Guest Opinion: Dr. Tim Ball
An interesting pattern developed early in the official involvement in global warming. If a person challenged the claim that humans were causing global warming (AGW), it was assumed they were on the political right. If you supported AGW, then you were on the left. This categorization is not related to the science, but to the political nature of the science involved. This occurred in two major parts. The original objective of those using global warming for their political agenda and the marginalizing of those who questioned the science by linking them to industries and their wealthy owners. The author believes the evidence shows that human CO2 is not causing AGW, that the hypothesis is not proved. This article is not written to pick political sides. Rather, it is an attempt to help understand the battles waged and the confusion this created for the public, the politicians, the media, and a majority of scientists.
The world needed the new paradigm of environmentalism. The problem is that a few grabbed it for a political agenda. They used it as a vehicle to take the moral high ground, to claim only they cared about the environment. They argued that everyone else was guilty of environmental destruction because of their avarice and wasteful ways. The debate about global warming is a subset of environmentalism that was also hijacked using the same themes.
At the first Heartland Conference in New York in 2004 Vaclav Klaus twice Prime Minister of the Czech Republic was the keynote speaker. His opening remark that we have just gone through 70 years of communism so why the hell would you want to go back to that brought a standing ovation. It supports the fact that environmentalism and AGW is a political agenda pushed by extremely wealthy and powerful left wing people most of who made their money exploiting the environment. The psychology of that is beyond the discussion here, but consider the hypocrisy of George Soros, Maurice Strong, Bill Gates, the Rockefeller’s, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Ted Turner among many others.
Maurice Strong described himself as “a socialist in ideology, a capitalist in methodology”.
This description appears to apply to them all.
The confusion for the public that wealthy people are also socialists is similar to that about another person. Most people think Adolf Hitler was a right wing fascist, but he was a socialist who also promoted a form of environmentalism. The word “Nazi” stands for National Socialism.
Collectively, most of these wealthy socialists acted through their privileged group called the Club of Rome. The Club was formed in 1968 at David Rockefeller’s estate in Bellagio, Italy. In their 1994 book The First Global Revolution Alexander King and Bertrand Schneider wrote.
“The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”
They claim the list of enemies is designed to unite people. In fact, it is needed to overcome what they see as the divisiveness of nation-states and to justify the establishment of one-world government or global socialism. They believe that global warming is a global problem that national governments cannot resolve. The changed behavior they want is for all to become socialists.
They finally settled on global warming as the environmental issue best suited for their goal. Of course, the plan was just the beginning. One of my favorite cartoons from the New Yorker showed Moses on the mountain with the Ten Commandments. The caption read “Great idea, who is going to fund it?” Global warming and the identification of human produced CO2 as the problem suited all the political, financial, and pseudo-religious controls a socialist group could desire.
The Kyoto Protocol was presented as a solution to the problem of human-caused global warming. Those who created the Protocol also created the problem. Through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) they produced the science required to support their claim. It is a well-thought out, well-planned, classic circular argument. One of the early examples occurred in the book Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment co-authored by Paul and Anne Ehrlich and President Obama’s current Science Advisor John Holdren. While discussing the non-existent problem of overpopulation they wrote,
Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.
The question is who “concluded that compulsory population-control” could be sustained? The answer is the authors did. The next question is who decides “if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society?” Again, it is the authors. So, they claim there is a problem, then they decide when it is severe enough to warrant complete suspension of legal controls against such totalitarianism.
More succinctly, they created the problem, created the proof of the problem, then offered the solution. This is what was done with the AGW claim. They assumed, incorrectly, that a CO2 increase causes a temperature increase. They then provided proof by programming computer models in which a CO2 increase caused a temperature increase. They ran the model(s) by doubling CO2, ceteris paribus. The results showed a temperature increase, which proved their claim. Now they could use CO2 as the lever for all their political objectives incorporated into the Kyoto Protocol. Science became the basis of blind faith.
In Kyoto, nations who developed their economies and became wealthy using CO2 were to pay for their sins by giving money to nations who suffered. It was a penance. Catholics paid penance for their sins which included a delay in their entrance to heaven. In the medieval Catholic church, you could buy Indulgences to bypass the punishment. Carbon Credits became the modern equivalent, and Al Gore was the equivalent of The Pardoner selling Indulgences as celebrated in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. With Indulgences and Carbon Credits there was no reduction in the sins. In fact, they encouraged more sins because you simply bought a pass – a get-out-of jail-free card.
Kyoto provided the political basis for the agenda. It was a classic redistribution of wealth that is the goal of a socialist government. Money from successful developed nations was given to less successful developing nations. To collect and redistribute the money required a government that overarched all nation-states. A single world government that managed a world banking system was the ideal. Temporarily the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund would suffice.
Kyoto provided the basis for the financial agenda. Money needed to fund the single world government was a global carbon tax. Many notable people, like Ralph Nader, claimed the tax was the best solution to stop climate change. Funding was part of the plan for the 2009 Copenhagen Conference of the Parties 15 (COP15). The COP can only act on the science provided by the IPCC. Apparently somebody knew the political agenda was based on false science and exposed it by leaking emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU). This worked because the scientists controlling the IPCC worked at, or with, the CRU. They controlled key chapters in IPCC Reports, including the instrumental data, the paleoclimate data, and the computer models. They also ensured their presence on the most influential document, the Summary for Policymakers (SPM). The Wegman Report that examined the dispute over the ‘hockey stick’ produced in the 2001 Report recognized the incestuous relationships of the research when they wrote,
Recommendation 1. Especially when massive amounts of public monies and human lives are at stake, academic work should have a more intense level of scrutiny and review. It is especially the case that authors of policy-related documents like the IPCC report, Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, should not be the same people as those that constructed the academic papers.
