy the American way of life through extreme environmentalism, social engineering and global political control." It passed 76-41.
I am not kidding. Here's a bit from the resolution in question (which contains a run-on sentence that lasts an entire page):
[...]The United States federal government nor any state or local government is legally bound by the United Nations Agenda 21, the influence of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives has now infiltrated approximately 600 local and regional entities in the United States[...]
The Global Communist Conspiracy, ladies and gentlemen, out to pollute our precious bodily fluids. And your Kansas legislature, out there in full force to protect us from Agenda 21, sharia law, and Gozar the Gozarian.
The Agenda 21 conspiracy is about as hard to debunk as the JFK Jr. conspiracy. Buying the conspiracy theory itself requires the theorist to have no actual knowledge about the document, to believe the UN wields absolute power, and to not understand how democracy works. What it does not require, as with any good conspiracy theory, is an iota of corroborating evidence.
The "conspiracy theory" seems to have originated at the same time Agenda 21 was passed -- some twenty years ago (a good conspiracy theory always has a long lead time -- as the puppetmasters get their people in place to enact their inevitably Captain Planetesque world domination plot). A 1992 white paper from an outfit called The Schiller Institute seems to be the source document for the whole conspiracy (and the House bill). The Schiller Institute, incidentally, is part of the LaRouche Movement -- you know, the guys with the Obama-with-Hitler-mustache-signs at the Tea Party events (also part of their platform is Verdi tuning -- that, in music, the note A indicate a tone of 432hz, rather than 440. No, I don't know why).
Here's an exerpt from that lengthy run-on sentence:
[...]WHEREAS, This United Nations Agenda 21 plan of radical so-called "sustainable development" views the American way of life of private property ownership, single family homes, private car ownership,individual travel choices and privately owned farms as destructive to the environment[...]
The white paper clarifies just what the hell the apparently-syphilitic author meant by that:
People like UNCED Secretary General Maurice Strong argue that they are not really against development, per se; it's just that environmental concerns must also be considered--thus the new catch-word, "sustainable development.'' This argument is an utter fraud, meaning in practice that development must cease in order to "save the environment.'' The false premise behind ``sustainable development'' is that mankind faces unsolvable problems of "resource scarcity'' and "population pressures,'' exactly as described in the Club of Rome's 1972 report "Limits to Growth.'' But resources are permanently scarce, and population growth inexorably outstrips production only if technological progress is banned from the planet -- which is precisely Eco 92's goal!
So, catch that? Arguments in favor of subsidies for renewable energy (on the correct premise that businesses will only develop the technology for a renewable energy grid if there's some guaranteed return) are just an effort to drive us back into the stone age.
There's honestly nothing good to be said here. Kansans should be terrified of our legislature, because there's while there's no evidence that Agenda 21 is out to steal our children's lunch money, there's plenty of evidence that the legislature doesn't have the slightest idea of what the hell they're doing.
Of course, that was evident by the fact that ALSO this week, the legislature passed a measure barring the use of sharia law in Kansas -- proving our legislators have no earthly idea how the law works in a democracy either. Hey, Kansas legislature, here's a hint: Sharia has exactly as much legal standing in this country as Agenda 21, and unless we suddenly wake up with a majority of as-to-Muslims-as-Brownback-is-to-Christians in this state, there's literally no chance that'll change.
Now stop enacting your own version of Sharia and fix our damn schools.