Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Bolivia, a country whose basket case centrally planned economy should be an example to us all, has boldly proposed that we solve the Climate crisis by giving them all our stuff.
According to Bolivia;
The structural cause that has triggered the climate crisis is the failed capitalist system. The capitalist system promotes consumerism, warmongering and commercialism, causing the destruction of Mother Earth and humanity. The capitalist system is a system of death. Hence, capitalism is leading humanity towards a horizon of destruction that sentences nature and life itself to death. In this regard, for a lasting solution to the climate crisis we must destroy capitalism.
The capitalist system seeks profit without limits, strengthens the divorce between human beings and nature; establishing a logic of domination of men against nature and among human beings, transforming water, earth, the environment, the human genome, ancestral cultures, biodiversity, justice and ethics into goods. In this regard, the economic system of capitalism privatizes the common good, commodifies life, exploits human beings, plunders natural resources and destroys the material and spiritual wealth of the people.
…
As a result of implementing the Bolivian index proposal, non- Annex I countries [e.g. Bolivia] would have a total of 89% of the [future emissions] budget and Annex I countries [like America] only 11%. Also, to perform monitoring and sanction non-compliance with international commitments involves establishing an International Climate Justice Tribunal.
…
Extreme poverty in Bolivia reached 17.3% of the population in 2015, and this will be erradicated by 2025. However, this is not possible if there are no actions to fully develop the national economy and reduce the impacts of change climate. Thus, Bolivia has prioritized a linkage of mitigation and adaptation actions in complementarity with the holistic development in the areas of water, energy, forests and agriculture as part of its 2025 Patriotic Agenda, and national development plans.
…
Structural solutions to the climate crisis
1. Adoption of a new model of civilization in the world without consumerism, war-mongering, and mercantilism, a world without capitalism; build and consolidate a world order of Living Well that defends and promotes the integral rights of our peoples, undertaking the path of harmony with nature and respect for life.
2. Construction of a climate system based on responsibility to Mother Earth,the culture of life and the full realization of humanity in their holistic development, humanizing the economy, surpassing the simplistic approach to decarbonization of the economy.
3. Protection of the Rights of Mother Earth in an articulated and complementary manner to the rights of peoples to their development.
4. Defense of universal common goods such as the seas and oceans,water,atmospheric space, as well as the technological monopoly, promoting people’s access to the common heritage.
5. Elimination of patents on technologies and recognition of the human right to science and technology of life.
6. Effective implementation by governments of the human right to water.
7. Establishment of the International Court of Justice Climate and Mother Earth to enable countries to fulfill their international commitments to climate change in a context of respect for the rights of peoples and of Mother Earth.
8. Allocate the resources of the military machinery of the imperial powers and the war-mongers to finance the activities of the peoples against climate change.
9. Eradication of commodification of nature and carbon markets promoting business climate millionaires, which do not solve the problem of the climate crisis.
10. Decolonize natural resources environmental colonial biased views that see the peoples of the South as forest rangers of Northern countries and communities as enemies of nature.
…
Bolivia has a vast abundance of valuable natural resources – their poverty is a political failure, not a lack of opportunity.
Perhaps if the Bolivian government were to prioritise straightforward economic development and consumerism, and enthusiastically embrace profit making, rather than whining about all the stuff other people own, and talking up their national love of nature, they might actually help the 17.3% of their people who are currently suffering extreme poverty, instead of having to keep stringing them along with implausible national poverty eradication plans plans.
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Oh, this just sounds so wonderful I cant help but give everything I have away to the jungle…
Obama greeting to his mentor Morales:
http://www.comunicacion.gob.bo/sites/default/files/styles/370×240/public/media/images/evo_obama_bachelet.jpg?itok=292Fc2Oa
Besides being trained in East Germany, Chilean Socialist President Bitchelet is an acolyte of Hillary. Her tyrannical tendencies are kept in check by the armed forces and the oligarchy.
On the one hand it is written like a Jesuit document calling for sustainable environmental polices to be imposed, with a Climate Tribunal and enforcement on English speaking Protestant countries;
but on the other hand, it also could translate as the familiar, “Yeah man back to nature and make love not war. End the materialistic western culture based on plastic man.” So either an Argentinian Jesuit or a hippie could have written this Bolivian proposal for the indigenous tribes people. I can’t decide.