The leaked information delayed the political process, but it was only temporary. The following year at COP16 in Durban they produced the replacement program called the Green Climate Fund (GCF). It was approved at COP21 in Paris in December 2015.
The process and method of setting up the AGW hypothesis through the UN paralleled those required to form a left wing or socialist government. It automatically identified those scientists who questioned the hypothesis as at least sympathetic to capitalism – guilt by association. It is part of today’s view that if you are not with me, you must be against me. Over the years, a few scientists told me they agreed with the skeptics but would not say so publicly because they were socialists.
Vaclav Klaus was one of the few world political leaders to identify what was going on. He recognized that global warming was a subset of environmentalism. He recognized that it was a blind faith belief system based on no evidence or, at best, manufactured evidence. In his book Blue Planet in Green Shackles, he wrote,
“it should be clear by now to everyone that activist environmentalism (or environmental activism) is becoming a general ideology about humans, about their freedom, about the relationship between the individual and the state, and about the manipulation of people under the guise of a “noble” idea. It is not an honest pursuit of “sustainable development,” a matter of elementary environmental protection, or a search for rational mechanisms designed to achieve a healthy environment. Yet things do occur that make you shake your head and remind yourself that you live neither in Joseph Stalin’s Communist era, nor in the Orwellian utopia of 1984.”
The pattern of identifying those skeptical about the AGW hypothesis as right wing was an inevitable result of the political objective.
‘The confusion for the public that wealthy people are also socialists is similar to that about another person. Most people think Adolf Hitler was a right wing fascist, but he was a socialist who also promoted a form of environmentalism. The word “Nazi” stands for National Socialism.’
I recently heard a leftist radio announcer claim Hitler hijacked the Socialist party and took it from the far left to the far right. Without a single person noticing!
I said the opposite of “far left” is “small government libertarian.”
I pointed out that he anticipated Deng Xiaoping by 40 years – you can nationalise the outside it and profits without the hassle of micro managing the actual production. Let the schleppers do the hard work of management. Then you nationalise the profit, direct the trade flows, redistribute and direct the military. You set prices, you set profits – to negative if necessary, allowing your allied to take control.
He raised the “nationalist” part of “Nazi”. I pointed out Hitler’s Union of Socialist Republics plan was identical to Stalin’s.
At that point he was so enraged he chucked me off the air.
Not allowed to say Hitler was a socialist and leader of the “National Socialist” Party in Australia. Automatic reason for deletion and or banning on websites. Lefties hate it.
Don’t you mean Austria? Or has Australia also fallen foul of the thought police.
@jbenton2013
“Don’t you mean Austria?”
No, he does mean Australia. You’re allowed to call Hitler a NAZI or even a nationalist, but never a socialist. You’re allowed to call a sceptic a (holocaust) denier though. Welcome to the world’s biggest politically correct nanny state.
There is an article in the latest edition News Corp national newspaper The Weekend Australian by Chris Uhlman who is the political editor for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Mr Uhlman basically sets out the intolerance of the leftists as being pretty much in accord with the writings of one Herbert Marcuse whereby those branded tolerant are intolerant of those that they brand as intolerant, the establichment. It is a classic example of the Mobius Strip logic that is basically self reference posing as philosophical thought.
The whole AGW boondoggle is just another newspeak set piece in the same broader intolerance of tolerance whrein intolerance is defined by the intolerant as tolerance. “Deniers” are defined as intolerant and denied tolerance of their opinions.
Largely correct, but the national part of national socialism was deliberately chosen to stand against the international socialism of the Bolsheviks. As Hayek wrote in 1944 in The Road to Serfdom, socialism and fascism are sisters.
Hayek’s work is a razor sharp intellectual knife that fillets and cuts through the intellectual fog and tangles of the socialism. I have it downloaded on my Amazon Kindle and refer back to his passages in The Road to Serfdom from time to time to bring clarity to what we occurring today from the Left. Highly recommended.
It was the german Labour Party he took over. At the time he joined his party number was 7. The socialist party SPD was a completely different entity that still exists. Mein Kampf vol.1 Kap.9
https://mises.org/library/why-nazism-was-socialism-and-why-socialism-totalitarian
Here is an article by George Reisman. He explains why Nazism was socialism and why socialism is totalitarianism.
Absolute Far left is Complete Government Control of everything ; Absolute Far right is NO government ..
What leftist need to tell us is how on the way to no government gets us Nazis?
What I find perplexing; is the left screams that we want anarchy every time we want to cut the budget…
But Nazis at the same time..
The seem too dense to realize they are polar opposites… you cant have both
cashman:
Anything can be twisted to mean anything by redefining the meanings of words. In his distopian novel ‘1984’ George Orwell gave the name ‘Newspeak’ to the fascist utilisation of deleting or redefining words to control how concepts can be considered.
The political spectrum has existed for over two centuries. It places communism (i.e. total collectivism) at the extreme left and fascism (i.e. total control by power elites) at the extreme right.
Recently the extreme right has found its history (especially in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s) to be an embarrassment. Hence, they have tried to pretend the political spectrum is other than it is and it always has been.
You are claiming you are “too dense” to understand that your arguments are merely a construct of Humpty Dumpty words but I doubt that you are.
Richard
‘Left’ and ‘right’ are simplistic. The spectrum is more like a circle, with free republican government at the top, and communist and fascist totalitarian arms meeting at the bottom (thanks to Mark Levin, among others).
