I’m amazed this made it into the Washington Post – Anthony
The economy stagnates. Syria burns . Scandals lap at his feet. China and Russia mock him , even as a “29-year-old hacker” revealed his nation’s spy secrets to the world. How does President Obama respond? With a grandiloquent speech on climate change .
Climate change? It lies at the very bottom of a list of Americans’ concerns (last of 21 — Pew poll). Which means that Obama’s declaration of unilateral American war on global warming, whatever the cost — and it will be heavy — is either highly visionary or hopelessly solipsistic. You decide:
Global temperatures have been flat for 16 years — a curious time to unveil a grand, hugely costly, socially disruptive anti-warming program.
Now, this inconvenient finding is not dispositive. It doesn’t mean there is no global warming. But it is something that the very complex global warming models that Obama naively claims represent settled science have trouble explaining. It therefore highlights the president’s presumption in dismissing skeptics as flat-earth know-nothings.
On the contrary. It’s flat-earthers like Obama who refuse to acknowledge the problematic nature of contradictory data. It’s flat-earthers like Obama who cite a recent Alaskan heat wave — a freak event in one place at one time — as presumptive evidence of planetary climate change. It’s flat-earthers like Obama who cite perennial phenomena such as droughts as cosmic retribution for environmental sinfulness.
For the sake of argument, nonetheless, let’s concede that global warming is precisely what Obama thinks it is. Then answer this: What in God’s name is his massive new regulatory and spending program — which begins with a war on coal and ends with billions in more subsidies for new Solyndras — going to do about it?
The United States has already radically cut carbon dioxide emissions — more than any country on earth since 2006, according to the International Energy Agency. Emissions today are back down to 1992 levels.
And yet, at the same time, global emissions have gone up. That’s because — surprise! — we don’t control the energy use of the other 96?percent of humankind.
At the heart of Obama’s program are EPA regulations that will make it impossible to open any new coal plant and will systematically shut down existing plants. “Politically, the White House is hesitant to say they’re having a war on coal,” explained one of Obama’s climate advisers. “On the other hand, a war on coal is exactly what’s needed.”
Net effect: tens of thousands of jobs killed, entire states impoverished. This at a time of chronically and crushingly high unemployment, slow growth, jittery markets and deep economic uncertainty.
But that’s not the worst of it. This massive self-sacrifice might be worthwhile if it did actually stop global warming and save the planet. What makes the whole idea nuts is that it won’t. This massive self-inflicted economic wound will have no effect on climate change.
The have-nots are rapidly industrializing. As we speak, China and India together are opening one new coal plant every week. We can kill U.S. coal and devastate coal country all we want, but the industrializing Third World will more than make up for it. The net effect of the Obama plan will simply be dismantling the U.S. coal industry for shipping abroad.
To think we will get these countries to cooperate is sheer fantasy. We’ve been negotiating climate treaties for 20 years and gotten exactly nowhere. China, India and the other rising and modernizing countries point out that the West had a 150-year industrial head start that made it rich. They are still poor. And now, just as they are beginning to get rich, we’re telling them to stop dead in their tracks?
Fat chance. Obama imagines he’s going to cajole China into a greenhouse-gas emissions reduction that will slow its economy, increase energy costs, derail industrialization and risk enormous social unrest. This from a president who couldn’t even get China to turn over one Edward Snowden to U.S. custody.
I’m not against a global pact to reduce CO2. Indeed, I favor it. But in the absence of one — and there is no chance of getting one in the foreseeable future — there is no point in America committing economic suicide to no effect on climate change, the reversing of which, after all, is the alleged point of the exercise.
For a president to propose this with such aggressive certainty is incomprehensible. It is the starkest of examples of belief that is impervious to evidence. And the word for that is faith, not science.
Source: Washington Post
ROTFLMAO! It took me a couple of read throughs of that to finally figure out where you were coming from. You’re a purist! Let me guess, a teacher, or life long student?
Okay then, let’s determine what benchmarks make up the Kajajuk successful Socialism checklist …
Corporate profits soar = SOCIALIST FAIL.
President criticized by executives = SOCIALIST FAIL.
No offense, but this one is plain kooky. Maybe you didn’t mean to bring up the criticism of the president as its attached to the story, but then you must be talking about alleged ‘corporate profits’ existing because our Socialists are “incompetent at effecting socialist paradigms“. Well how can they be competent, destroy the corporations? That’s competent? Can you possibly believe that? Do you really wake up in the morning, flip on the TV and look at Wall Street and think “if corporate profits are high, it sucks to be me”. When exactly did you begin looking at other people’s money or success in envy?