(Note to natives: Environmentalist NGOs. They are always there when they need you.)
IMO both Communist Evo and Liberation Theologist Francis ripped off the Unabomber Manifesto. Ted Kaczynski should sue them.
I don’t know, where did he get his manifesto? Not to start a chicken and egg discussion though. (:
The original “Ted Talk”, Kaczynski’s opus “Industrial Society and Its Future”, aka the Unabomber Manifesto, was apparently all his own work, written on a typewriter in his remote Montana cabin.
It could be worse.
If we don’t succeed, we run the risk of failure.
Al (I used to be the next President of the United States of Bolivia) Gore
And you know, there’ s no success like failure, and failure’s no success at all…
The Dilmas have not really achieved much in South America. Bolivia’s Dilma – ZILCH.
The other one took an economy that was looking OK and improving and WRECKED it (Brazil).
Sounds like the Prez forgot his medication…
When all our stuff is gone whose stuff will they go after next? Without the US to protect them their stuff, reduced to raw materials, will go to Chinese conquerors.
At the end of the day, Evo Morales leaves with the prize for most ludicrous comment.
However, there were many close contenders in this thread!
Eradication of commodification of nature
So he is against agriculture?
No, he just thinks farmers should be required to give away what they produce.
Obama said “Capitalism doesn’t work. It has never worked”. He then set out to make sure it never does. The Bolivians are his heroes.
One thing about Obama–he’s a consistent liar.
Obama and Morales, two pees in a pot…
Two pots full of pee?
Guilt: Something decent people have but dont need, and something scoundrels dont have but do need.
(see also ‘white guilt’ ‘socialism’ and ‘Christianity’)
https://youtu.be/diEQ3je6qfI
Modern history is littered with failed socialist Marxist states that have killed millions.
It’s quite funny that one of the world’s worst socialist economic basket cases, Venezuela, holds the largest reserves of the fuel that drives capitalism. They could have used that vast wealth to diversify their economy and make Venezuela the jewel of South America.
There is no a priori reason why capitalism is best for the bottom 40% you know. Capitalism is a creed nowadays without concern for the victims of it. Social housing is being abolished, Areas of cities are being ‘socially cleansed’, it being better to sell houses to foreign investors who leave them empty than letting citizens of your own country have a place to live in.
I’m no supporter of the carbon dioxide nonsense, but I do know this: if you want cleaners, nurses, social workers, teachers, bus drivers, refuse collectors, road repairers, child minders, gardeners, retail staff, deliverers of post etc etc, then you have to create communities where those people can afford to live and that life must have sufficient dignity to it to make you worthy of having them contribute to your community life.
If you don’t want the socialism that this site so abhors, then you’d better make damn sure that capitalism is better for the 40% at the bottom than under socialism. And that means under socialism which isn’t threatened with war, sanctions etc etc by warmongering capitalists who have no confidence they can beat socialism through peaceful means.
The 21st century reality is that neither socialism nor capitalism works at their logical endpoints. There ARE things which are best owned communally and there ARE areas of life where capitalism works best.
Our genetic heritage should be communally owned, as no-one alive invented it, created it or husbanded it. All those doing a bit of genetic engineering used pre-existing life to do so. Even those trying to build a new organism from scratch did so using DNA from pre-existing organisms, which they have no right to own. Seed companies creating sterile variants should not be allowed to try and wipe out other fertile crop strains for purposes of seed monopoly. However, if someone creates a genetic variant for a specific purpose not intrinsic to life (like cleaning up oil spills) that is different. The world has a choice whether or not to use it and life will go on, pretty much, whether they do or not. That’s the test for private ownership: can life go on, for better or worse, without it? If the answer is NO, then private ownership is dangerous without stringent regulation.
Choosing whether to buy tomatoes from one of one hundred different growers is precisely what capitalism is for. Humans get to eat tomatoes, for better or worse, whether they buy from supplier A, B or C (assuming they produce reasonably OK tomatoes). The better suppliers start to charge higher prices and prosper. Making movies is something we can benefit from or not, without lose of life, love or health. Who we buy a car from the same.
