The latest crusade by Leftists is a movement to rid the nation of plastic straws. The seemingly innocuous straw is, according to a growing number of people, a weapon of mass destruction.
The movement began in 2011, when then 9-year-old Milo Cress “found” that Americans use 500 million plastic straws each and every day. Since then, his unsubstantiated statistic has been reported by The New York Times, National Geographic, USA Today, and a plethora of other even less reputable news sources. His number has become accepted as a fact, because, as Snopes puts it, “No one has proven that figure wrong…”
Cress told USA Today, “Why I use this statistic is because it illustrates that we use too many straws. I think if it were another number, it still illustrates the fact that there is room for reduction. That’s really my message.” In other words, the actual number isn’t important, and no matter what it is, it is “too high.” The truth is irrelevant, and the boy’s number keeps being repeated like a mantra.
This is nothing more than the acceptance of the arbitrary. A boy puts forth a statistic and others accept it as a fact until someone disproves it. But logically, if one asserts a fact, the burden of proof is on him. If he can’t provide substantive evidence, then his claim must be rejected as arbitrary. It is not incumbent on others to disprove his assertion.
That a crusade has resulted from an arbitrary claim demonstrates how intellectually bankrupt the Left has become. A child can make an unproven claim that comports with the Left’s political agenda, and it enthusiastically embraces that claim with no concern for its truth.
That the movement has gained even an iota of momentum illustrates the intellectual bankruptcy of the culture in general. The well-being of “the environment” has supplanted individual flourishing as the standard of value. Human beings are to suffer so that nature is not impacted.
The crusade against plastic straws is a straw man. The real crusade is against anything that enables individual flourishing.