Congressional Democrats and Vatican join White House and Leftist assaults on basic rights
Guest essay by Paul Driessen
Our scientific method and traditions of free speech and open debate are under assault as never before, by intolerant inquisitors in our media, universities, government agencies, and even Congress and the Vatican.
They threaten our most basic rights and freedoms, our political and scientific processes – and ultimately our continued innovation and invention, energy reliability and affordability, job creation and economic growth, and modern living standards, health and welfare.
Congressman Grijalva and Senators Markey, Boxer and Whitehouse sent letters to universities, think tanks and companies, demanding detailed information on skeptics’ funding and activities – in an attempt to destroy their funding, reputations and careers, while advancing “crony climate alarm science.” Equally intolerable, Democrats and the White House are blocking efforts to ensure that environmental regulations are based on honest, unbiased, transparent, replicable science that accurately reflects real-world evidence.
The Secret Science Reform Act (S. 544) and its House counterpart would require that the Environmental Protection Agency develop its regulations and the science behind them in the open, and allow experts and other interested parties to examine data, evidence and studies that supposedly support EPA standards and mandates that could cost billions of dollars and millions of jobs. This should not be controversial.
But Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee wanted Chairman James Inhofe to drop the bill from a planned markup. He refused, the bill passed on a party-line vote, and a Senate vote will be set soon. President Obama says he will veto the legislation. Why this opposition?
Obama said his would be the most transparent administration in history. But transparency quickly took a back seat to his radical climate change, renewable energy and other plans to “fundamentally transform” the United States. EPA practices epitomize what goes on throughout his Executive Branch, why our economy is growing at 0.2% and what congressional Democrats are apparently determined to perpetuate.
The problem is not only EPA’s private email accounts and deleted emails, á la Hillary Clinton. It’s illegal experiments on humans – with test results ignored when they don’t support EPA’s agenda of removing the last vestige of soot from coal-fired power plants. It’s rules for 0.5% of the mercury in U.S. air, justified with claims that they would bring a 0.00209 point improvement in IQ scores; economy and job-killing climate regulations that would reduce warming by 0.03 degrees by 2100, assuming carbon dioxide actually does drive climate change; and equally bogus health and environmental benefits of every description that ignore adverse human health and welfare impacts of the EPA regulations themselves.
The President and Democrats claim the “secret science” bill would “unduly burden” regulators. Baloney. The rules would simply require that promulgators of government edicts live according to the same rules they impose on us: Be honest and transparent. Show us your data, calculations and analyses. Demonstrate that you have examined all relevant studies – not just what supports your agenda, while you ignore everything else. Back up your analyses and decisions with actual evidence. Answer our questions. Recognize that collusion, deceit and fraud have no place in public policy, and will no longer be tolerated.
What can possibly be wrong with those guidelines – unless the regulators have a lot to hide?
And now the Vatican is adopting the same secretive, agenda-driven, inquisition tactics.
Its Pontifical Academy of Sciences recently held a workshop on climate change and sustainability. But only religious leaders, scientists, bureaucrats and regulators who support alarmist perspectives on these issues were invited. Those with contrary views were neither invited, welcomed nor tolerated.
However, a dozen climate, health and theological experts skeptical of “dangerous manmade climate change” allegations hosted a press event the day before the workshop. Three of them managed to get into the Vatican event. But when Climate Depot director Marc Morano tried to ask the UN Secretary General to advise Pope Francis that many Catholics and other Christians believe the papal position on global warming is ill-advised, a security guard took Morano’s microphone away and told him, “control yourself, or you will be escorted out of here.” Apostates have no rights at climate confabs, Vatican or otherwise.
Apparently, in the Vatican’s view, there is nothing to discuss – only anti-fossil fuel laws and treaties to implement. Computer model predictions and other assertions of looming disaster are all the Pope and workshop attendees seem to need to support this agenda – even though they are consistently and completely contradicted by real-world observations. Instead of protecting Earth’s poorest people from energy deprivation, disease, poverty and death imposed in the name of preventing global warming, Pope Francis seems more devoted to newly green Liberation Theology concepts of “fairness” and “justice.”
As IPCC leaders have explained, the climate change agenda is no longer about the environment. It is now about “intentionally transforming” the global economy and negotiating the redistribution of the world’s wealth and natural resources, in the name of “social justice” and equal distribution of misery.
These developments are far too typical. Left-Liberal thought police refuse to debate their failed ideas and policies, because they have no answers to inconvenient questions and cannot stomach dissenting views.
On campuses, free expression is limited to boxing-ring-sized “free speech zones.” Conservative speakers are banned from university events, or shouted down if they do appear. The Universities of Michigan and Maryland tried to ban “American Sniper” because a couple hundred students out of 27,000 objected. Oberlin and Georgetown students railed that Christina Hoff Sommers’ mere presence required “trigger warnings,” caused them “distress” and “discomfort,” and “constituted violence” against women.
Brandeis disinvited Ayan Hirsi Ali, because her views on women’s rights might offend some Muslim men. Scripps revoked its invitation to conservative political analyst George Will, who later observed:
“Free speech has never been … more comprehensively, aggressively and dangerously threatened than it is now. Today’s attack is … an attack on the theory of freedom of speech … on the desirability of free speech and indeed … on the very possibility of free speech….
“The Democratic Party’s leading and prohibitively favored frontrunner candidate for the presidential nomination … said she wants to change the First Amendment in order to further empower the political class to regulate the quantity, content and timing of political speech about the political class – and so far as I can tell there’s not a ripple of commentary about this on the stagnant waters of the American journalistic community.”
Meanwhile, NYU happily hosted delegates from Iran, which hangs people for the crime of being gay. President Obama’s Internal Revenue Service harasses conservative donors and organizations, keeps groups out of the political process, stonewalls investigators and lies with impunity. His Federal Communications Commission plans to micromanage internet access, content and operations. At the behest of hyper-partisan Milwaukee District Attorney John Chisholm, police swat teams burst into homes belonging to Governor Scott Walker supporters, ransacked them, took computers, and told families “Don’t call a lawyer – or else.”
The abuses and intolerance are becoming broader, deeper, more frightening by the day: from Christendom to Islam and Climate Orthodoxy; from universities to the Congress, Vatican, EU and United Nations.
Good people everywhere need to rise up, speak out and fight back, if they still believe in individual rights, freedom of thought and expression, and honest, transparent, trustworthy, accountable government and religious institutions. Otherwise, these fundamental values will disappear – and with them will go modern society and living standards, and efforts to improve the lives of billions of people who still lack the lifesaving energy and technologies so many of us take for granted.
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org), author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power – Black death, and coauthor of Cracking Big Green: Saving the world from the Save-the-Earth money machine.
Science is truth! All the rhetoric will neither enhance the truth nor destroy it. Those who take the side opposed to the truth will be proven fools and EVERYONE will know it… even the fools.
Science is not truth.