Then there are areas where the economics predicts that a natural monopoly will occur due to investment costs etc. In such situations, it makes sense for a community, a state, a nation to own it communally, since everyone knows monopolies have no risk so make super-profits through risk-free extortion. It is logical to allow capitalism to produce the best solutions in competition, then the product to be acquired through communal purchase when monopoly starts to appear. The capitalist investors gain a return on their money but are not allowed monopoly super-profits in perpetuity. It’s what America is supposed to agree with. It really doesn’t in reality, does it??
The only things which are really intrinsic to life are:
1. A home, however frugal, heated sufficiently not to endanger health in the winter.
2. Food and water.
3. Clothing.
4. Child-birth – since without this, humanity dies out within 100 years.
5. Nurturing children to independence, since you can give birth to as many children as you like, but 100% of them will die if you don’t nurture them until then can look after themselves……
After that, everything is a choice.
And the reality is that some people prefer to take total responsibility, whereas others prefer to pool it. For those without wealth to hire reams of experts and time to negotiate hard-ball, delegating responsibility for many necessities to communal groups makes sense.
That is what a national health service was about: it emerged from communal schemes of working class families paying weekly from their wages into a pot for insurance – it just made it control supply centrally rather than involve a horse-trade between insurance companies and private healthcare. There’s no ‘good or evil’ there, just two choices. You have to decide which works better for which types of people.
Communal schooling is the same: if parents have to work 8 – 10 hrs a day, they don’t have the time to educate children themselves, although they may help at the margins. If you are a self-sufficient farmer in a self-sufficient community, as say the Amish are, then maybe you don’t need that: you educate your children in how to run the farm as you do your daily chores and gradually they become capable of running their own farm. But you’ve not educated them for anything else, so if you don’t want your children do what you did, communal schooling makes sense, assuming they actually learn something at school that adds to what they get at home.
Building a transport system is the same: everyone knows that some bits are more profitable, some of the time, but if you only build the profitable bits, then over a 50 – 100 year cycle, the economy does worse overall, because you limit the economic possibilities of the majority for the benefit of the tiny minority of investors. You sacrifice strategic flexibility for narrow profit. It’s not always the right call……and when bankers only have a time-to-payback of 15yrs or less, you eliminate all possibilities of repayment over 50 – 200 years, which is what railways will always be.
Capitalism is about selling state assets off at below market prices to your mates so they can take the profits off the back of the investments of the state. When representatives of the public do that, they are not representatives, they are criminal robber barons. The private sector wants the state to take the risks, make the upfront investments, then hand it to the private sector so they can take the risk-free profits.
That’s neither equitable, moral nor American, is it??
Or do you finally want to admit to the world that the American morality is that of the warmongering robber baron??
Why do you think the world would want you to rule over them if that is what you are????
No, rjt–the American morality is NOT that of the warmongering robber baron. You’ve been brainwashed by a bunch of people that like to distort reality to justify criminal behavior. Their mantra is to take from those that have worked hard and invested wisely to acquire the necessities (and even some of the luxuries) of life.
It’s call thievery.
Now, you may accurately point to the Democrat Party in the USA and their abhorrent ideology that’s just short of the Communist Manifesto, which ideology has been proven to be a disaster to everyone who has ever participated in it (except the gang at the top that makes a mockery of that social structure, but that’s why it doesn’t work). Transfer the rights of the individual to the collective and that’s what you get, every time!
But that’s not capitalism.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness doesn’t mean a person has the right to take from others who apply themselves and are more industrious. Your assertion that “Capitalism is about selling state assets off at below market prices to your mates so they can take the profits off the back of the investments of the state” is a false definition. What you describe is “crony capitalism”, which is really “crony socialism” and distorts the basic meaning of the word “capitalism”.
Such devious assertions expose you for what you believe–illogical and criminal.
And nobody that’s a true capitalist wants to rule over anybody–again, you distort the definitions to achieve your nefarious argument.
The robber barons were neither robbers nor barons. What they were, were people who created new companies that made things cheaper and better than their competitors did, and as a result got very rich.
In the process they improved the lives of everybody, and created millions of new, good jobs.
