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.
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….