Science is a process where we are able to explain how nature works from galaxies to stars to microbes to atoms to everything from the immense to the infinitesimal.
In that regard science is a truth seeker not the truth.
This is to say, the sun will do what it will do, the earth will do what it will do, and humans will seek their own best interest against all efforts to the contrary. There will be swings in these events to be sure, but AGW will eventually be classed with phrenology and alchemy. Hopefully, your wishes for the future of my country will be unfulfilled. AND I wish WUWT would get off religion and politics and get back to science!! (regardless of whether science is truth or the seeking there of)
Science is not Truth. Science is the means by which the intellect is used to determined how the natural world works. Science is a fantastic tool in that regard. It is terrible tool for dealing with human matters that are outside science. There are many.
The Green Movement is religion.
This web site does well in dealing with the natural (or substantive) aspects of the science of AGW. It does not do a good job in dealing with the more predominate, pernicious and tenacious aspect of the metaphysical roots of the green movement.
I would love to have a rational scientific only conversation. We skeptics would win hands down. But that would be arguing with one are and two feet tied behind our backs. You see, the green movement is a religion and the speak in science-esque only to sound impartial and rational.
I say the this site ought to engage, intelligently with the green religion, it’s assault on free speech and freedom of thought and take up the task of deprogramming the greens.
How can you deal with the religion of the greens if you are speaking with only half of your vocabulary.
DocWat I am not willing to abandon my most important arsenal and ignore the deep religious underpinnings of the greens. They would be quite happy for us to yield ground on this aspect of their deceptive efforts.
Science is the art of modeling the truth.
Max, I agree. It is an art. There is no procedure for designing a hypothesis in the first place. Some people are really very good at it. Some people can’t even though they know”how” to. Computers can’t do it either.
“Science is not truth.” +10
The results of science can be truth, but science is not truth.
No, those opposed to the truth wont be proven right, they will be destroyed.
I suspect its a natural result of overpopulation: as more and more people have less and less connection to the world outside of humanity, that world becomes an object of religious fascination about which they know almost less than nothing. What counts for the urban hipster, is the social human milieu in which he lives. The underlying technology and energy infrastructure that supports his massively self indulgent self satisfied lifestyle, is ignored completely: Water after all, grows in taps just as milk grows in bottles and electricity grows in wires.
What he wants can become actuality just by voting for people who promise it, no matter how impractical it is.
Being on the right side is infinitely more important than achieving the right results.
We have discussed ‘Limits to Growth’ One limit has not been discussed. The limitations of average human intelligence. That will in the end prove to be the limiting factor. People will die demanding their rights, rather than food.
Not my problem. The sooner the US destroys itself , the happier I will be. The stupidity there shouldn’t continue any longer. I’m not talking terrorist stuff here.
The US generates a quarter of the world’s GDP. If it collapses, expect your country’s economy to collapse too, Alex.
And if the US is gone, you’ll be left up to your own devices and your own defense against forces that would rather enslave you than treat you as an equal.
The only solution is to reject totalitarian behavior in all forms–whether it be economic subjugation or curtailment of individual freedoms, particularly free expression.
A free market of ideas, goods and services is beneficial to every person on the planet except those who would use force or control to gain an advantage. And we’re seeing plenty of those, ranging from Putin to Obama.
“The only solution is to reject totalitarian behavior in all forms–”
—————–
Well now, … sorry bout that, …… “Too late we get smart”.
The social pendulum has done swung too far to the left to ever swing back without suffering the debilitating pain of a quick and forceful cultural revolution.
The USA “economy” can go to hell, I am 100% self sufficient on my patch of this bonteous earth
The US produces something half of the world’s food. It’s not just about the GDP measurements, it’s about how people will die when the US falls simply because the US fell.
cnxtim Just hope the hell you don’t get sick. The way you want to live life is generally short and brutal. Oh by the way if someone come along with technology to eliminate you how in the hell are you going to defend yourself. it was shown long ago bow and arrows are not match for gunpowder.
cnxtim ,
How the hell are you commenting here then ?
cnxtim,
That’s wishful thinking. Just wait until one of your solar panels breaks down, or you need a new pump for your well. Or your child needs an antibiotic injection to survive a bad puncture wound.
You may believe you’re self-sufficient. But very, very few people really are, and they don’t have a long life expectancy.
cnxtim,
Unless you grow all of your own crops, use no metal implements, unless you mine and smelt them yourself.
Make your clothes and shelter from items grown on your land, then you are not self-sufficient, you are just an idiot.
With Obama, you may get your wish. He was here in FL recently and said, “climate change is already wreaking havoc here”. Imagine my surprise, cause I didn’t hear about the havoc being wreaked in the local news. Still don’t know exactly what he meant? Anyone?
Perhaps he awoke from a choom bash in the middle of a thunderstorm and thought the climate had suddenly changed. Hmmm. Still waiting ……..
He meant that people were too free and wrecking havoc on the stability of the government’s growth of power and control. Cheap energy means freedom and mobility. It means economy activity, and governmental loss of control and power.
They are communists, and they are speaking directly in front of us in their own code language. They think they are clever, and that none of us will either figure it out, or be trusted when we do. They do this to make them seem crazy, so that we are confused about what they are talking about. However, if you understand formal logic, you can deduce what they are saying by examining their claims that they use to set up a framework for the narrative and then accept that if one side of their narrative is true, then so is the opposite.
Example:
If climate change is caused by economic activity that is not regulated and controlled, then catastrophic damage is being done in Florida with the abundance of uncontrolled and unregulated economic activity.
All the world hates the US…until they need us.
If the US goes down, expect the world to return to the dark ages. We see elemens of what it will be like in the Middle East and North Africa
People once thought the same of England. Before that they thought it of Spain. There have been many great empires through the ages. There will be others after we falter. China will probably be the next.
1) China doesn’t want the role of world’s policeman. They just want to be free to run all the countries in their region.
2) Even if China wanted the role, they don’t have the technology or the economy to support such a role.
3) If China did want the role, and was able to pull it off, do you really think that China would permit other countries to thumb their noses at it the way the US has for the last 60 years?
Careful what you wish for. Currencies around the world are merely USDollar derivatives. If there were a default in gold/silver on any commodity exchange around the world, or in other words, if gold/silver went into permanent backwardation against dollars resulting in all offers to sell monetary metals to be withdrawn, then all USDollar derviatives and dollar-denominated contracts would in a flash become worthless.
The world’s payment system would be shattered.
Money is the prerequisite for specialization, division of labor, and multilateral trade — all of which are necessary for the production and distribution of the cornacopia of goods surrounding you as you read this, even if you fantasize that your are ‘off the grid’.
If the world’s payment system is vaporized, then multilateral trade flattens to barter, which equals hyperdeflation in the extreme. Now, while barter sounds hip and trendy and somehow superior to dirty, evil indirect exchange facilitated by money, barter actually means regression to the age of sticks and stones.