Yes, the jobs aren’t as good as modern jobs, but they were still better than the other jobs available in that day, which is why they had no trouble filling those jobs.
It was technology that created the ability to create new and better jobs, and it was the so called robber barons who developed that technology.
Socialized housing has been a utter failure. If you want to lift the bottom 40%, the only system capable of doing that is capitalism.
BTW, what is the “socially cleansed” nonsense? A lot of cities are failing because they tried to implement socialism, and as a result, the producers left.
So, you really think that by having all plants “communally owned”, in other words owned and controlled by the govt. You can make the world better off?
As far as being warmongers, nobody holds a candle to the socialists of this world.
I tried to penetrate the communist haze of your hysterical screed, but sorry, the incredible ignorance of it was just more than I care to deal with today.
Could we banish Bob Dylan to Bolivia?
The lead post is just more evidence that it is not a coincidence that the fundamental concepts of socialism share the same premise as the fundamental concepts of pseudo-scientific CAGW alarmism. They are both based on the conviction to persistently keep on minimizing private property and at the same time to persistently maximize forced collectivization of wealth.
It is property theft.
John
John Whitman:
Your post consists solely of falsehoods and nothing else.
Anybody who wants to know what socialism really is can read my account on WUWT here.
Richard
Anybody who wants to know what socialism really is can read Gail Combs’ response to richardscourtney’s comment that he just referred to in his comment above, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/06/skeptcial-science-takes-creepy-to-a-whole-new-level/#comment-1387615.
Human nature hasn’t changed much since the early 1600’s when Bradford’s group first tried socialism, that failed, before successfully re-organizing their commerce under private property ownership, that took into account real human nature.
Today’s people are no different. The lazy slackers of today who insist on living on a govt check of now borrowed money are just like the young people described by Gov. William Bradford in Gail’s comment.
Richard’s linked post may factually describe the history of socialism and communism, but in the end, the post consists solely of wishful thinking about human nature. Socialism is property theft by government force, and that has NOT changed historically.
Another facet of socialism is socialists never give it up, despite it’s obvious and numerous failings.
The CO2 scare is an attempt to jerry-rig economies with another market bubble (carbon) in favor of those who hold the purse strings and power in governments.
You naive socialistic CO2 bubbleheads don’t seem to realize that if you get your way, living standards around the world will drop to pre-industrialization levels, and if that is your goal, you are truly evil for all the suffering you wish to inflict on humanity by going down that road.
Richard, you are certainly free to spout whatever you wish about socialism, but don’t expect to gain any converts here. I see you as an intelligent man, yet naive like many warmists, many who see things the same way you do, believing in a socialist utopia that never arrives. I am not in favor of ceding control of life on Earth to basically insane leftists.
Caveat- I wouldn’t want anyone to think that I am all in favor of the dirty dealings of finance capital, led by the Federal Reserve system owners and their machinations in here and worldwide… The whole object of their methods is to reduce humanity down to powerlessness, capable of doing only what the puppeteers allow.
Bob Weber:
Yes, Gail Combs did make some good contributions – not only the one you link – to that discussion, but it is a distortion to read only her post that you link and not subsequent debate of it.
Richard
It really is fascinating how some people cling to their religious myths.
richardscourtney on November 10, 2015 at 3:18 am @ur momisugly John Whitman
– – – – – – –
richardscourtney,
Socialism as a political program/ concept is not fundamentally defined by any person’s preferred set (like yours) of social benefits that the coercively collectivized private property/wealth is spent on. Socialism is the fundamental conviction to persistently keep on minimizing private property and at the same time to persistently maximize forced collectivization of wealth regardless of the social programs any ‘socialist’ variant wants to spend it on.
Nor does actual historical or current political implemented socialism depend on the countless historical or current justifications of why the money should be coercively collectivized. It is the coercive collectivization by government that is political socialism.
There is no issue of freedom about what a group of people with preferred sets of social programs do privately with their own protect / wealth without government coercion.
John
John Whitman:
I am sure you intended to say something.
Please try again but this time in English because I don’t understand gobbledygook.
Richard
richardscourtney,
Coercive collectivization of people or property or wealth is socialism. It doesn’t matter what socially focused goals are given for spending it on . Nor does it matter what justification is given for using coercion to get it. It is theft as a political principle.
