Posted on 01/06/2011 6:55:53 AM PST by La Lydia
It could be that even George Monbiot is ready to give up on the thoroughly exposed global warming hoax, because he is searching hungrily for a new crisis to exploit — like Big Government's failure to prevent us from having too much space: The issue is surplus housing — the remarkable growth of space that people don't need. Between 2003 and 2008 (the latest available figures), there was a 45 percent increase in the number of under-occupied homes in England. The definition of under-occupied varies, but it usually means that households have at least two bedrooms more than they require. This category now accounts for over half the homes in which single people live, and almost a quarter of those used by larger households.
What could have caused such a crisis? Moonbat finds
just one likely explanation: money. My guess, though I can find no research or figures either to support or disprove it, is that the richest third of the population has discovered that it can spread its wings. A report by the International Longevity Centre comes to the same conclusion: "Wealth … is the key factor in whether or not we choose to occupy more housing space than is essential."
If wealth is the problem, the solution must be socialism.
While most houses are privately owned, the total housing stock is a common resource. Either we ensure that it is used wisely and fairly, or we allow its distribution to become the starkest expression of inequality.
Moonbat is enraged that even Britain's bloated progressive government should "let the rich occupy as much space they wish." Like most neocommies, he justifies his hatred of economic success with environmentalist rhetoric:
I suggest a new concept: housing footprints. Your housing footprint is the number of bedrooms divided by the number of people in the household. Like ecological footprints, it reminds us that the resource is finite, and that, if some people take more than they need, others are left with less than they need.
You might argue that housing is not a finite resource, because we can always build more of it — but only if Big Government lets us, which it wouldn't were it up to Moonbat. Housing oppresses the environment.
Like all crises invented by liberals, it boils down to coercion for the sake of coercion.
Those who use more than their fair share should pay for the privilege, with a big tax penalty for under-occupation. If it prompts them either to take in a lodger or to move into a smaller home in a lower tax band, so much the better.
Even the authoritarian collectivists at The Guardian seem to have realized that they should be more subtle about their power lust unless they want to scare people into putting up resistance. The subheading of the article now reads:
The hidden truth about our housing crisis is that it is driven by under-occupation.
The original:
Those who insist on under-occupying their homes should be forced to pay for the privilege, or take in a charity lodger.
Because big houses cost more than small houses, they already have paid for the supposed "privilege" of living in a house of the size they can afford. When Moonbat sputters about making them pay, he's expressing a sadistic urge to punish them for not being sufficiently unsuccessful.
After punitive taxes and government-imposed lodgers fail to achieve total equality, the next step will be the abolition of private housing, which is a short jump from Moonbat's assertion that "the total housing stock is a common resource."
Ever been to a government housing project? If so, congratulations on making it out alive. You've seen everyone's future if progressives have their way.
I read the original article the other day, and it TOTALLY changed my way of thinking.
Now, more than EVER, I am willing to share my spacious home with Orlando Bloom and/or Antonio Banderas. :)
My 1000 square feet is all I need or desire. That said I have no problem with my neighbor’s large homes or with the fact that they all own more than one.
Comrade Kaprugina: “There was living space for 13 families in this one house.”
Zhivago: “Yes. This is a better arrangement, Comrades. More just.”
You should have told him no, you were going to house your extended family in the basement, rent the upstairs rooms to shift workers by the hour, and raise chickens in the backyard
Then he would have been assured you were a compadre
Just my opinion of course.
These people make me furious! If you think small homes are great, live in a small house. However, if you think small home are great and believe we should all be forced to live in one, that is tyranny.
Exactly.
Frank Lloyd Wright agreed with him. He built a string of tiny houses with no closet space all across Wisconsin, believing that future generations of Americans would become minimalists in terms of their material possessions.
Were they not now considered landmarks you probably would not be able to give one away.
Ivy Starnes lives. The real tragedy is not that a Monbiot exists, but that his ideas seem plausible enough to a large enough segment of the population to earn publication. That’s an education problem, which can’t be fixed until government’s near-monopoly on education is broken.
Yet another “problem” screaming for a government solution.
Nice analysis. I noticed his footprint formula contains the usual sloppy thinking common to global warming zealots. The footprint should have something to do with carbon if that is what they actually cared about. But two things go against that, they are almost illiterate when it comes to understanding things like housing’s relationship to carbon, and more importantly, they just want world socialism so the details don’t really matter to them.
My house needs to be big enough to have space for those Second Amendment items that allow me to say “I’ll have a home the size I want whether the government likes it or not.”
LOL! Well, I confess that I prefer a smaller house because I don’t love cleaning enough to want the extra rooms. And I doubt your new roomies would want to take up the slack! ;)
Fifty years ago a nut like Monbiot i.e. Moonbat would not have been given space in any respectable newsrag, liberal or not. Today, of course, there are many Monbiots in all forms of media writing or spewing equal amounts of leftist twaddle. These people used to be laughed at or dismissed as kooks. They’re still kooks, but they wield destructive power. I wonder what kind of pad Monbiot lives in? I’ll bet the living spaces of Moonbat and his leftist pals is not too small.
correction: living spaces ARE not small.
I have chosen a Cuban to share our spacious home with. His name is Mario Cimarro. Although I might have negotiate this with the other occupant.....
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_2drAPMNsJuI/TAwOuJ6Uc7I/AAAAAAAAAV0/u7WzxxJvetQ/s1600/Mario%2BCimarro.jpg
Sorry george. I need a room to freep in.
OMG! How’d I miss HIM? LOL! He’s welcome, too. :)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