To include all the varieties, we probably need a sphere. But in any case, the forms of totalitarianism become indistinguishable at the bottom.
/Mr Lynn
L. E. Joiner:
I refer you to my post immediately above yours.
I repeat,
Anything can be twisted to mean anything by redefining the meanings of words.
and
The political spectrum has existed for over two centuries. It places communism (i.e. total collectivism) at the extreme left and fascism (i.e. total control by power elites) at the extreme right.
That is reality.
Richard
Richard,
“The political spectrum has existed for over two centuries. It places communism (i.e. total collectivism) at the extreme left and fascism (i.e. total control by power elites) at the extreme right.”
What happened to the possibility of power elites in a collectivist system? . . You know, like we’re all too familiar with?
My basic reading of socialist philosophy was that the state (government) would ultimately whither away like an appendix. People would automatically learn their roles in society and carry them out without direction or supervision. (no bosses). However that has always sounded somewhat utopian.
I think referring to Hitler to post modern political identifiers is a little more complex then either current sides can handle. Certainly, as boomer in the US the label “right wing” was a false flag smear if ever there was one.
One thing of course was Hitler’s very provincial and lower class view of economics as a whole. You might want review William Shirer’s passage regarding economic policy as Hitler rose to office. Many of the rank and file wanted, with some support from Hitler’s rhetoric, to emulate the Soviet purge of the upper class and go to a complete command and control war economy almost at once.
They were on the list for WW1 failures as well and there was a pretty huge class war element in the movement.
A financial crisis was already there, Hitler had to be convinced to endorse free marketsa and trade. Many of the flat earth factions would be found in the SA and the Night of Long Knives had numerous explications including general economic policy:
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nazi-germany/the-night-of-the-long-knives/
Frankly, any policy was a means to end. If killing the aristocracy was worth more then what followed he would have done it. Not out of leftist idealism or desire. More like Octavian’s proscriptions.
The concept of ethnic nationalism just doesn’t translate to a modern conversion. That it’s been a propaganda tool of various left wing establishments in media, popular culture and education; “Hitler rightwing” is pathetic and stupid but there is no sense clinging to the word “Socialism” as if it meant the same either then or now in various locations. Hitler would have made any ideological deal or compromise (non-Aggression Pact with Stalin proof positive) if it advanced the broader goal of a large German domination in Central Europe with its place in the world.
So there’s no point playing the lefty label game in my opinion. Sadly only a small section of the population has made any study of actual events or history of the Hitler period to realize the sort of idiotic ranting from one particular board participant here but that’s the way it goes.
And there, in a nutshell, is why I smelled a rat and joined the ranks of the skeptics.
Right on the button Dr Ball. Our city has been the victim of this fraud. Here’s a summary and an essay exposing prominent New Zealanders and their role in the Turitea wind farm fraud
turiteadocuments.wordpress.com/turitea-wind-farm-documents/
https://turiteadocuments.wordpress.com/turitea-wind-farm-documents/
There are two Canadian (Ontario) NAFTA cases with one judgement pending and the other case underway in Toronto. Both cases involve wind projects and the present case involves an off-shore wind project at the eastern end of Lake Ontario which was canceled by the Ontario government.
If both companies win a full NAFTA judgement, the cost to the Canadian taxpayers will be in the range of $ 1 billion for NAFTA violations Both NAFTA actions brought by U.S. based companies against the Canadian government.
Trade agreements do have unintended consequences.
Unintended consequences? Are you sure about that?
A bridge too far, Dr. Ball. While there is some truth in what you assert (witness Christina Figueres, head of UNFCCC), it is mostly half truths. Asserting ‘Agenda 21 motives’ detracts from the skeptical rebuttal IMO, and opens our side to the conspiracy accusation nuttery of those like Lewindowsky.
Take the high science road. Use sound bites to rain rockslides down on the warmunists on the low road. And yes, I fully credited Vaclav Klaus and his book Blue Planet in Green Chains for inspiring the epithet warmunist.
Academia has become nasty and political. Anyone who publishes anything inconvenient to the entrenched politics WILL be punished. Unsurprisingly, it is worst in things like gender studies and anthropology but it is still unacceptably venomous in climate science.
These folks aren’t interested in the truth and they won’t be swayed by inconvenient facts.
I have just become aware of a book titled “Galileo’s Middle Finger”.
Roger Pielke Jr. has written a review. He also bears scars inflicted because he had the temerity to tell the truth.
“A bridge too far” refers to biting off more than one can chew, not to being wrong. We might criticize Dr. Ball for not making his case very well. We can’t criticize him for being wrong because there’s plenty of evidence that he’s right. The fix is in and anyone who gets in the way will be smacked upside the head.
“Are Environmentalism and Global Warming Effectively Religious
SocialismTotalitarianism?” The answer is yes. Socialism is way too mild.Socialism always results in totalitarianism . Communism starts with the dictatorship of the proletariat (which is always one person or just a few). The only difference is that Communism starts out totalitarian but socialism takes a while to reach totalitarianism.
“…I must say that I think we owe [Stalin] a debt of gratitude! For the wonderful example he has given the whole world of the axiomatic truth that Communism always leads to dictatorship.” –CG Jung Speaking, pg 131
It is easy to forget that we live in a Huxleyan, Orwellian hybrid and that the complete corporatisation of government today makes the left/right paradigm of politics a quaint but misleading anachronism. Consequently, there are no real NGOs today, it is all ‘business’ and at the same time all ‘government’ IMHO.