So, while I can appreciate your desire for a dose of schadenfraude, you might instead want to hope that the US comes to its senses, returns to its constitutionally-mandated regime based on dual gold and silver standards, and lead the world back to monetary rectitude. Everyone on earth would benefit from the US’s return to law and order.
Max… the collapse of the world economy is a milestone in the process of of the objective of the Club of Rome et al. I contended, with Swiss banks offering negative interest rates, that the end is here.
Imagine a bank offering you $98.00 for keeping your $100.00 for one year. How do they benefit? Well, the truth is, the currency is losing value so they are hedging on the rate of loss. It is like insurance.
Weird world we are in.
There is negative growth, and investment will be in the least negativeness to reduce lossy-ness.
I don’t know the fix… I mean the big fix. I understand the prepper’s mindset in terms of protecting one’s self, as a last resort but it would be better the maintain the infrastructure that exists as a strategy for survival. Somehow the present infrastructure is damaged, and the damage is cancerous.
I do not know the fix, it is outside my area of knowledge.
re free speech…Some Muslims tried to shoot up a Texas Cartoon Contest.
I contend that the earth/green lovers map in with the leftist/Palestinian mob. My Theory.
So….chaos, loss of free speech, be-headings, and the breakdown of our society, will continue.
We have MOB RULE now and it is at the very top.
@ Max Photon May 3, 2015 at 7:54 pm
I agree with you on the above, but ….. you know very well, just as I do, ….. that is not going to happen in our lifetime, … or what’s left of it.
“Baltimore” was simply another precursor of what is just over the “socio-economic horizon” that the US is headed for at a fast pace.
And there is absolutely nothing you can do about it because the “funded intere$t” groups will not tolerate any “change in direction”.
Remember that Jerry Clower song, ……. “Momma don’t want you messin with the good deal she’s got going.”
Baltimore was a pale shadow of the race riots of the 60s and 70s. Does “I am a man” mean anything to you?
We’ve weathered far worse. There’s no need to get dramatic.
@ benofhouston
Don’t be talking silly to me. The 60’’ and 70’s was a great time to be a hard working productive American citizen. But it was in the mid-70’s that the Wacky Tobacca smoking lefty liberals began taking control of Public Education which has since morphed into a taxpayer funded non-profit “Money Making” business of selling Diplomas to their captive audience of legally mandated student attendees …. which has only served to exacerbate the dastardly effects that LBJ’s Great Society Program (Economic Opportunity Act of 1964) initiated. T
he aforesaid has since resulted with 3 or 4 generations of lefty-liberal nurtured citizens with a “government provided entitlement” mindset ……. and the loss of tens of millions of manufacturing and supporting industry/business jobs, ….. and consequently, more that 50% of the current population dependent upon and/or receiving some for of government “check” and/or “free” goods and services.
When the Great Society Program “bubble” bursts, ….. due to over-inflation, …. it will make the Baltimore Event look like a Sunday afternoon Bible Study gathering.
Alex:
150 years ago, life expectancy was 45 years in the “modern world. Now it is north of 80 due to technology, medicine, and “sanitation” (water distribution and treatment, sewage collection and treatment, garbage collection and treatment). When I worked in Ethiopia about 20 years ago, life expectancy there was 55 and falling.
Be careful what you wish for Alex, We are all interconnected. Once the dominoes start to fall …
(Not American by the way – many miles north)
Nice comment. I just feel the love and friendship.
We are in this together, and those who think things will just purr along if the US goes to hades have forgotten they are thethered pretty firmly to the deck of the ship they riding on. And the name of that ship happens to be the “M/V United States”.
Alex May 3, 2015 at 4:31 am
can’t believe you’re saying that –
unconscious of the hard fights for ‘freedom of speech’; and who fought them –
that enabled you to.
Hans
Re EE-note cartoon,
Our 3 years old grandson picked up a roll of duct tape his dad was using for a repair.
The youngster, in seconds, was observed to be operating on the family pet, a young male highland terrier, trying to tape up every available orifice, one or more of which he might have thought an offense to senses.
Genetic trait courtesy his father, who at similar age, sauntered into the kitchen and asked “Mum, do cats grow new tails?”
Maybe your POTUS, a word that for no good reasons makes me think ‘scrotum’, imagines a transparent government is created when he puts transparent duct tape over his orifices, so to speak. He seems to grow new tales, up to 5 before breakfast.
Hillarious.
There are a number of arguments for Obama being among the worst presidents. Here a few:
~ The least transparent government who has persecuted whistle-blowers at an alarming rate.
~ Unprecedented use of the espionage law (which carries capital punishment ) to shut up journalists and government officials.
~ As bad as Bush was at stretching executive powers using specious state of emergency arguments, Obama has been amazingly much worse. Due to Obama the concept of separation of powers is at an even more precarious state than with the other numskull Bush.
~ Instead of using the event of being the first racial minority to be elected president as an opportunity to bring the country together as he promised, he used every racially colored opportunity to create more divisiveness. It is too much to ask Obama to single-handedly fix the race issue, it is not too much to ask for him to make it a little better or at least not make it worse.
~ Turning the Democratic “progressive” party into authoritarian small-minded knuckle dragging neanderthals.
~ And last but not least using the EPA to subvert science from a tool to discover the truth into a tool to be used as political bludgeon.
Alx,
I’ll refrain from adding a few more that I think are missing, but I definitely want to suggest you modify the last one, if used in the future, to say…
“~ And last but not least using the EPA [and NASA] to subvert science from a tool to discover the truth into a tool to be used as political bludgeon.”
Bruce
This reminds me of the complaints of Intelligent design supporters who make the same clams; that they have been “locked-out” from main-stream science. The difference of course is that Intelligent Design tries to conflates religion with science by slipping in an intelligent designer which most likely must be God, specifically God of the Bible and by the way no other Gods are invited to this science for God party.
There are many differences between Intelligent Design and climate skeptics, beyond the most obvious that there is not a Christian/religious/supernatural argument behind climate skeptic claims, as a matter of fact there is no specific claim skeptics are making beyond climate science has not demonstrated adequate evidence for their extravagant alarmist claims. In this way climate skeptics are more like the atheists who do not claim there is not a God but instead simply claim there is not empirical evidence for a God.
While intelligent science has failed pretty horribly at conflating the spiritual with science, it is tragic irony how climate alarmists have successfully conflated political agendas with science. Much to the detriment of all institutions involved and the people they serve.
I read the statement following the climate workshop. It’s up at the Pontifical Academy of Science’s website. The statement isn’t as bad as it could have been but it certainly could have been improved with the addition of Lomberg or any number of other voices that are not lockstep in the “consensus”.
The good: Adaptation assistance for climate change among the world’s poor. Mentioning dark soot and other problems instead of just a monofocus on CO2. Enough qualifiers and weasel words not to be utterly embarrassing to the Vatican in several decades time when God will make clear what is now just projections in a computer.
