"Sustainable"

This post from Jay Nordlinger over at National Review got me thinking today, even though the post was quite old. In it, Jay points out that there are a few buzzwords of the Left, and though these words sometimes change over time, the ideas under them (that's why we have the word "subtext," silly blogger!) generally stick around.

One of the more recent of these is "sustainable." We hear all sorts of calls for "sustainable" economies, "sustainable" agriculture, "sustainable" cars -- you get the idea: it's this formula:

CM + Pbp

where CM = cool stuff markets allocate
and Pbp = bien pensant lefty pieties

But why does the Left get to have all the fun with this word? Why can't we have.... wait for it....

Sustainable government?

Seriously. In the return-to-the-real-world usage of this word, "sustainable" means something that can viably go on for a long time. A sustainable car ought to be one that can keep running and running without you having to take in in for repairs, rather than one being made out of recycled tin cans and runs on one's  "own sense of self-satisfaction" like Ed Begley's go-kart. (Of course, I suppose that a car like that would keep running and running -- your correspondent will never run out of self-satisfaction!) Why don't we ask a simple question: why shouldn't we talk about the disastrous long-term effects of budget deficits and government debt? Why not a "sustainable" path for Social Security? Governments are the least "sustainable" undertakings we have in the western world, so it's a little bit rich to hear our wise masters telling us that we're the ones we've been waiting for who need to live a more "sustainable" lifestyle.

Physicians, heal thyselves.