Huxley Vs. Orwell: Infinite Distraction Or Government Oppression?
Chris Hedges’ infamous comparison of the two frightening visions of the future
cB, I agree with your observations. BUT handing ‘the enemy’ conspiratorial ammunition is not my idea of a good winning strategy.
True enough.
The pendulum of repression has swung about as far as it can go and there is a general mood developing in favor of academic freedom and free speech. The University of Chicago has a newish Academic Freedom Statement. Huffington Post In a decade or three we might be back to a more reasonable world where the truth is more important than dogma.
Dr Ball is absolutely right about the influence of people like the Rockefellers, George Soros et al. There are no “half truths”.
Soros was a member of the UN “High Level Panel on Climate Finance” set up by Ban Ki Moon after Copenhagen to generate the Green Climate Fund of $100 billion per annum from developed nations. It was co-chaired by then Norwegian PM Jens Stoltenberg, now head of NATO. Fellow members included Lord Stern, former Chief Economist at the World Bank, a UN body, and a leading figure at the time in the IdeaCarbon Consultancy, Christine Lagarde, then French Finance minister, now Head of the IMF for a second term, Obama adviser Larry Summers, another former Chief Economist at the World Bank.
Stern was also an adviser to HSBC bank and its Climate Partnership (HCP), which was described thus:
“HCP is a five-year US$100million partnership between HSBC and the Earthwatch Institute, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and World Wide Fund for Nature to combat the urgent threat of climate change by inspiring action by individuals, businesses and governments worldwide.”
Jan. 15, 2010, Soros was quoted by Bloomberg:
“A U.S. law to curb carbon emissions would spur billions of dollars of spending on green-energy projects in developing countries, billionaire George Soros said.“If you had the legislation in the United States you would have a market for carbon emissions and for offsetting credits provided to clean-energy projects in the developing world”, Soros said at a conference yesterday in New York. “Right now you don’t even have that. The United States is the laggard.”
“Without a cap on carbon dioxide emissions that puts a penalty on pollution, low-carbon investments won’t be profitable”, Soros, founder of $25 billion hedge-fund firm Soros Fund Management LLC, said at the Investor Summit on Climate Risk at the United Nations.
“Rich nations should use special International Monetary Fund reserves to finance efforts in developing nations to combat climate change”, Soros said last month. He announced the plan in Copenhagen, where 193 nations were meeting to negotiate a treaty to curb emissions that most scientists blame for global warming.”
Soros also happens to be a member of the Columbia University Earth Institute external advisory board, along with ex IPCC Chair and now disgraced Rajendra Pachauri. Earth Institute President Jeffrey Sachs is a long-time associate of Pachauri and Soros and is an advisor to Ban Ki Moon.
Stern and Soros appeared together at the pre-Copenhagen 2009 gathering of the Global 100 Executive Roundtable Dinner, with the theme “The Next Motor That Will Power the Global Economy.”
“The evening’s lead discussants included George Soros, Investor and Philanthropist; Lord Nicholas Stern, author of the landmark 2006 Stern Report on the economic implications of climate change; and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, Columbia University.”
“Lord Stern noted the current crossroads presents “a Schumpeterian growth opportunity” across the economy for dirty inefficient elements to be replaced by greener leaner infrastructure, new rail transit, and retrofits. He called for a global green stimulus package of $400 billion invested over each of the next two years.”
“Schumpeter’s theory is that the success of capitalism will lead to a form of corporatism and a fostering of values hostile to capitalism, especially among intellectuals. The intellectual and social climate needed to allow entrepreneurship to thrive will not exist in advanced capitalism; it will be replaced by socialism in some form.
There will not be a revolution, but merely a trend in parliaments to elect social democratic parties of one stripe or another. He argued that capitalism’s collapse from within will come about as democratic majorities vote for restrictions upon entrepreneurship that will burden and destroy the capitalist structure, but also emphasizes non-political, evolutionary processes in society where “liberal capitalism” was evolving into democratic socialism because of the growth of workers’ self-management, industrial democracy and regulatory institutions.”
There is no conspiracy theory, it’s real.
Check out GLOBE International:http://www.globeinternational.org/2gcls-home-page
“The 2nd GLOBE Climate Legislation Summit was held in the US Senate and World Bank in Washington DC on 27th and 28th February 2014. More than 100 legislators from over 40 countries participated in the two-day event organised under the GLOBE Climate Legislation Initiative. The Summit took place a year after the 1st GLOBE Climate Legislation Summit held at the UK Foreign Office in London in January 2013.”
“The high-level opening session was hosted by US Senator Edward Markey and included speeches by House Democrat Leader, Nancy Pelosi, US Senator Barbara Boxer (watch), House Chairperson of the National Assembly of South Africa, Cedric Frolick, UN Assistant Secretary General, Dr Robert Orr (watch), Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, Christiana Figueres, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Mr Achim Steiner, CEO and Chairperson of the Global Environment Facility, Dr Naoko Ishii (watch), Vice President of the World Bank, Rachel Kyte (watch) and Obama Administration Climate Envoy, Todd Stern (watch).”
Yabut … China …
If the article is so full of lies and half truths, it should be trivial for you to actually demonstrate a few.
Dr. Ball…nice summary of the key developments in the AGW meme. Some might say this whole business is much older and science has always been a target for ideological kiddnappers.
“This article is not written to pick political sides. Rather, it is an attempt to help understand the battles waged and the confusion this created for the public, the politicians, the media, and a majority of scientists.”
================
Wow, I consider myself an optimist, but I’m obviously not even in your league 🙂
Mind boggling article. Hope Obama reads it.