Unemployment high = SOCIALIST FAIL.
Do you really want to go there? LOL. Maybe if we put all our jailed perps to work banging license plates, pimp our women on the street or make them service the ruling elite, and our 10 to 15 year old kids in farm fields then we can lower that unemployment statistic to an acceptable level, and simultaneously have gulag type slave labor and be a pretty good duplicate of all the infamous Communist societies of the past and present, and then you can strike this benchmark from your checklist? We know we have high unemployment here now. And it’s precisely because of (D)emocratic Socialism destroying the middle class. On purpose.
Homeless high = SOCIALIST FAIL.
Seriously, actual homeless people here are housed at taxpayer expense. Only in the rarest circumstances are they forced into housing, and those are usually with prison bars. Homeless people who are actually on the street are almost always there by choice. So, you should know that when the term “Homeless” is used, it is a big fat lie as it includes all of those choosing to walk the streets, plus those that are in shelters and also in long term section 8 housing and even other categories as well. In summary, these numbers are meaningless. What is interesting though is your thought process that Socialism somehow cures homelessness. In truth our system is a perfect match for hardcore Communist societies with centralized distribution of housing. We have section 8 ghettos in every major city, just like your Utopia would do, and did do. We don’t go rounding them up as I suspect your personal Utopia would now dictate, well unless you count people like Bloomberg in NYC that wanted the streets empty of homeless before a convention or other big event. That’s kinda like China before the Olympics btw.
No, I got a much better idea. Get your head out of the books and look around at the real world. You have going on one hundred years of actual, not theoretical, progressivism, socialism and communism to fill your neurons up with. You have set the bar to the theoretical, and that is your problem. Perhaps your dream is of Engels-Marxist theory, I don’t know, but realize theory that lasts in the real world for about 5 minutes until the first gun is unholstered. Even with absolute top-down tyrannical regimes exercising any and every whim they could never achieve such Utopianism. It’s probably the only thing in history to ever be more mistaken than the AGW climate cult. You won’t listen though, just like the climate kooks, you will press on, pining for that perfect implementation of socialism that will get it right next time. Here is the big question … If Utopia cannot be achieved at the point of a gun, with wanton mass murders to thin the herd and absolute dictatorial decision making, then what is the secret ingredient that is needed?
BTW, I used the terms Socialist and NeoCommunist perfectly for the real world. “Socialist” is self-explanatory, “NeoCommunist” is a clever mash-up that just means new, evolved Communism, western style under the cover of democratic elections to imbue it with the illusion of legitimacy. The tip of the spear for NeoCommunism in the USA is our (D)emocratic-Socialist party currently headed by President DingleBarry. It’s not Rocket Science. And it won’t be found in a book, at least not in the west. It might be found by our friends in formerly Communist territories who can now speak their mind and in fact are doing so by warning us of the dangerous actions now occurring in our District of Criminals.
Now back to your point, nothing is more idiotic than to read books by westerners pontificating about Socialism and Communism. It’s like having climate kooks write books about Science. Not only were they never there on the front lines in Socialist and Communist hell holes around the world, but they all actually believe there is some magic formula to make it work next time. I suggest you put down the fake books, knock off the wishful thinking and meet some Vietnamese, Cambodian, ex-Soviet, eastern European ( aka “New Europe” :-), Cuban refugees, etc.
You see, this is your problem right there. We are not going to construct a perfect society here. No Utopia is going to be built. It is antithetical to freedom and America. What I and others are moaning about is the rollback of freedom and the Constitution. We have, or should I say had, a largely voluntary “system” where we each decided what we would do with ourselves, our money, our time, our labor, our life. As it stands now the government has inched its way up to taking over one half of our earnings in taxes and it redistributes it all away. What do you expect us to do, thank them?
Global warming is just another excuse for Obama to implement his agenda — promote his vision of “social justice” (that is, wealth redistribution), force more people to be dependent upon big government, involve government in every aspect of our lives, put American on a more equal footing with the rest of the world, reward his supporters and punish anybody who does not support him.
Obama and his ilk are not concerned about the environment. Obama is not concerned about economy or jobs. Obama is not concerned about making America more energy independent or improving our economic security or national security. Obama and his minions and not concerned with helping to raise the rest of the world to America’s standard of living because that does not grow government power or make people more dependent upon government.
Sorry I honestly couldn’t get two sentences in that wall of text. Good thing too because you packed a bunch of lies and propaganda in that short space.
I know way too many phonies that parrot that exact line now, after he’s dead. Forgive me if I don’t automatically believe you.