The bad: A missed opportunity to ask what would be the optimum temperature to best support the world’s poor and vulnerable. An elevation of CO2 beyond it’s likely actual importance to climate. No mention of geoengineering to move us and keep us at a climate optimum for the benefit of humanity and the improvement of our ability to steward our natural resources.
What’s he waiting for?
Geoengineering is insane hubris. Climate optimum is a delusion, and in any case is demonstrably not some arbitrary cooler state. Civilizations rose first in much warmer conditions, and fell when it cooled.
Dirty fighting backfired with Malleus Maleficarum. This case is no exception. It’s only a question of time.
Malleus Maleficarum, here on the causes of climate disruption. Highly revealing. They have not progressed so far in their prejudices as they might like to imagine:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/mm/mm02a15a.htm
Please do not confuse ‘the Vatican’ and the Pontifical Academy of Science. If you stop confusing the two you will avoid making silly mistakes like saying: ‘Apparently, in the Vatican’s view, there is nothing to discuss – only anti-fossil fuel laws and treaties to implement. You might also like trying to work out the difference between the following: the Pope, the Vatican, the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, Church teaching and the opinions of the scientists, many of whom are non-Catholics, even atheists, who belong to the Pontifical Academy of Science. It’s not very difficult.
Pontifical Academy of Science. Are they in any way related to the ISIL Academy of Science?
No.
I’m tired of this kind of rank and ignorant bigotry being thrown around whenever the pope and the Catholic Church are mentioned.
The Pontifical Academy of Sciences is an organization well-respected by unprejudiced intelligent people, and has included many recipients of Nobel Prizes in the sciences among its members.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontifical_Academy_of_Sciences
So why is that Academy embracing scientific lies?
Isn’t the first time they have done this.
Alex, Read about the breaking of the siege of Beziers by the Papal Inquisition and you could be reading about the Yazidis and ISIL. Add that to the treatment of Gallileo and recent criminal provlems; and the Catholic church is in a weak position to ‘pontificate’ on anything.
See?
ELCore,
Catholic-bashing is de rigueur. Didn’t you get the memo?
With regard to Alx’s comment he might try working out the difference between science and philosophy. If he thinks that ‘science’ has replaced philosophy or in some way makes philosophy no longer necessary then he needs to do some homework.
The Catholic church tries to use ‘Science’ to legitimise itself. That is their philosophy. I do not accept any ‘discussions’ or even debate some organization that has religious overtones. Their entire arguments will at some time depend on faith. The ‘Pontifical Academy of Science’ is a complete fake and just a cynical attempt to control people.
” The Pontifical Academy of science is a complete fake” so true Alex ,but then the whole Roman Catholic church is a fake religion invented for means of mind controll and pacification of cultures withing the Roman empire ,if you look at the work of author Jo Atwill ” Caeser’s Messiah” and strip away the mythology, astrotheology from the Bible ( see DM MURDOCKS blog ” truth be known” all thats left is Roman emporer cult worship. The Alarmists wish to impose Fossil fuel energy limits to growth on third world countries where the Catholic Church still has a strong influence so they need them onboard as usefull idiots
Any religion is a powerful tool to use for enslaving our minds and souls, because it manipulates us to think that we are weak and powerless, and need to rely on a savior to save us. This causes us to think like slaves, making us easier to be controlled. That is – ANY religion.
I don’t think TOO many people are looking to the Vatican for scientific knowledge. This is an outfit after all that considers the Pope infallible, and insists on LITERAL belief in virgin birth, walking on water, magical replication of food items, not to mention rising from the dead and other things known to be impossible under the Laws of Physics. Any yadda-yadda coming out of THERE is just filler for Yahoo “News” and much ado about nothing.
More accurately, the Church uses everything it can to understand God. As He the creator of the universe, understanding the universe is of some interest to the Church and science is a perfectly legitimate way to proceed with increasing our understanding.
The idea that science includes no statements of faith is simply ahistorical and doesn’t match reality even today.
“Any religion is a powerful tool to use for enslaving our minds and souls, because it manipulates us to think that we are weak and powerless, and need to rely on a savior to save us. This causes us to think like slaves, making us easier to be controlled. That is – ANY religion.” – Tim
Like reading is a tool to enslave us into wasting countless hours doing nothing productive but engaging in flights of fantasy, or going to the gym is a tool to enslave us to torturing our body in pursuit of an unreasonable standard of perfection. How about: Science is a tool to supply weapons of mass destruction to dictators to wage genocide upon the masses. You see, you can take anything positive and twist it into a negative by being selective with the facts and implying malice where it may not be.
Faith has saved countless millions from addiction to alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling, and countless other self-destructive paths to ruin. It has restored marriages and other failing relationships. It has given hope to the hopeless and turned so many away from suicide. It has instilled a purpose born of love and hope that unites, not divides. It is force that feeds the hungry, shelters the homeless, and gives refuge to the oppressed more than all the governments of the world combined.
Like any tool, religion can be a positive or a negative. I have seen it be an incredible force of positive, both inside the institution and beyond its walls in the community and world. Perhaps your experience was negative, and confirmation bias has skewed your viewed your interpretation of facts, but you are failing to recognize the positive side of faith.
Howard Booth,
Excellent reply. At least in the West, religions have been a net benfit to society. Really, a huge benefit. They instill moral behavior. Western jurisprudence is largely based on the Ten Commandments. Children are taught morality in schools (especially in non-government schools), and in organizations like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.
It’s interesting that the erstwhile Soviets have always tried to destroy the Boy Scouts and any other organizations promoting moral behavior. They have publicly attacked the Boy Scouts since the early 1930’s. They were also instrumental in promoting Islam within U.S. prisons. We can see the results today.
I’m not very religious, but I certainly see the great benefit of organized religion, and I don’t understand the apparent hatred expressed by some, when they are free to simply disregard it if they don’t like it.
I especially dislike the Catholic bashing that goes on here. Why rehash Galileo? The fact is, the church has evolved and learned from its mistakes. Contrast that with Islam, which seems to be stuck in the 7th Century, complete with stonings, hand-chopping, and the brutality of women. But for the most part, Islam gets a free pass! Just look at the comments.
Since a large fraction of our population either needs or wants a religion, which would those commenters prefer? A Christian religion, or a Mohammedan religion? I know which I would want my neighbors to be.
Alba –
Hmmm. I am a scientist (retired) with a Doctorate in Philosophy (PhD) which degrees have historically not declared in what discipline(s) one “specialized”, at least on the paper. Now my hood has colors and stripes for that, but one needs the secret decoder book to sort that out. Soon, we will don the regalia, including my nifty 3 striped gown to keep me warm and stash a sandwich, and do pomp and circumstances while checking out how other faculty have upgraded their outfits this season. Pretty much I am lucky to remember where I stashed mine.