Not unless it is on his telepromter.
Read it? I’m pretty sure he could have written it.
I used to be a leftist. Unfortunately, I have a rather good memory for persons predicting doom and naming a date that is thirty years past. There is a rather nihilist thread in Marxism, a desire to destroy the unsatifactory present. I finally realized the theory did not work.
Horridly, I realized that the insult “watermelon” is all too appropriate. With the failure of the Soviet Union, the left needed a new radiant future. Thus far, it is the Green Blob.
The anti-nuke movement was decidedly political, transparently bogus, and influential. We still have not undone ” anti-proliferation” policies Jimmy Carter imposed, and I fear it will take as long to undo Obama and Holdren.
An old commentary on the religiofication of politics is “The True Believer” by Eric Hoffer, which seems relevant to the current dispute.
True Believer is even more interesting due to the author’s story and background. I recommend reading it.
I would put myself in the same general category. The Left has good bumper stickers, but the Devil’s in the details.
Good comment Dr Ball.
However I am not sure gangrene needs a governing philosophy.
Too many idle hands produce idle minds, the vacuous mob who chant “Carbon Pollution” are beyond parody.
It seems to be mostly virtue posturing, raw emoting…
George Orwell – a Final Warning
Https:/www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXm5hklbBsa
I’d say, Dr. Ball, that you have done more than your fair share.
That’s a powerful interview. Wish I could find the entirety of it.
It’s from a BBC Drama “George Orwell, a Life in Pictures”
What Orwell slightly missed, I think, was the business of the sex instinct used as a tool for totalitarianism, as in the Third Reich where the Virgin Mary was re-invented as National Whore (references on request).
The woman’s body was used for the purposes of ‘community’ reproduction; ‘bourgeois’ private prostitutes replaced by state brothels known as ‘lebensborn’, or ‘fountains of life’.
How far are we along this road? The name of the singer who calls herself ‘Madonna’ bears eloquent testimony to the ‘publication’ of the vagina (Orwell’s ‘self-abasement’ – he loathed porn. Ingsoc uses it as a tool of domination). Now all we need is world-wide ‘gleichshaltung’ (harmonisation) to complete the picture – slavery through pleasure, strength through joy.
AGW is our first encounter with this monster in the field of empirical science, something I never dreamed possible; unless we stop our power worship (’empowerment, community, harmony’), Hitler’s dream of the New Sparta (homosexual warriors, mass rape marriage, ‘sustainable’ farming) is inevitable.
We’re working on undoing Clinton and FDR and Wilson and…
Reagan was a breathe of fresh air but, “Two steps forward, one step back.”
(The last US president that left office with a balanced budget AND no national debt was Andrew Jackson. (If a nation is in debt, to whom do they owe it and what do they put up for collateral?))
And the last to achieve a balanced budget was Cinton. No not Hilary, the other one!
Clinton’s balanced budget was due to the dissolution of the USSR.
Clinton never submitted a balanced budget to congress. It was the Republican congress that balanced the budget, something all the liberals at the time declared was both impossible to achieve and dangerous to try.
Mark, the current Secretary of the Treasury, the incompetent Jacob Lew, created the Balanced Budget Act of 1996 or 1997 for Clinton. And Obama thinks this lawyer he put in as SECTREAS is a genius.
If you look at the sectoral financial balances chart I show in February 22, 2016 at 9:16 am, you’ll see that’s when the private sector started to suffer. As Bloomberg said at the time, thinking it was praising Clinton for balancing the budget, Wow, he haven’t seen this since 1926-1929! yeah. Right.
Clinton was a state governor. He balanced the budget twice in Arkansas, as he should have. States and local govts can’t go into a back room and issue new USD. Only the federal government can. State and local govts have to earn revenue, just like businesses and households.
That’s why you should never vote in a state governor as president, imo.
[Reagan ran huge deficits. David Stockman resigned in protest, if you are old enough to remember. In 1985, Stockman said in an interview that Reagan ran deficits to prove to the Democrats how wrong it was. Reagan had no clue, as a former state governor, just how right it was to run federal deficits when you’re running a sovereign federal government. Here’s anther account of it from 1985: http://www.nytimes.com/1985/07/11/us/moynihan-asserts-stockman-said-reagan-doubted-tax-cut-theory-friends-david.html%5D
“The last US president that left office with a balanced budget AND no national debt was Andrew Jackson.”
Which led to the first US Depression in US history (as succeeding US federal government surpluses and balanced budgets did in US history, of which there were seven in 238 years).
Businesses, households, State and Local govts must earn income to survive. They need to earn income; they can’t create the US currency.
The US federal government does not. It issues the currency.
Businesses and households must balance their budgets.
The US federal government must balance its financial sectors (government, private, foreign).
BIG DIFFERENCE. Do you understand what that difference is? Obama doesn’t.
Deficit spending does not and never has boosted economic activity.
Mark,
Absolutely 100% historically wrong.
Go to https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals/.
Choose “Table 1.1—Summary of Receipts, Outlays, and Surpluses or Deficits (-): 1789–2021”
Deficit spending, after we went off the gold standard in 1933, got us out of the Great Depression, paid for WWII, created the middle class, and ushered in the greatest period of economic growth and prosperity in US history.
Look at the 1920s. Surpluses. Created the Great Depression of 1929.
Look at WWII. Govt ran deficits. Look at the Reagan boom. Deficits. Then along comes Clinton, who created govt surpluses in the last part of the 1990s. The dot com and housing bubbles delayed it, but the depression/recession hit in 2008.