How so? And who is we? We Americans, you Brits, someone else? How did we keep him in power, by killing Kurds and Shi’a and filling the desert up with bodies?
What arms? Be specific please. All those T-72 tanks, AK-47s, Scuds?
Nobody supported “him in the Iran/Iraq war”. Nobody I am aware of ever supported Hussein, period. That’s a tired and insulting meme. He came to power at the point of a gun, just as they all do, during Carter of course. Why would anyone over here ( except possibly Carter and his State dept ) support Hussein? It makes no sense. But I could believe you were rooting for Iran and Khomeini though, especially in 1980-ish after they held 52 Americans for 444 days. Lots of people found it fashionable to hope to see us get a black eye. Were you one of them? Now if you are really gonna say Reagan supported Iraq you’re gonna have get specific. Can you? I know what he did, he supported a stalemate, which means not favoring one or the other to win. And he was successful. There were many people hoping for Iraq to beat Iran’s ass and drag the Ayatollah out by his beard. That was perfectly natural considering what just happened. But rooting for Hussein, just ridiculous. People who say that are really demonstrating how shallow their intelligence is and that they are incapable of parsing facts and details of the world outside their little bubble.
I can’t think of one, let alone a pack of them. But you got your meme and nothing can make you let go of it.
War was declared for exactly the reasons stated in the resolution. Leave, or else. Prior to that it was maintain the decade old terms of surrender, the inspections, the restrictions, etc, or else.
I’ll disregard “support” again because you apparently use very unique dictionary not available elsewhere. But this thing about other regimes. Well how about this … just those regimes with a surrender agreement in place, regimes with over a dozen resolutions condemning them in the UN, regimes that are actively committing acts of war at the time attacking our pilots in no-fly zones? … So Gareth, do “any of the other nasty regimes we support” meet any or all those criteria? You make it sound like we purposely picked only one regime discriminating against many others that also should have been removed for consistency! Who else qualified?
Gareth,
One more item to add to your list of things to educate yourself about before pontificating upon them — The American Tea Party movement. Please don’t embarrass yourself any further.
***
Gareth Phillips says:
July 7, 2013 at 9:53 am
Syria? If he keeps you guys out of another Iraq, Afghanistan or Vietnam he will have been one of your best Presidents ever and will have saved countless lives of young Americans. This site may hate his politics with a vengeance, but you could have done with him in the run up to the pointless wars both our countries have become enmeshed in. Don’t focus on Syria Mr.President, just stay out of it.
***
Got any strategic sense? O’pooper’s inaction/apathy will lead to a Russian/Iranian-controlled “bloc” from Afghanistan west to Syria/Lebanon. Isn’t that special?
more soylent green! says:
July 8, 2013 at 8:07 am
Gareth,
One more item to add to your list of things to educate yourself about before pontificating upon them — The American Tea Party movement. Please don’t embarrass yourself any further.
Well said.
Reading the comments, it is clear that Gareth merely parrots the lies and information of the far left miscreants. No substance to his comments.
I am embarrassed that our President also used the sexual smear tea bagger term which reflects the low class Chicago style political mentality.
“where i am coming from” is irrelevant.
Reading between the lines of the article suggests that the “attacks” are political rhetoric since corporations are doing better under the alleged “socialist neo-communist masters” than ever before. i.e. the talking heads say one thing(s) and the hands say quick another.
Have you been mesmerized by the puppet show of American politics?
Communism is a paradigm that minimizes ‘homelessness’ and unemployment, the “common good”. The stats for ‘homelessness’ ARE meaningless due to the concerted effort of governments not to measure the phenomena. “Homeless people who are actually on the street are almost always there by choice”. No kidding.
Your retort is easy, RT comes from Russia.
Clearly you are coming from a point of reference where you cannot see around you the growing wasteland (yet) as our overlords finish their fattening for the coming Winter.
To set the record straight…once again.
I advocate a dynamic harmony between two idealistic extremes: socialism AND capitalism.
Not the terms used by emotive label lovers or the sham either has become in the modern era.
Sensible energy has a new theme song: “Coal Keeps the Lights On” by Jimmy Rose. Keeps the family fed, too, Obama. Are you listening?
Gareth Phillips says:
July 7, 2013 at 9:53 am
Mr Phillips, Freedom isn’t free, it cost a lot.
Should the Founding Fathers have kept the Continental Army out of war? should the US have ignored WWII?
Sir, A threat to liberty anywhere is a threat to liberty everywhere.
The liberty that our soldiers (US, Brits, Dutch, all) won for the Iraqis was a win for all free men.
Iraqi freedom is equal to US or European freedom.