If a bunch of citizens get together voluntarily to use their own private property or wealth to implement, strictly in the private sphere, their social goals then it isn’t the politics of socialism, it’s called charity.
John
Socialism is the system by which those who don’t want to work, use govt to take what they want from those who do work.
John’s post was perfectly rational. You just don’t care for the implications of it.
You must admire the cheek. One can always try.
This seems more like a better idea with each passing year.
The cult of CAGW is a key component of the global government madness. We are living in a surreal Ayn Rand novel with multiple weird twists, with multiple layers. There is no CAGW issue to solve. Every scientific premise in the IPCC reports is incorrect.
The cult of CAGW paradigm is that to avoid the end of the world due to CO2 increases (the CO2 increases due were due to natural reasons – there are no fossil fuels, there is no energy crisis, the deep earth extrudes CH4 as the core solidifies, the continents float on CH4 – not due to anthropogenic emissions, the planet is about to abruptly cool, almost the entire warming in the last 50 years is due to solar cycle changes, the solar cycle has been interrupted) we must spend trillions and trillions of more deficit dollars (there are no surplus funds to ‘invest’) on green scams that do not work (significantly reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions.)
Ignoring reality does not change reality. Almost every developing country is spending more public funds every year than then they take in revenue. Never ending deficit spending ends very, very, badly.
http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21577348-gloomy-convincing-account-developed-worlds-problems-horror-story
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-06/imf-says-brazil-economy-to-shrink-3-in-2015-on-political-crisis
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-25/venezuela-economic-crisis-to-only-get-worse-barclays-says
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/26/business/an-echo-of-argentina-in-greek-debt-crisis.html
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2015/04/28/spain-has-reason-to-be-concerned-at-its-latest-unemployment-figures/
The common factor in Venezuela, Argentina, Greece and Brazil is populist or socialist economic non-policies.
William
Fine post. Mass movements blossom because the members of the mass movement find a common need being fulfilled. I often wonder what is the common need that is attracting so many to the CAGW movement.
What do you think it is ?
Sounds like Bolivia is a mash-up of Socialism and Paganism. You can see this at any college campus in America, but it can only survive off-campus at PETA, Earthfirst, Sierra Club, Natural Resource Defense Council, etc. For now.
Plus gangsterism.
But then maybe that ingredient in the mash is included under socialism.
Many a lobbying firm uses similar enforcement tactics as gangs do. Perhaps far less blood in the streets, broken bones or overt brutality but equally effective intimidation techniques. Quid pro quo … anyone.
I remember this quote, just don’t remember who said it … “you don’t have to actually DO something to someone to make them do what you want, they just have to know that you can”.
I think even the staunchest defenders of any “ism” knows it can be corrupted.
Checks and balances.
They seem to be an essential piece to anything mankind does.
Even then, its pretty dang hard to keep it on the up and up.
all climate data out of africa is a basket case and getting worse, the WMO flag up they want to install 9000 weather stations across Africa-
some hope and also illustrates a problem in Africa regarding data-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts
Failed capitalist system? Capitalism is a proven system for creating wealth and lifting the standard of living for people on this the planet. Now, it can be agreed that some people may have abused capitalism in the interest of themselves, but that has happened under socialism and communism, two systems that fail to deliver the benefits of capitalism.
Now the United Nations want the world to adopt a new ‘ism’ … the ideology of environmentalism. But that ideology is designed to make the wealthy countries poorer and it poses the greatest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity as we have known it.
I would take anything a south American leader says *except chile… possibly with a huge pinch of salt. I understand that Bolivia is actually booming economically currently due to free enter[rise highest growth in Latin America 2015. Lot of these fellows TALK left and act right ie LULA brasil ect
In the end, socialism always boils down to a demand for more frees stuff.
MarkW:
It is sad that you cannot read. I again refer you to what the extreme form of individualism called socialism really is. It boils down to provision of the unique needs of each individual so far as that is possible. For example, it would offer you a course in reading comprehension.
Richard
And would it offer you a course in courtesy? Obviously something you uniquely need. 😉
Bob Weber:
I have been extremely courteous – and patient – in reply to the falsehoods and offensive personal lie from MarkW.