When the govt is in surplus, the private sector is in deficit, TO THE PENNY. This is because the US federal government is the monopoly creator of the USD. It is a closed system. When one side goes up, the other goes down.
Search for my name on this post and read about Marriner Eccles.
Mark,
Here are Sectoral Financial Balances as a % of GDP, 1952q1 to 2010q4. The green is the foreign sector, noted here as the capital account.
http://i41.tinypic.com/30l1awm.png
Public vs. Private Balance. The automatic stabilizers (unemployment insurance, etc.) that kicked in during the financial crisis are visible in 2008.
http://i39.tinypic.com/ac8isp.png
The US government does not need to borrow its own currency.
History tells the tale. The federal government has achieved fiscal balance (even surpluses) in just seven periods since 1776, bringing in enough revenue to cover all of its spending during 1817-21, 1823-36, 1852-57, 1867-73, 1880-93, 1920-30 and 1998-2001.
We also experienced six depressions up till 1929. They began in 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893 and 1929.
The one exception to this pattern, the seventh depression, occurred in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the dot-com and housing bubbles fueled a consumption binge that delayed the harmful effects of the Clinton surpluses until the Great Recession of 2007-09.
You can bury your head in the sand like the AGW people about CO2, or you can face facts.
As usual, you accept propaganda that agrees with your own biases as being truth.
It wasn’t deficit spending that got us out of the depression, it was FDR unwinding the majority of his regulations so that companies could create the products needed for the war that got us out of the depression
Deficit spending can not create increases in net demand, the best it can do is shift demand from one portion of the economy to another.
Mark,
If you had bothered to read the Marriner Eccles stuff I cited, even for five minutes, you would have discovered the opposite is true.
However, there is another source, which I know you won’t read, but others might be interested. “Keep From All Thoughtful Men: How U.S. Economists Won World War II” by military historian Jam Lacey (2011). He uses misfiled documents recently found in the National Archives to prove it. The three economists he refers to used the policy and economic space afforded by the abolition of the gold standard to create the great war effort. Regulations, whatever that means, had nothing to do with it.
1oldnwise4me@reagan.com is right.
old one, yes the govt was the only buyer, but the companies still had to follow govt regulations, even when selling to govt.
MRW, why should I read stuff that was disproven a generation ago?
Mark,
What “stuff?” And “disproven” by whom?
In the US, our industrial base was already destroyed by both Republican and Democratic party efforts in DC. Free trade has destroyed it. Very thoroughly.
I blame Al Gore
The bogus “scientists” (eg James Hansen), and left wing, apocalyptic lobbyists (eg Naomi Orekes) and industral profiteers (eg Maurice Strong) would not have been able to pervert the general scientific community without strong political backing and Al Gore provided this during his stint as Vice President under Bill Clinton.
The Club of Rome ran the “running out of resources” agenda for decades with only minor success but it was the political patronage from Al Gore that allowed the Global Warming/Climate Change cohort to gain traction and undermine the scientific process. And once “the science is settled” mantra was backed by the climate scientists the whole left wing, CAGW, Agenda 21 movement was able to go mainstream
A policy of trade protectionism would be a pathetic admission of inadequacy and incompetence and no matter what economic ills the US is undergoing right now they can only be made much worse, with global repercussions, by further trade barriers as it did in the 1930s with the passage of the Smoot-Hawley Act:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot%E2%80%93Hawley_Tariff_Act
Chris, the Smoot-Hawley Act was passed in 1930 and only deepened the Depression, as you note correctly. However, it was the arrival of another Republican from Utah in 1932 and 1933, Marriner Eccles, who broke through the economic thinking in DC. His appearances before Congress and the Senate were so powerful FDR invited him to DC to make the changes he proposed. And the difference between 1930 and 1934 was that the US ditched the gold standard (domestically) that was brining the country down.
The Secret Life of Marriner Eccles to give you the flavor of the man
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/09/03/the-secret-life-of-marriner-eccles/
Roubini discusses his monumental contributions here:
http://www.economonitor.com/blog/2011/09/testimony-of-marriner-eccles-to-the-committee-on-the-investigation-of-economic-problems-in-1933/
Back in the 80’s, everyone was whining about how the Japanese were competing with us unfairly and how the Japanese would soon own the world. Then Japan became rich and their competitive advantage disappeared.
Back in the 90’s, everyone was whining about how the Taiwanese were competing with us unfairly and how the Taiwanese would soon own the world. Then Taiwan became rich and their competitive advantage disappeared.
Back in the 00’s, everyone was whining about how the Koreans were competing with us unfairly and how the Koreans would soon own the world. Then the Koreans became rich and their competitive advantage disappeared.
Now in the 2010’s …
Allowing people to buy what they want instead of what the govt wants is always the bane of leftists.
Free trade has boosted the economy, not destroyed it.
I blame Al Gore
The bogus “scientists” (eg James Hanson), and left wing, apocalyptic lobbyists (eg Naomi Orekes) and industral profiteers (eg Maurice Strong) would not have been able to pervert the general scientific community without strong political backing and Al Gore provided this during his stint as Vice President under Bill Clinton.
The Club of Rome ran the “running out of resources” agenda for decades with only minor success but it was the political patronage from Al Gore that allowed the Global Warming/Climate Change cohort to gain traction and undermine the scientific process. And once “the science is settled” mantra was backed by the climate scientists the whole left wing, CAGW, Agenda 21 movement was able to go mainstream
My pet hate – sanctimonious rich socialists and rich communists. They made their money virtuously without, of course, emitting a single molecule of CO2 from their private jets or without disadvantaging a single person anywhere on the planet but the rest of us are not even allowed to have a go because we are probably environmental vandals. Unless of course we invest through them.