The true test of science versus philosophy is at Faculty Senate. There, neither science nor philosophy matters. If you haven’t done your homework (lobbied for the votes for some special motion) but instead had your head stuck in the lab, you’ll quickly learn that any sort of logical argument for/against this or that insignificant adjustment to the gen ed program falls to the knives of the liberal artists whose jobs (read workloads) depends on this joyless addition to the students’ works and wallets.
Have found myself wondering, “is this how the Royal Society worked back in the day”? As to freedom of speech, we have a small ad-hoc group (no meetings, no minutes, just lunches) that elect faculty who speak at Senate for more than 5 minutes to membership in Academics Anonymous for which they must write an essay on the virtues of silence. We are not against freedom of speech, but enough already. (amazing how faculty are angered by this – no sense of humor)
Now, why not just skip the Senate meetings? Then you get appointed to committees.
At RPI, the tech institute in Troy, NY, the faculty Senate was terminated by the present President and no longer exists and she rules the joint like a petty dictator and now it is losing money like mad while she gets more pay than any university president in America.
I used to teach there.
emsnews –
That is very bad news; those of us formerly in higher ed could easily compile a long list of colleges/universities to stay away from. I would not have imagined RPI would be on that list.
A distinguished professor at a top-tier research university recently advised me that at his university, academic freedom and free speech does not exist unless one is politically correct and espouses such doctirne.
OK, so this entire article seemed rife with paranoia, but I thought I would look into one of the more surprising allegations a little more closely – that of SWAT teams in Wisconsin terrorizing conservatives at the behest of liberals.
Yes, Democrat John Chisholm initiated an investigation of alleged coordination between Friends of Scott Walker and independent groups during the recall election. BUT, what Mr. Driessen has failed to acknowledge is that the Special Prosecutor leading the investigation is Republican Francis Schmiz, who reminded the Governor that the investigation is far from partisan:
“His description of the investigation as a ‘political witch hunt’ is offensive when he knows that the investigation was authorized by a bipartisan group of judges and is directed by a Republican Special Prosecutor appointed at the request of a bipartisan group of district attorneys,” Schmitz said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-bottari/gop-prosecutor-defends-sc_b_7193252.html
So, I don’t think I have to waste any more time in consideration of Paul Driessen’s view of things. He’s an unreliable, untrustworthy reporter.
You have come to a conclusion rather hastily with a poor source, that of huffington post. The attack on Gov. Walker was not based on any good evidence, just looking to pay back Walker for taking down the unions.
So, with that in mind, perhaps you can spend some more time with Paul Driessen.
The only thing I am using HuffPo for is the quote. That quote can be found in many places, as can the fact that this is indeed a bipartisan investigation. Mr. Driessen is incorrect to label it as liberal.
And the fact that this can so easily be shown to be true makes his motives absolutely suspect.
cgs,
Paul Driessen has written a fact-filled article, and you have not refuted a word of it. All you wrote is what the article “seems” to you. Well, so what?
I have a folder full of similar stories regarding Governor Walker, and if anything, Paul Driessen does not give sufficient background information regarding the lawless tactics employed.
Walker was the first governor in American history who was not removed from office following a recall referendum. And Walker survived two of them. Clearly you don’t like him, but the rank-and-file voters do.
Next, if you really believe there wasn’t a concerted effort by those in power to attack and destroy Gov. Walker and his supporters, then you are simply naive and credulous.
If you believe that President Obama did not lie outright about wanting transparency and good race relations, then you are simply naive and credulous.
If you believe that putative Republicans like Schmitz and Chief Justice Roberts cannot be turned, then you are simply naive and credulous.
No doubt you are the one who downvoted this article. But unless you provide facts and evidence to support your hating, what you think matters little.
“Republican” does not mean “[Conservative]” nor “Anti public-sector union”.
Do you realizes that there was a previous John Doe investigation that was run by Chisolm and this previous investigation is the one that is being discussed in the article cited by Driessen?
As such, why should Driessen mention that Schmitz had to take over the second investigation? Why do you conflate the two investigations?
Do you realize that the pro-union Chisholm’s wife is a schoolteacher and union shop steward and that is part of the reason that he had to give up the second investigation?
Do you realize that Wisconsin is the only state that has these secret John Doe investigations and that the constitutionality is currently being challenged?
The home invasions that the National Review wrote about occurred on October 3, 2013. Search for that date in the National Review post and you will find that they tie the home invasions to that date AND to the second John Doe investigation begun in 2012 – the bipartisan nature of which, is well documented.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/wisconsin-john-doe-investigations-271412751.html
cgs,
Get up to speed.
The “bipartisan nature of which, is well documented”
Really? When did it become bipartisan? When was Schmitz appointed? When did rubber-stamp Kluka retire/recuse?
The “home invasions” (your words) were not under Schmitz. They were under the partisan hacks Chisholm and Kluka.
Special Prosecutor Schmitz, according to his sworn deposition in a lawsuit arising from alleged abuses actually says that he isn’t a member of any party but in order to be received more favorably as a political appointee. It’s para 11 of the declaration:
“There was a period of time several years ago that I formally joined the Republican
Party. I took this action in connection with seeking the Presidential appointment as the United
States Attorney for the Eastern District of ‘Wisconsin after the 2002 Presidential election.”
Now putting aside the fact that there was no 2002 presidential election, does somebody changing his party registration in order to get a job lead you to think that they have any actual tie to the party? This statement, sworn under penalty of perjury no less, is the mark of an open, blatant, political opportunist.
The huffpo story you linked to actually links to this statement so this isn’t coming out of some fever swamp on the right.
cgs: Curiously, Milwaukee JS articles you link to make no mention of the home invasions, does mention Chisolm still connected to this sham. Looks like idiots are not always useful, but you’re trying.
I’d hoped cgs would come back, but he appears to be the hit-n-run sort. So we’re clear, his links did not back up his statements re: Schmiz running a non-partisan investigation, in fact Chisolm is still appealing case according to his own link. Chisolm requested the home-invasion warrants, and they were executed in secret, so his source doesn’t (and couldn’t) say the home invasions all occurred on Oct 3 (they didn’t) when Chisolm was out (he wasn’t). My real reason for this follow-on is, cgs does not deny (nobody denies) that a secret investigation into campaign finance issues (not criminal investigation) led Chisolm to execute searches for paper (not guns, drugs or even money) with military swat teams in peoples’ homes. cgs ok with this if it’s “non-partisan” so I hope he’ll return and tell us, if Gov. Walker launches John Doe investigation leading SWAT team to cgs’s door because he supports a political opponent, he’s still good with that?
We lucky few. Lucky in our adversaries. Lucky in our cause. Lucky in our times. All we have to do is stay on our feet and fight. Have faith that the audience will come to to the right conclusion. They will smell the rat. Eventually they always do.
Good luck with that thought. I have a lower opinion of people. Even your relatives will back stab you if they can see some personal advantage
So, you gonna knukle under, or come back stronger ??
I thought so.
It was Robert Pirsig who once said: “When one person suffers from a delusion it is called insanity; when many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion.”
Make no mistake… the flawed global warming doctrine has become a religion.
