Conservative Amnesia

GOP conservative legislators and Gov. Scott Walker are forging ahead with a bill that would exempt iron mine operators from current environmental protections in Wisconsin law, and allow the dumping of excavation rock and ground cover by the hundreds of millions of tons into bodies of water and on land elsewhere near the Bad River Lake Superior in Northern Wisconsin that will surely lead to lead to the formation of acid mine drainage.

Somehow these conservatives forgot or gloss over the fact that the word "conserve" is the preservation-centered root of the name of their political philosophy and actions on its behalf, and is also the root of the word "conservation' - - a rather substantial contradiction, don't you think, since the bill's goal is to speed along a mine unlike anything in the state that will remove a range of hills and replace it with a broad open pit mine about a half-mile wide, 1,000 feet deep and up to 22 miles long.

You'd think conservatives - - true to their foundation and loyal to its principle - - would be leading the charge for Wisconsin water and land conservation, as did, for example, the former GOP Governor Warren Knowles, when he partnered with former Democratic Governor Gaylord Nelson to create the state's stewardship fund.

The fund keeps land and water access in the public domain, conserving unspoiled Wisconsin for future generations and today's active conservationists - - hunters, anglers, hikers, farmers and other respectful neighbors.

Conservatives unconcerned about conservation.

Sounds like a political movement in search of a more accurate name, or a reboot to its origins.

Cross-posted at Purple Wisconsin.