Spot on. They hate the very system that gave them so much and want to tear it down for everyone else. They are also human haters. Attitudes such as theirs are no use for any society. Civilization needs to kick PC out the door, toughen up and start dealing with the destroyers within. It’s like being in a boat and watching someone actively drilling a hole in the bottom.
I blame Al Gore
The bogus “scientists” (eg James Hanson), and left wing, apocalyptic lobbyists (eg Naomi Orekes) and industral profiteers (eg Maurice Strong) would not have been able to pervert the general scientific community without strong political backing and Al Gore provided this during his stint as Vice President under Bill Clinton.
The Club of Rome ran the “running out of resources” agenda for decades with only minor success but it was the political patronage from Al Gore that allowed the Global Warming/Climate Change cohort to gain traction and undermine the scientific process. And once “the science is settled” mantra was backed by the climate scientists the whole left wing, CAGW, Agenda 21 movement was able to go mainstream.
test
Wow, it looks like my post blaming Al Gore has been censured!
I don’t know what you said but the “blame” isn’t just his and goes back far further than that individual.
Now the post has turned up twice 🙁
Can the mods please delete one of them (either #comment-2150413 or #comment-2150415)
And this comment trail
It showed up 3 times on my screen…
Your Post deserve to be listed 3 times. Well said Analitik.
This author knows from personal investigation that the evidence shows that human CO2 is not causing AGW, that the hypothesis is disproved.
1. No predicted hotspot.
2. No predicted increase in H2O vapour.
3. More radiation to space instead of the predicted less.
Three central predictions failed, the theory is wrong. Believers in it are crackpots.
Ron, what measurement is used to record this: 3. More radiation to space instead of the predicted less.?
Does anyone have an answer to this?
Socialism/Communism is in a way both a political philosophy and an economic philosophy. The West in theory separates the two into Capitalism (economics) and Democracy (political). The Chinese attempted to implement Capitalism in a Communist system of government and for a while they flew high, but the natural forces of economics that make Capitalism work will also severely punish those who exert too much top-down control, and China is in slow motion collapse at this point.
That same rule holds for the West, who have likewise abandoned the “free” part of “free market” in favor high speed trading algorithms, Too-Big-to-Jail bankers, and good old third-world dictator style money printing with eight years of QE.
Face it we’ve already been taken over by the Left, they only lack the requisite “disarming of the populace” bit to complete the job.
Some of us wonder if Ayn Rand’s lover Alan Greenspan, who read and commented on Atlas Shrugged as she was writing it, did this on purpose by holding interest rates too low for too long after the dot-com bubble burst, and triggered the housing bubble that affected more Americans at a deeper level than any previous bubble since the Great Depression. I doubt his hideout is in the Rockies, however, probably offshore with everyone else. This country has been pretty much looted dry.
@ Notanist,
Have you left yet ?
Better the enemy you know ………..
I must disagree with the premise. It is not about religion it is about drama. People love drama.
Watched a TV show last night where the hero died of radiation poisoning as a result of a weapon. It was a slow agonizing death. Over the years I have watched a majority of the adults who raised me die as a result of radiation poisoning administered by medical professionals in a failed effort to treat cancer. It was a slow agonizing death.
Tomorrow we are going to a funeral for my mother-in-law. Radiation was not involved, but it was a slow agonizing death.
We love drama because it diverts us from real problems.
I am an engineer who is very good at solving problems. Watching people being overcome by age is not one of those problems I can solve. Working in the power industry, it was my honor to make electricity to help old people be more comfortable.
The first thing I would do to reduce AGW is ban jet travel for those worried about AGW. Obama would lose Air Force one to go play golf with Tiger Woods. Obama lives in a city that needs volunteers to pick up litter if he needs some exercise.
If religion and environmentalism have anything in common it the hypocrisy of the drama majors who ignore the tenets of faith.
There is a lot of truth in the article, though I tend to think people are as much tied up in drama and seemingly just causes as they are in the politics of socialism.
A major fault with the ‘socialism argument’ is that the word ‘socialism’ can mean whatever the hell the person/writer/Hitler/Stalin wants it to.
Also, re the following statement;
I think that actually showing that CO2 is NOT causing AGW may be even harder than pretending one has proved that it does.
The theory is not just that “it does”. It is a specific mechanism: CO2 warming causes evaporation, and the excess H2O provides a heating boost in the form of a tropospheric hotspot. The extra water isn’t there and the hotspot isn’t there. The theory is wrong and proven wrong. Your final statement:
“I think that actually showing that CO2 is NOT causing AGW may be even harder than pretending one has proved that it does.”
in this case makes no sense. Consider this analogy: Someone calls the police and says “The crooks are stealing my piano with a big crane reaching in from the street!” The police call and there is no crane in the street and the piano is still there (no warming for 18 years). But the piano owner says “So what? Proving that no one is stealing my piano may be even harder than proving that they are.”
And he’s right. Maybe someone is forging a false ownership document and they plan to send the repossessors to get the piano tomorrow. Maybe someone is digging a tunnel in from the house next door. Who knows? Of course it is harder to prove that something isn’t happening at all. Most of the alarmism around (on all issues) relies on this simple but trivial and unimportant truth.
