Topic: ‘I’m just quitting’: A scene right out of ‘Atlas Shrugged’ in Birmingham

[Pandora]

I was at a public hearing in an inner-city Birmingham neighborhood for various government officials to get public input on some local environmental issues. There are several hot topics, but one of the highest-profile disputes is over a proposal for a coal mine near a river that serves as a source of drinking water for parts of the Birmingham metro area. Mine operators and state environmental officials say the mine can be operated without threatening the water supply. Environmentalists claim it will be a threat.

I’m not going to take sides on that environmental issue, because I don’t know enough to stake out an informed opinion. (With most of the people I listened to today, facts didn’t seem to matter as much as emotional implications.) But Ronnie Bryant wasn’t there to talk about that particular mine. As a mine operator in a nearby area, he was attending the meeting to listen to what residents and government officials were saying. He listened to close to two hours of people trashing companies of all types and blaming pollution for random cases of cancer in their families. Several speakers clearly believe that all of the cancer and other deaths they see in their families and communities must be caused by pollution. Why? Who knows? Maybe just because it makes for an emotional story to blame big bad business. It’s hard to say.

After Bryant listened to all of the business-bashing, he finally stood to speak. He sounded a little bit shellshocked, a little bit angry — and a lot frustrated.

    My name’s Ronnie Bryant, and I’m a mine operator…. I’ve been issued a [state] permit in the recent past for [waste water] discharge, and after standing in this room today listening to the comments being made by the people…. [pause] Nearly every day without fail — I have a different perspective — men stream to these [mining] operations looking for work in Walker County. They can’t pay their mortgage. They can’t pay their car note. They can’t feed their families. They don’t have health insurance. And as I stand here today, I just … you know … what’s the use? I got a permit to open up an underground coal mine that would employ probably 125 people. They’d be paid wages from $50,000 to $150,000 a year. We would consume probably $50 million to $60 million in consumables a year, putting more men to work. And my only idea today is to go home. What’s the use? I don’t know. I mean, I see these guys — I see them with tears in their eyes — looking for work. And if there’s so much opposition to these guys making a living, I feel like there’s no need in me putting out the effort to provide work for them. So as I stood against the wall here today, basically what I’ve decided is not to open the mine. I’m just quitting. Thank you.

I have no idea what Bryant will actually do. He might have made a quick emotional decision based on anger at feeling blamed for things that are frequently just normal health issues of life. He might reconsider and go ahead with his project.

The only thing I’m sure of is that what I saw today is a broken process and a sham. We all want a decent environment in which to live, but when various people at a public meeting — including federal officials and community members — talk about “environmental justice” and make it clear that their intent is to make it harder for businesses to operate, well, I can see why a businessman would decide to quit. I consider myself an environmentalist — because I want to live in a safe, secure, clean world — but what I saw isn’t reasonable concern for the environment as much as it’s an ideological agenda.

We need reasonable people to talk about how to balance various people’s property rights. (You have the right to use your property as you please, but I have a right not to be injured by it.) Even though we need a discussion, the modern equivalent of a kangaroo court that I observed today isn’t the way to go about it. It was more like a prelude to a lynching of business. If I were a businessperson or investor, I wouldn’t put the money or effort into opening new industry in this country today. I’d take my investment and jobs to somewhere they were wanted.

As Ronnie Bryant asked, “What’s the use?” Maybe Atlas really is starting to shrug.

Link]

H/T Instapundit

[IronDioPriest]

This sentiment is being expressed more widely and frequently as the days pass. I don't think it will be long before there is an "Obama is anti-business" critical mass, being freely expressed by America's job-creators. It will stick, because it's true. All that is required is for businessmen to tell the truth.

I think the nation's employers are finally realizing that they cannot possibly sit on the shoreline hoping for the crocodile to eat everyone else first.

[Pandora]

It's not just him; it's his administration, the media and the schools adversely influencing people into thinking wealth just happens and so does a First World civilization.

We know the enviro-nazis' agenda is to see nothing gets built to do anything anywhere; the people at the meeting described in that piece do not seem to understand that there is an agenda, but have nevertheless fully bought into the scare-mongering of "hardly anything is safe and clean to do".

[John Florida]

I've sat in on meetings like this and the short of it is that I can't blame the man for walking away.The people that stood to gain didn't go to this meeting and those against him did.He's better off spending his money where he's welcome and to those same people that drove him out I would say that they are the same people that want ever more money for education and services and the only way they can get them is for taxes to go up.

 Let them stew in their own juices. I feel bad for those that stood to gain from working and the businesses that stood to gain but they were not there to defend him either.

[Libertas]

I don't blame him one bit.  More producers should have such an attitude.  Why take a constant beating from imbeciles bent upon self-destruction?  To hell with them.

[ToddF]

Can we be blunt here, and maybe cough up a stereotype or two?

The trash babbling on about "environmental justice" are the ones collecting government checks their whole life, not working in mines contributing to productive society.  No skin off their backs, as long as their check keeps arriving in the mail, at the beginning of the month.

[Alphabet Soup]

Q: Where does milk come from?
A: From the grocery store, silly!

As leftists continue the dumbing-down of Americans, and dhimmicrats expand the entitlement class, humans become more and more divorced from reality.

There's interesting times a-coming and for many it's gonna be a rude awakening!