Conservatives: If you're serious about putting our guns down, you go first

In an email titled "Libs only care about the environment when it's not inconvenient to them part 4,938,824," Chris notes that companies like Nike and Apple (which are leaving the U.S. Chamber of Commerce due to that group's stand against CO2 emission restrictions) happen to make most of their stuff in China (which has no emission restrictions and is generally an environmental nightmare). Assuming that by "libs" he refers to "liberals" instead of "Mad Libs" the word game, I conclude that he thinks liberal groups are being hypocritical on environmental issues.

Now, even if that were true, it wouldn't change the issue one bit, because the messenger is not the message. If a murderer says "don't kill people," does the fact that he's a hypocrite make murder OK? Didn't think so.

But even more importantly, Chris seems to be misunderstanding the nature of externalities in this case. Companies don't pollute because they like it; they pollute because they have to turn a profit in order to survive, and polluting cuts costs. If a company voluntarily restricts its own emissions, it'll be quickly under-sold by all the other companies that aren't so scrupulous.

Now some companies may not like this state of affairs. They may recognize that global warming will hurt their businesses in the long run. But no one company, acting on its own, can change things. The only solution is to make a rule that all companies, everywhere, have to limit emissions. Such a rule would allow Nike and Apple - and everyone else - to cut emissions without being undersold. (Note that China wouldn't have to be include in such a rule for it to have an effect; we could just impose a carbon tariff on all Chinese goods.)

Sadly, some conservatives don't seem to intuitively grasp this idea of externalities - the idea that things that individuals do can have side effects on other individuals. The seductive Big Lie of the Ayn Rand ideology is that you, and you alone, are in full control of your life and destiny. No interdependence, no side effects, and no synergy. I kind of wish that we did live in an Ayn Rand world, but the fact is we don't.

In the world we actually do live in, people in a Mexican standoff aren't going to put down their guns one by one. Calling them hypocrites doesn't help the situation.