Perhaps I need a course in rudeness to provide more appropriate response.
Richard
Richard I really don’t know where this is going for you, but let’s agree that we disagree. The truth is, history is replete with bad examples that shouldn’t be followed. Since no one has put into practice a perfect system, we all have the right expect a better system, I just don’t think socialism is that answer as you do. I can cut you some slack for standing up for what you believe, but just realize it’s an impasse, and it’ll stay that way.
Bob Weber:
You say to me
Of course we can disagree. I am not the one demonising others because they have a different political adherence. I am the one defending against untrue and unfounded attack.
This is going nowhere for me because I value truth and diversity. The rabid right-wing mob ranting in this thread want totalitarianism which is a denial of both truth and diversity.
But it matters because their raving drives away any except the rabid right. Opposition to the AGW-scare is independent of position on the political spectrum everywhere except the US, and the rabid ranting from the right is destroying any hope of coherent opposition to the scare.
You linked to a comment of Gail Combs. I point to another of her comments in the same thread where she says
That seems eminently sensible to me.
Richard
Richard, the problem is, when you boil it down, your statement actually boils down to my statement.
You claim that socialism provides each person their unique needs. In other words, it provides free stuff for people who want it.
As to reading comprehension, it appears I should be lecturing you on that subject.
richardscourtney
November 10, 2015 at 8:15 am
It appears that you are unfamiliar both with the history of socialism and with libertarianism, which is the opposite of socialism and totalitarianism. Socialism requires totalitarianism sooner or later, before its internal contradictions finally cause it to fail. Britain is a good example, where individual liberty is being further eroded decade by decade.
I haven’t read anything here by rabid, Right-Wing conservatives. IMO most commenters here are libertarians, who recognize that state power is always evil. A certain amount of its evil is necessary, but,libertarians are convinced that the government which governs least governs best.
We want to limit state power, not make it absolute. Power resides ultimately in the people. It should not be concentrated in an omnipotent central regime, but spread among regional and local governments, private associations, such as churches, families and individuals.
I don’t know where you got an idea so divorced from reality.
Gloateus Maximus:
You say
That is absolutely untrue.
We here in Britain know freedoms that many in the US yearn for; e.g. freedom from poverty for every individual irrespective of health, inheritance and disability.
Indeed, our freedom is one reason why so many rich Americans settle here: it is not our weather.
And you say
Replace “recognize” with “mistakenly think” and we can agree.
Misuse of state power is always evil.
And removing the state power that is Rule Of Law is always evil. Indeed, it is the mistaken thought that state power itself is always evil that induces America’s maniacal gun laws.
Most important of all is the totalitarianism so clearly demonstrated here by American right-wing extremists. I will do all I can to defend their right to have whatever form of government they want, but I object to their desire to inflict it on me and all others.
This thread demonstrates attacks, misrepresentations and even downright lies being used by American right-wingers attempting to defame those who don’t share their paranoia about proper government (which they think is “always evil”). Frankly, the behaviour of the American right-wingers here is shameful, harmful and disgraceful.
Richard
Sorry Richard, but I don’t see the connection to totalitarianism here amongst this crowd that you do on this thread. But I think a real problem for people who back socialism are the feelings of those who don’t, and the feelings and behaviors of those who are on the receiving end of socialism.
When those who receive their largess, their livelihood, their sustenance from others are encouraged and egged on to DEMAND and COERCE their fellow neighbors that they, the supposed oppressed, are owed more and more from said neighbors, we as a world have a problem. I have never seen a grateful recipient of govt largess who didn’t want more, who didn’t think they were owed more, and that the evil corporations and millionaire small-business class weren’t just completely greedy and giving everyone the shaft. I have never seen such people show any awareness of the regulations, costs, and demands put upon businesses of all sizes by all levels of govt. It’s as if the receivers of socialistic benefits have no regard for the burdens imposed on the businesses supporting them.
I see the warmists the same way. They have no regard for the burdens they demand we allow them to impose on the world. Those who are making such demands are the true totalitarians here, the warmists who want to change the world’s economic system away from private property ownership to a low-energy ecology-based economy. The warmists are DEMANDING of and COERCING everyone here.
