You realize how clueless are the environmental wacko crowd when they are hit with REAL facts. 
Posted on 05/02/2003 6:45:41 AM PDT by sam_paine
A little liberal came to my door last night, and now that I'm idle at work....I thought I'd recount the meeting, and share ideas with the FreePublic on how we all handle the pests.
She was 15-16 yrs young, tattooed stars on her temples, sleeveless (red) T-shirt for some counter-hip band, and that nice septum-sweller nose ring. Other than the strong resemblance to a hairless calf on hind legs, she was probably a cute little girl once.
"DON'T WORRY, I AM NOT SELLING ANYTHING," she started off with, obviously recognizing that the entire neighborhood must be filled with angry white men. She was with "Texas Campaign for the Environment" and she wanted me to sign the petition.
I never did figure out what the petition was for.
She had many trained snippets. Mainly I gleaned that Michael Dell recycles lots of PCs in Europe because he is forced to be a good citizen, but in the US he only reclaims a small percentage of the "toxic" PC's he ships out.
This is where I made my decision to not slam the door as usual, but to accept the role of martyr: That I would take as much of her time as possible so as to keep her away from the neighbors.
Little did she know that my semiconductor company is wrapped up in the EPA's lead-free PC initiative, so I knew a thing or two about Mike's activities (and the millions of other small people like me that are not so easily villified as corporate pirates).
Mike had apparently promised to set aside one day a year (on Earth Day) to accept used PC's for recycling. That was apparently not enough...."Well what are we to do the other 364 days a year," was the shrilly whine.
I explained the EPA's drive to get rid of lead solder in PCs by 2005. (ADMISSION: I made this up. I don't know if there's a govm't deadline, but our little company -is- being pushed by evil PC mfgs to switch away from lead within two years...) But I figure talking to a liberal requires some realistic fiction to keep their attention.
She shrieked, "Well what are we supposed to do until 2005!" I said, "Well you could start by taking that nickel- or chrome-plated nose ring out of close contact with your bloodstream."
Unfazed, she said, "I know...I just got it and it really hurts."
Then I went on the offensive with more fact-based fiction. I reminded her that recycling a lead-free inert PC made up of plastic, steel and silicon is extraordinarily expensive, and that cost could be two- to three-times more than it takes to assemble it. AHA! Now she agreed with me, and could see that this angry white male was GREEDY as well! "Why wouldn't you accept that cost as the burden of that luxury?!?!? Don't you know that Dell just ships all those PCs to third world countries to their dumps for them to live with?!?!"
The trap was set. "Did YOU know that poorer classrooms in East Austin can only afford as few as one PC per 20-30 students? Do you think that's fair? Now if you double or triple the cost of manufacturing a new PC, that that ratio will fall to 1-in-60 or even 1-PC-for-100 kids? Is that fair to them? Is it?"
"look, if you don't want to sign, that's fine."
No, no! WAIT! Why was I to sign it? What did it claim?
She didn't know. Mainly there are people who lobby the politicians, and if they get enough signatures, the politicians will HAVE to listen.
But listen to what? What was the petition advocating? That the US congress "listen" to lobbyists....or State lege? Or what? Was there a specific bill or what?
"I DON'T KNOW, MAN, IT'S MY FIRST DAY!!!!"
Maybe after a little introspection, her last?
Knowing my position of rich-white-male in her estimation, I connected my evil to her cause. "I party with a couple of lobbyists for teh semiconductor industry because they have free bar tabs, and they are always laughing it up how they con grassroots organizations into gathering petitions that they use as justification for new lucrative lobbying contracts with the big corporations like Dell and IBM."
Her blood pressure was apparently increasing the pain of her nose-ring.
"Frankly, I'd love to sign your petition. I sign these kinda things all the time. (Mostly 2nd Amendment stuff though....) But, this looks to me like the lobbyists are just using your organization to keep them in business by showing activity, and that just hurts the kids in East Austin. Did you know I volunteer to reconfigure PCs for needy kids instead of just junking old ones like you guys want? (I wasn't making this part up for once.)"
This had to cause tremors. The rich white male was helping the children, and she was being used by the corporate machine to pay fat cats. YIKES! I had turned the trifecta.
Needless to say, I am very proud of myself this morning. I am swearing off the slam-door-in-face tactic whenver I have the time to try the wear-down tactic. Maybe she'll quit. Maybe she'll look into who the lobbyists are. Maybe she'll question environmental "authority."
Well, at least I tried.
Although for sales calls I do tell them to hold, then I put the phone down until I hear the off-hook ringy thingy
Quoth the homeowner to the enviro-bubblehead: "Nevermore."
One night, a guy named Zack came to my door from the same wacko green group, Texas Campaign for the Environment. He was the most aggressive, pandhandling solicitor that I ever encountered. At first, I was gracious in trying to let him know that I was not the least interested in his campaign. He would not stop.
At some point, I snapped. I took his name, and flyer and told him that I was going to call his superiors, and inform them that Zack and everyone else at Texas Campaign for the Environment were never again welcome to set foot on my property. I told Zack that I was going to close the door, but open it again in less than a minute. I then informed Zack that if I opened the door again, and he was still on my property, then he would be in big trouble.
I called these wackos the next day and made sure that they understood my point that there would be a BIG problem if they ever come to my door again.
Then the door closes, and they patiently wait for me to reopen the door and hand the clipboard back. Depending on what it is they have on there, they may or may not feed my paper shredder. They may or may not get their clipboard back either. I'm waiting for one to try and bust into the door. "Smithers....Release the hound!" LOL!
You realize how clueless are the environmental wacko crowd when they are hit with REAL facts.
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