And that just about sums up today’s dangerous man-made global warming deception that has been perpetrated on mankind.
Maybe just a subset, or a sect, of a much larger religious movement known as collectivism?
Didn’t the one plunging the knife lose the fight?
It;s funny how the tamest alarmists will classify this website as an “opinion” website yet the huff post, the NYT or the Nature journal are credible sources for ” hard science”
of course no science is discussed here just political bickering and conservative think tanking. We are all conservatives here right? Well I know of one non conservative who snuck through that is a horrible denier.
How much science do you see in the mainstream news about global warming. All I ever see are ridiculous claims with no evidence or scientific lingo. Even in magazines like National geographic There is going to be a coffee famine..why? because this guy says so. ok i guess he’s the expert..here is some money. Thanks for keeping me informed.
I’m actually a political atheist that borders on anarchist. IMO, the mere idea of trying to force someone to abide by my standards is quite repulsive, as I wouldn’t want the return from them.
Reminds me of Anthem by Ayn Rand.
It’s about money and the ability to extract it from people so that it may be re-distibuted for the social good (as that term will be determined in the circumstances). I found this article a little paranoid – though when you consider past issues, diverting attention to another subject (away from misbehaving priests?) may be a good political move.
The problem began with Political Correctness. The notion that words such as “fireman” and “policeman” were unacceptable, because they have the word “man” in them, which somehow meant that only men could perform these jobs. As a result we now have “firefighter” and “police officer”.
However, the entire basis behind this is false. The word “man” does not mean that only men need apply, any more than the word “human” means only men are human. Using the firefighter argument, the word “woman” means that only males can be female.
Should we now replace Woman with “WuPerson”? Or must we eliminate this word entirely, because it contains the forbidden term “Man”? Must we now replace “woman” with female? How long before “male” suffers the same fate as “man”, to also be eliminated from the language? Instead of Female, shall we now have FePerson?
WuMann ??
The Roots of Political Correctness
By WILLIAM S. LIND • November 19, 2009, 2:30 PM
(extract, my edits, link below)
Political Correctness is cultural Marxism, Marxism translated from economic into cultural terms. Its history goes back not to the 1960s but to World War I. Before 1914, Marxist theory said that if a major war broke out in Europe, the workers of every country would join together in a revolution to overthrow capitalism and replace it with international socialism. But when war came, that did not happen. What had gone wrong?
Two Marxist theorists, Antonio Gramsci in Italy and Georg Lukacs in Hungary, independently came up with the same answer. They said that Western culture and the Christian religion had so “blinded” the working class to its true (Marxist) class interests that Communism was impossible in the West until traditional culture and Christianity were destroyed. When Lukacs became Deputy Commissar for Culture in the short-lived Bela Kun Bolshevik government in Hungary in 1919, one of his first acts was introducing sex education into the Hungarian schools. He knew that destroying traditional sexual morals would be a major step toward destroying Western culture itself.
Lukacs became a major influence on a Marxist think tank established in 1923 at Frankfurt University in Germany, the Institute for Social Research, commonly known as the Frankfurt School…
[…]
The Frankfurt School’s key to success was crossing Marx with Freud. They argued that just as under capitalism everyone lived in a state of economic oppression, so under Western culture people lived under psychological repression. From psychology they also drew the technique of psychological conditioning. Want to “normalize” homosexuality? Just show television program after television program where the only normal-seeming white male is homosexual.
[…]
(my bold)
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-roots-of-political-correctness/
Or just do a few Intternet searches on ‘The Frankfurt School’. The steps that they proposed are all working beyond their wildest dreams.
What do fepeople want?
The eternal question. Not even fepeople know what fepeople want.
We cannot use the “word” huperson because it includes the three letters s o n in sequence. Run together they spell “son” which is obviously male (meaning a male offspring). The only acceptable expression would be “huperoffspring” to avoid the dreaded sexism.
In Lord Baltimore’s town the people are pissed. The keepers of their keys steer them falsely. We look to limit the damage but it may not be for a while yet. So that is the world we live in. And still we exist and we can fight. What more can you ask.
http://www.kappit.com/img/pics/201504_1833_eaefh_sm.jpg
Even Star Trek fell for Political Correctness. Kirk’s “Where no man has gone before” ends up as Picard’s “Where no one has gone before”. From there is was all downhill. The collapse of free speech was inevitable.
I’ll tell you where no man has gone before. To the Guinancologist.
http://www.treknews.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/whoopi-goldberg-wizard-world-philly.jpg
“The President and Democrats claim the “secret science” bill would “unduly burden” regulators.”
We were replacing a pair of double doors in a corridor in a hospital and OSHPOD wanted to see calculation that showed that the existing frame and hinge screws could support the door we were replacing.
Plan check turn around is 90 days.
What is good for the goose is evidently no good for the gander.
Yes the secret science bill will unduly burden those poor regulators, but the 2000+ pages of the Obama Care legislation will be just a pleasure to administer. See how it works?
The climate change faction is sort of like casinos and speakeasies of many years ago. The pesky skeptics would say, “Hey that game is rigged!” The bosses would simply call him a liar. If he kept pressing then they would throw him out on his face.. If he kept pressing after that they would eventually cut off his finger or something. Nowadays if somebody goes to a casino and say that the game is rigged! They will all laugh and say “so what?” As you can see the casinos are still for the most part full of people 24 hrs a day. The science is out about house games. Climate Change is a house game. Like a casino it has its own set of rules or lack there of.
It seems to me that the CC believers are a shrinking minority and are becoming more vocal to try to make up for fading popularity. they are becoming impatient about the majority not listening, about fading interest. It is more than just us skeptics, the majority of people are not jumping on the socialist bandwagon and that infuriates the big green blob.
Unfortunately John, even though what you are saying is probably right, it does not matter. While the climate science is nothing but a house of cards, the political narrative is solidly established globally, and it is as impervious to the truth as Cheyenne mountain is to nuclear strikes.
Catholics.
Silencing ‘sceptics’ with an anti-sceptic solution?
The late Christopher Hitchen’s passionate defense of free speech is one of the best I’ve ever heard:
Here it is in text form:
http://genius.com/Christopher-hitchens-on-free-speech-annotated
Very Good
Your quote has nothing to do with free speech. It has a lot to do with Hitchens slamming the ideas of other people (so what) You might consider quoting the part about the right of all people to have the freedom of thought and speech in a comment advocating free speech? Or are you just grinding an axe?
Here is an actual quote from a REAL defender of free speech:
He is a Catholic Priest.
“As Americans, we have the right to redress our government without
fear of being arrested,” he said. “Whether or not they’re connecting
dots from H1tler to George Wallace to Barney … you should be asking,
‘well what are we doing that’s allowing people to connect those dots?’
It was a sick and gross abuse of power.”
Catholic Priest Silenced at City Council Meeting while advocating free speech
“Why can’t climate science
Just be about science?
