Posted by
Always To The Right on Sunday, December 30, 2007 10:28:15 PM
Asinine
activism - (Washington Times) Activism can be a good thing. Libertarians and civil rights advocates lobby for constraints
on undue government intrusion into our lives, and professional associations further the interests of its
members. We all benefit from getting to shop in the marketplace of ideas.
However, all is not good-faith, constructive activism, and some of the goods in the marketplace are shoddy.
A good example is environmental activists' intractable antagonism to the spraying of pesticides to kill insects
that carry disease. The spraying of any pesticides — let alone the possible resurrection of the use of DDT,
which was banned in the United States several decades ago — has been greeted by near-hysterical resistance.
Since the banning of DDT, insect-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue and West Nile virus have been on the
rise. The World Health Organization estimates malaria alone kills about a million people annually, and that
there are between 300 million and 500 million new cases each year.
The regulators who banned DDT and the activists who oppose its resurrection ignore the inadequacy of
alternatives. Because it persists after spraying, DDT works far better than many pesticides now in use, some of
which are toxic to fish and other aquatic organisms.