March 20, 2012 12:33 AM UTC

"Agenda 21" Paranoia Finds Willing Promoter In Scott Tipton

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the New York Times reported in February:

Across the country, activists with ties to the Tea Party are railing against all sorts of local and state efforts to control sprawl and conserve energy. They brand government action for things like expanding public transportation routes and preserving open space as part of a United Nations-led conspiracy to deny property rights and herd citizens toward cities.

They are showing up at planning meetings to denounce bike lanes on public streets and smart meters on home appliances – efforts they equate to a big-government blueprint against individual rights…

The Washington Post’s Peter Galuszka writes today:

Their rallying cry is the so-called “Agenda 21,” which is a policy established by the United Nations back in the early 1990s promoting the ideals of “sustainable development.” Given that the document came from an international group representing countries of all income and development levels, it pushes such guidelines as grouping housing for the sake of efficient resource use.

Some in the anti-Agenda 21 crowd claim that the plan would undermine home ownership. It would supposedly end private farming and would apparently push people into Stalin-style collective farms, or somesuch. Placing smart electric meters in houses for more efficient use of electricity is seen as a part of a plot for mass surveillance by Big Government. Naturally, George Soros, the billionaire, left-leaning financier, has to be behind this.

With a nationwide campaign against “UN Agenda 21” in apparent full swing among more impressionable “Tea Party” supporters, the Houston Chronicle opined last week:

We’ll call this campaign against Agenda 21 exactly what it is: a misguided conspiracy theory that lowers the level of dialogue and distracts from real issues…Agenda 21 is a creature with no teeth, only policy recommendations. It falls upon local voters and governments to decide whether they want to implement any of its points. Concerns about Agenda 21 should be up there with worrying that fluoridation is a Communist plot.

If politicians are concerned about the effects of sustainable development, they should talk about it in terms of policy rather than secret schemes. [Pols emphasis]

These articles reflect a journalist and editorial consensus that the blowhard rage regarding “Agenda 21” being acted out against local governments around the country the last few months is a “misguided conspiracy theory.” The “Agenda 21” plan is simply a template of nonbinding recommendations on land use and economic planning. Like the so-called “United Nations Gun Grab,” in most cases we’re talking about policies meant for the developing world, not really for developed nations like the United States where solid land use regulations already exist. In some countries, “Agenda 21” represents a first real attempt at any kind of land use planning, where in the United States it’s a question of incremental improvements on existing policy.

Oh sorry, that’s how well-adjusted adults talk about these things!

Unfortunately, as the Delta County Independent reprinted from Rep. Scott Tipton’s press release last week on a town hall held there, residents of Colorado’s Third Congressional District are not currently represented by a well-adjusted adult.

[Tipton] opposes the United Nations Agenda 21 mandate. There is broad, bi-partisan opposition in Congress to the U.S. ceding any sovereignty to the U.N. on Agenda 21 or other issues.

Folks, what “mandate?!” How the hell do you “cede sovereignty” to completely optional model land use plans that local governments can accept, reject wholesale, take a little piece of, whatever? Like the belief that Hillary Clinton is about to appear on your doorstep with blue-helmeted stormtroopers to take your guns, it’s just laughable paranoid nonsense.

In this case, paranoid nonsense being spread by a member of Congress.