The warmists are the true totalitarians in this picture.
The warmists are trying to make the third world countries feel victimized by the developed world over our energy use, using the climate as the hook – some slight warming over a century, and some extreme events mostly from a decade or more ago.
Obama and Kerry have spent a lot of time blaming the west’s energy use for climate issues in order to develop a constant demand for climate reparations by the third world country govts – its a cynical way of buying votes for the treaty. When the UN convenes, their loud voices are going to start making demands, they’re going to try to coerce the nations to fork over money for something that isn’t true, the falsehood of AGW. Since they were promised money in advance of the Paris conference, their votes are assured. They were bribed by American politicians who didn’t have the authority to make such promises in the first place, who had not (yet) secured the monies needed for this payola racket.
This is the same tactic used by the more socialistic members of the political class – drive wedges between people to set one side against the other – when it comes to other issues than climate – to get people to pay for more otherwise unjustified programs.
So the socialists and the vulture capitalists are playing the same games against the middle, to get the middle to pay for all their newly demanded ‘reparations’ and uneconomical alternative energy sources. In that sense I agree with Gail – we’re being ‘played’. She has a way about making her point, doesn’t she?
richardscourtney
November 10, 2015 at 1:15 pm
Government is always evil because it is composed of people seeking to advance their own interests and subjugate others.
US gun laws aren’t maniacal. They recognize that every person has an inherent right of self-defense and that an armed citizenry is the only antidote to state power. Americans trust themselves, ie the people, and rightly distrust the government.
Where has there ever been a government that wasn’t inherently evil? The less evil ones are those where the officials and bureaucrats fear the people more than the people fear their would-be masters.
Richard,
You write: “We here in Britain know freedoms that many in the US yearn for; e.g. freedom from poverty for every individual irrespective of health, inheritance and disability.”
Are you serious? No one in America yearns for British socialism. Our “poor” are so well fed, clothed and housed that they are among the fattest people on earth. Millions live off disability payments, to such an extent that it’s a scandal. The “poor”, who would be lower middle class in the UK, get all kinds of free stuff not provided by your welfare state, such as phones.
I wonder if you have ever actually been to the USA, to harbor such a false, cartoonish image of our far too generous social safety net. You can easily live well in the US without working.
I also wonder how you came up with the notion that libertarians favor totalitarianism. This is downright daffy. Socialism tends to totalitarianism, but libertarians are the farthest possibly removed from it on the political spectrum.
richardscourtney
November 10, 2015 at 8:15 am
I’d like to ask Gail how a socialist can possibly not be a statist?
Does she know what “statist” means?
Socialism requires an all-powerful state in order to take from the productive and give to the slackers.
All members of the baying right- wing mob:
OK. I have tried to defend rationality, diversity, truth, compassion and justice against the unprovoked and unsolicited falsehoods, distortions, misrepresentations and lies of a rabid mob of right-wing extremists baying their paranoia and calling for imposition of an unpleasant form of government on everybody.
Members of the mob mislead by calling themselves “Libertarians” when their every statement opposes liberty. They call for totalitarian imposition of selfish people forming an armed mob to replace the Rule Of Law because – they say – they are paranoid about all government (which they think is always evil).
Such right-wing desires for the power of the mob are not new; for example, they were fulfilled on kristallnacht. Pandering to such desire has always enabled truly evil governments to take and/or to operate unbridled power; e.g. Rome under Caligula, Germany in the 1930s, China at the ‘Great Leap Forward’, etc..
I have provided information that refutes every statement members of the right-wing mob in this thread have made (madness is easily refuted) but other right-wing extremists have joined the baying of the mob. It seems the mob is only interested in fostering lies with intent to spread their fear and hatred. To that end they have abused the generosity of our host in providing WUWT.
Impartial onlookers can see what has happened here. Sadly, the baying of the extremist right-wing mob in this place can only have hindered opposition to the AGW-scare in the run-up to the Paris CoP. Few would want to be seen as being associated with them and promoters of the AGW-scare can point to the baying of the mob in this WUWT thread and say, “That is the nature of opponents of action to combat AGW”.
Richard