Environmental Protection Agency administrator Al Armendariz, an avowed greenie on leave from Southern Methodist University, gave a little-noticed speech in 2010 outlining his sadistic philosophy. “I was in a meeting once, and I gave an analogy to my staff about my philosophy of enforcement, and I think it was probably a little crude and maybe not appropriate for the meeting, but I’ll go ahead and tell you what I said,” he began. In a video obtained and released by Sen. James Inhofe (R., Okla.), Armendariz then shared his bloody analogy:The EPA,with the rest of the alphabet soup,bureaucratic agencies of tyranny,that RULE this country with an iron fist,not through the law,but through ordinances and regulations,need to be dumped on the ash heap of history!
It was kind of like how the Romans used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean. They’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw, and they would crucify them. And then you know that town was really easy to manage for the next few years. . . . So, that’s our general philosophy.
Echoing President Obama’s “punch back twice as hard” treatment of his political enemies, Armendariz explained to his underlings: “You hit them as hard as you can, and you make examples out of them, and there is a deterrent effect there. And, companies that are smart see that, they don’t want to play that game, and they decide at that point that it’s time to clean up.”
In other words: Suck up, fly left, or face prosecution. The goal isn’t a cleaner environment. The goal is political incitement of fear.