Why is it that politicians
Demand our compliance?
Why do the media
Push out propaganda?
What are the agendas,
Their hidden memoranda?….”
Read more: http://wp.me/p3KQlH-CL
Hate to say I told you so*, but I told you so.
* Actually, I love to tell you I told you so.
Given the rising note of desperation and hysteria coming from these saviours of the world, I think even they know they are busted, even they do not believe they own BS.
For when you recognize your position is indefensible you must change tactics, but these Watermelons have nowhere else to go.
So its hype up the same old mantra that failed before.
“Concensus,Consensus,Consensus.”
Of course most taxpayers over 30 just hear “CON,Con,Con.”In endless appeals to authority.
Amazing scientific illiteracy from the members and enablers of this Cult of Calamitous Climate, for if their evidence is so “airtight, certain, incontrovertible” why are they so unable to articulate it?
Real scientists are eager and enthusiastic in responding to challenges to their conjecture.
No scientist responds with;”Silence..I Kill you”.
Sorry to be pedantic, but surely to be apostate means to have once been a believer but to have then abandoned that belief – changed religion if you like. So anyone who didn’t fall for the CO2 lie in the first place can’t be an apostate.
But I’d like to be associated with previous comments about anti-religious posts. Maybe some sects hold beliefs which it is hard to reconcile with generally agreed science. But we don’t all take Genesis as Gospel truth, even if the ‘six days of creation’ story is an interesting analogy – or do I mean allegory? – of the history of the earth for relatively uninformed minds to have hit upon. Over millennia, and especially in recent centuries, we have learned more and more about the natural laws that govern everything that is, but we still have a long way to go. And we may yet find that there are elements of ‘settled science’ that we have got wrong.
For me, God is the name I use to acknowledge whatever is behind that “everything that is” and all of the laws that govern it, both at the macro level and the micro. I know that is a view that many people do not share, and they are free to hold their own opinion. But I have a right to hold my opinion too, and without being ridiculed or dismissed as a victim of superstitious brainwashing.
For the Vatican its always about money. Follow the paths of the proposed $100 Billion climate aid fund, and one of those paths will lead to a Vatican bank account, guaranteed.
I’ll raise you your comic:
http://cdn.someecards.com/someecards/usercards/MjAxMy1lZDVkYTI2N2ZmYTg2MmMw.png
At least the line drawing here was somewhat faithfully traced, glasses added, unlike the lead illustration, where the gal having the indiscreet thoughts* about duct tape looks like she made several trips too many through the duplicator.
The style of the drawing on your card is familiar – ‘famous turn-of-the-century illustrator, me thinks…but who?
Quick peek shows that the quality of the clip art is uneven, and none is credited…
* And most of the thoughts are somewhat indiscreet.
-☺-
The artist I had in mind is Charles Dana Gibson:
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/gibson.htm
http://www.mum.org/songbkg2.jpg
At the Beach
Charles Dana Gibson
1867-1944
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dana_Gibson
Did you notice the lack of hands drawn ?
They (apparently) are nearly impossible to draw, it costs more to try to draw them.
I think At the Beach was probably cropped, but Charles Dana Gibson was a consummate artist who certainly had no trouble drawing hands:
The Weaker Sex
Charles Dana Gibson
Serious Business
Charles Dana Gibson
It is true that many hack artists do have trouble drawing hands, not only in terms of scale and anatomy, but also – especially – in gesture.
Serious Business
Charles Dana Gibson
At the Beach
(full image)
Charles Dana Gibson
There we go. So Slow Lyin has to chime in with one note the Know Nothings always sing.
To these progressives “Social Justice” means taking money from poor people in rich countries (the West) and transferring it to the rich people in poor countries.( Third World despots) The UN is full of those types of rich.
The only true “Social Justice” that can truly be had is for the “First World”, the West, to insure EVERY household on Earth has clean running water and affordable electricity.
Making the West poorer does not help anyone reach “Social Justice”..
There is about to be a huge blowback from all this CAGW madness.
None of CAGW’s alarmist projections are coming even close to reflecting reality, and the average taxpayer just isn’t drinking the Kool-Aid anymore.
The more these feckless government hacks and rent-seeking CAGW false prophets of doom and gloom try to push their expensive and job-killing agendas, the more harm they’re doing to themselves in the future once this CAGW scandal crashes and burns.
I say give them as much rope as they like and then reap a whirlwind of pain once this scandal is exposed for what it is: the biggest and most expensive scientific scandal in human history…
I hope so too, but I doubt it will happen. The warmist ascendancy is already ending at the global level, but it is doing so because the West no longer dominates the world and what Western leaders think and do matters less at the global level every day. China and India will take over the world and the West will slump into irrelevance, but that failure will most likely give the current elites even more power as blaming others for the consequences of their own mistakes is their field of expertise.
I urge you to focus on the fundamental principles and leave the false dichotomies of left-right and liberal-conservative out of it. By not doing so you make it impossible to win majority support for your argument, which on the point of principle is entirely correct.
I really like this passage from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged (which I’m reading for the first time at the moment). As relevant now as it ever was.
“The good, say the mystics of spirit, is God, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man’s power to conceive—a definition that invalidates man’s consciousness and nullifies his concepts of existence. The good, say the mystics of muscle, is Society—a thing which they define as an organism that possesses no physical form, a super-being embodied in no one in particular and everyone in general except yourself. Man’s mind, say the mystics of spirit, must be subordinated to the will of God. Man’s mind, say the mystics of muscle, must be subordinated to the will of Society. Man’s standard of value, say the mystics of spirit, is the pleasure of God, whose standards are beyond man’s power of comprehension and must be accepted on faith. Man’s standard of value, say the mystics of muscle, is the pleasure of Society, whose standards are beyond man’s right of judgment and must be obeyed as a primary absolute. The purpose of man’s life, say both, is to become an abject zombie who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is not to question. His reward, say the mystics of spirit, will be given to him beyond the grave. His reward, say the mystics of muscle, will be given on earth—to his great-grandchildren.”
Fredrik,
Since you are reading Atlas Shrugged, I heartily recommend that you take a few minutes to read this fascinating lecture. I think it will greatly increase your enjoyment and appreciation of the book.
Ayn Rand’s Hymn to Money
Gold Money Is the Root of All Good; Paper Money Is the Root of All Evil
by Prof. Antal Fekete
http://www.professorfekete.com/articles/AEFMonEcon101Lecture1.pdf
[excerpt]
“Millions of people who have read Ayn Rand’s 1957 monumental work “Atlas Shrugged” must have been impressed by an insert that could be entitled “Hymn to Money”. This insert is buried in the 1600 pages of the novel and is difficult to find. However, it is a self-contained literary masterpiece in its own right. For these reasons it may be a good idea to publish it here separately.”
Interesting paper, thanks for posting.
An excerpt:
When you see that trading is done not by consent but by compulsion – when you see that in order to produce you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing – when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods but in favors – when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you – when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice – then you will know that your society is doomed.
