'Paul Ehrlich is a Slightly Better Class of Misanthrope'

At Power Line, Steve Hayward quips:

I think it was Shostakovich who quipped that Vivaldi only had one idea, which he repeated 383 times. At least Vivaldi’s one idea was a good one. The same can’t be said for Paul Ehrlich, who has a new book out, Humanity on a Tightrope that is just like all of his other books going all the way back to the book that first made him rich and famous, The Population Bomb. Ever since that infamous book he has come out with a sequel every year or two that repeats his basic Malthusian outlook on humans and the planet. [QED — Ed] I suppose at least Ehrlich deserves credit for recycling.

But note this:

There is one new argument he’s been making in his last few books that deserves a smacking, though. In today’s Los Angeles Times he gives an interview to Pat Morrison, where he says the following:

The idea that corporations should have free speech, I think, is insane. The free speech of the corporations is the petroleum industry and their buddies setting up entire institutions to lie to the public about fossil fuels and so on. I’m pretty depressed about that. If you think that corporations should be treated as individuals, then there’s a whole slug of corporations that ought to be in Guantanamo right now being waterboarded.

Nice. Never mind the flamboyance of his waterboarding quip. The idea that corporations shouldn’t have First Amendment protections because corporations are not “people” is a popular idea on the left these days.

I wonder what this corporation thinks about that idea?