Things are pretty bad. They are even worse than the examples given there. Now, the government is requiring ordinary citizens to purchase goods and services. That has never happened before. The Constitution is intended to protect freedom. What would you call it, when you are forced to pay for something you don’t want? What kind of precedent is that?
So we’re doomed. I knew that when Chief Justice John Roberts was turned, and voted that Obamacare was according to the Constitution. When the Supreme Court is corrupted, we don’t have a chance.
They’ve admitted who they are, and that fact explains their tactics and their end game. Climate Change is another front in the Communist’s war against freedom and liberty.
Well. That escalated quickly.
“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” – Thomas Paine
Every advancing tyranny has two distinct stages. In the first stage, the “enemies” of the state are identified. Lists are created and distributed among law enforcement. These lists are often leaked to the public to serve as a deterrent against any thoughts of engaging in anti-government behavior. There is typically a prolonged period of demonization followed by formal labeling.
Once this process begins, the advancement of tyrannical persecution of the people is inevitable without a revolution. The whole process begins with unwarranted surveillance – NSA etc. You, the people, are the enemy of the state. Obama and his armed agencies have declared it.
“The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army” – Gen. George Washington, to his troops before the battle of Long Island
Good pep talk by Washington.
highflight…. Democracy sure is messy. I love it. Thomas Paine was right on.
Science does not deliver truth.
Science is a methodology only and this methodology gives us data.
This data has to be interpreted to give us a fact, science as a method is clear about not being able to make up your own data. Man made global warming is a clear example of being able to make up your own facts.
These facts interpreted from the data can be used to create a truth or as we have seen, create a lie or a fear for political or other purposes.
“And ‘NOW’ the Vatican is adopting the same secretive, agenda-driven, inquisition tactics….”?
HELLOO! Been away from earth for a few centuries?
The problem with demanding transparency and equal consideration just when your own views become politically incorrect is that it lacks credibility.
Academic and scientific credibility went off the rails in the mid-1950s, when US and UK academics en masse boycotted MacMillan over its publication of Immanuel Velikovsky’s best seller, Worlds in Collision, and started a witch hunt of scientists who supported his call for objective testing of his predictions about the atmosphere of Venus, etc..
Einstein was still alive, knew Velikovsky personally, and carried on some very amicable correspondence concerning the latter’s revolutionary ideas about the recent restructuring of the solar system. But sadly, even Einstein dared not stand up to defend the maverick scientists against the bullies and defamers.
That sorry episode in the history of modern science has undoubtedly contributed hugely to the present domination of official science by apparatchiks, whose primary skills are schmoozing, scheming, and lying shamelessly in a “good cause”.
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
‘As IPCC leaders have explained, the climate change agenda is no longer about the environment. It is now about “intentionally transforming” the global economy and negotiating the redistribution of the world’s wealth and natural resources, in the name of “social justice” and equal distribution of misery.’
“And ‘NOW’ the Vatican is adopting the same secretive, agenda-driven, inquisition tactics….”?
HELLOO! Been away from earth for a few centuries?
The problem with demanding transparency and equal consideration just when your own views become politically incorrect is that it lacks credibility.
Academic and scientific credibility went off the rails in the mid-1950s, when US and UK academics en masse boycotted MacMillan’s textbooks over its publication of Immanuel Velikovsky’s best seller, Worlds in Collision, and started a witch hunt of scientists who supported his call for objective testing of his predictions about the atmosphere of Venus, etc..
Albert Einstein was still alive, knew Velikovsky personally, and carried on some amicable correspondence concerning the latter’s revolutionary ideas about the recent restructuring of the solar system. But sadly, even Einstein didn’t dare to defend the maverick scientists against the bullies and defamers.
That sorry episode in the history of modern science has undoubtedly contributed hugely to the present domination of official science by apparatchiks whose primary skills are schmoozing, scheming, and lying shamelessly in a “good cause”.
Cherry picking the politically incorrect cause deserving of transparency leads to nothing more than regime change. For real science to re-emerge, all the pariahs have to be assured equitable treatment – sexual differences; “racial” differences; dangers/benefits of radon gas; the facts of the “holocausts” and lesser war crimes (listen up G.W.B. & Co.!); the real mortality in the Tang Shan earthquake of 1976 (tamely reported at 10,000 by the Western press at the time – now up to 242,000, or maybe even 700,000), etc., etc..
Our history and our science is a tissue of lies, and climate change zealotry is only one of a host of deadly symptoms.
speaking of “silencing skeptics” – I’ve tried repeatedly to post my own comments on the above article, and it doesn’t appear. Is it a technical problem with the site, or has it been censored?
Tried to post for a third or fourth time, after seeing the above query appear immediately. Still no luck. It can’t be the size, word count is only 283. Must be the content. Talk about transparency…
Found it. The name of the author of “Worlds in Collision” causes the post to be trashed automatically. Nice work, MR. TRANSPARENCY.
Fourth or fifth attempt to post, after removing the offending name and replacing it with “the author”
“And ‘NOW’ the Vatican is adopting the same secretive, agenda-driven, inquisition tactics….”?
HELLOO! Been away from earth for a few centuries?
The problem with demanding transparency and equal consideration just when your own views become politically incorrect is that it lacks credibility.
Academic and scientific credibility went off the rails in the mid-1950s, when US and UK academics en masse boycotted MacMillan’s textbooks over its publication of its best seller, Worlds in Collision, and started a witch hunt of scientists who supported the author’s call for objective testing of his predictions about the atmosphere of Venus, etc..
Albert Einstein was still alive, knew the author personally, and carried on some amicable correspondence concerning the latter’s revolutionary ideas about the recent restructuring of the solar system. But sadly, even Einstein didn’t dare to defend the maverick scientists against the bullies and defamers.
That sorry episode in the history of modern science has undoubtedly contributed hugely to the present domination of official science by apparatchiks whose primary skills are schmoozing, scheming, and lying shamelessly in a “good cause”.
Cherry picking the politically incorrect cause deserving of transparency leads to nothing more than regime change. For real science to re-emerge, all the pariahs have to be assured equitable treatment – sexual differences; “racial” differences; dangers/benefits of radon gas; the facts of the “holocausts” and lesser war crimes (listen up G.W.B. & Co.!); the real mortality in the Tang Shan earthquake of 1976 (tamely reported at 10,000 by the Western press at the time – now up to 242,000, or maybe even 700,000), etc., etc..
Our history and our science is a tissue of lies, and climate change zealotry is only one of a host of deadly symptoms.
Thanks, Paul Driessen.
You are correct, and we have to continue putting out the facts of the real world we live in.
This in hoping one day the truth will shine through the muck.
Thanks also for the great job CFACT is doing.
“President Obama says he will veto the legislation” If the bill passes and it is vetoed, the veto will at least support the message that the anti CO2 movement is full of people who want to stifle honest scientific debate. Some lemonade out of a lemon….