The real question is, what do we have good reasons to believe, as opposed to what we conclusively show or prove. And the theory as to how the CO2 is causing AGW has been shown to be wrong. That there might be some other unknown way that it might happen is a trivial truth, but not one that sensible people will waste time on. Let someone who believes it find the unknown mechanism, then we can check it out. Until then, let’s stop ruining our own wealth, and more importantly ruining the wealth prospects of the poor, with the CAGW nonsense.
Agree with your text, Ron: a true theory cannot have false consequences. However, a false theory may have true consequences. The latter is the source of confirmation bias by which we can uphold false ideas for a long time. His piano being stolen (false) implies that he is worried (correct). If we consult a logical truth table, we may discover that the situation is even more funny: a false theory correctly implies everything, true or false. AGW implies that we will get less and more snow. Regarding your final sentence, it is painful for a Dutch Labour-voter like me, to see how a former Greenpeace activist infiltrated that party and sold out in negotiations a considerable part of our welfare state in order to dump billions in the North Sea for building windmills. Today, nice youngsters are posting in green jackets before my local shop, selling like Jehovah Witnesses their CO2 gospel. In disgust I can only tell them that they are involved in a swindle.
Ron – what you forget is the observation that the piano is moving. Someone must explain what is causing the piano to move. The climate does change, and the pause is soon to be no more. What is your explanation?
That the El Nino temporarily warmed the planet, as soon as the coming La Nina gets established, the pause will not only return but will lengthen dramatically.
showing that CO2 is NOT causing AGW may be even harder than pretending one has proved that it does.
===========
Freud said that your problems are due to unresolved issues with your parents. Prove he was wrong.
The Null Hypothesis says Freud is wrong because even orphans have problems. Climate Science says Freud is right because he was able to find some people with problems that had unresolved issues with their parents. Therein lies the difference between science and pseudoscience.
Science looks for the exceptions. Climate Science homogenizes the exceptions.
Beautiful.
+10
ferdberple,
Spot on. He makes a prediction:
…the pause is soon to be no more.
Hubris. But of course, anything can happen.
However, the fact that almost 20 years has passed without any global warming demolishes the CO2=AGW conjecture. That parrot is dead.
I was in the Ukraine in 2002. I talked to several people, young and old. I found out several things. People in western Ukraine (who speak predominately Ukrainian) and people in eastern Ukraine (who speak predominately Russian) don’t really like each other. And the people who lived under communism hated Russia while the people who didn’t live under communism and spoke Russian loved Russia.
I concluded from that trip that the only people who really like communism and socialism are those who have never experienced it. And remember: the leaders and other influential people don’t experience socialism or communism. What people who promote socialism and communism don’t realize is that people are corrupt, and politics and free money attracts corruption like ants to sugar. The less accountability and more money, the more corruption there is. It looks good on paper, but the paper your ideas are written on assume people are incorruptible. I learned a long time ago that you can be smart but not wise and you can be stupid and very wise.
(By the way, I’ve always thought socialism was an economic system and communism is an oppressive government with a socialism economy.)
Is this the long way of saying keep your guns well oiled, cus you never know when you might need them.
the only people who really like communism and socialism are those who have never experienced it
==============
the grass is always greener until you actually get to the next field.
Liberal Professors & Media
A major portion of climate science is done by university researchers on government grants. And most university professors self select as Democrats/left. Ergo all who do not agree are those benighted on the right. e.g. 63% liberal-far left vs 12% conservative to far right.
Then only 7% of Journalists are Republicans compared to 28% Democrat.
Food for thought for everyone. The text in the following link describes our time and politics nicely. A bit OT though, but I recommend everyone to read that anyway.
http://thoughtprison-pc.blogspot.fi/
How about an excerpt or two, I might actually read it then.
Here you are.
“When a thoroughly PC intellectual senses that he is being backed-into-a corner where he will need to engage in a properly rational discourse, or senses that a discussion is spreading into other fields and making connections – then ( according to the rules of PC ) anything is permitted if it enables escape from this emergency situation.
Even violence. PC-sanctioned Leftist or privileged – “minority”gangs are allowed, indeed tacitly encouraged, to shout-down, intimitate, silence, assault, and if necessary kill non-PC speakers or writers or organizers – to ensure that any dangerous process of sustained and connected interchange cannot get started, cannot be imposed on the public discourse.”
Some interesting chapters also.
“Imaginary enemies preferred”
“Political correctness, the intellectual elite and the mass media”
“Disinterested altruism and moral superiority”
“Political Correctness is purposefully subversive of the Good”
And so on.
Ugh! Intended audience likely not to be found here.
“Epigraph
This book is intended for normal, mainstream, secular, modern, disaffected and alienated intellectuals; those who are complicit in political correctness (as are all intellectuals) but who are (when not distracted, drugged or dreaming) in a state of despair.
This book will, I hope, help such people to understand their condition, and present the likely choices. It will not help them to save their world (too late for that) but it may help them to save their souls.”
More like socialist religionism.
Global warming is a Socialists dream. The problem can never be solved, only contained; a totalitarian regime is required, but can never be removed because the crisis is permanent and can never be disproven; and the only reward the common man will ever receive is mere survival. What tyrant wouldn’t salivate a the prospect?
You’re just trying to deepen my depression, right ?
Good luck with that.
CO2 is so attractive, because it is the ring of power. You can rule life with the control of CO2.
“Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.”
I was double checking and verifying sources, and when perusing Ecoscience: Population, Resources and this quote, wherever it comes from, does not appear to come from this text.
http://wearechangect.org/wrcct-documents/18564724-Eco-Science-One-Variety-of-Highlights-from-Whole-Book.pdf
Jean Paul Zodeaux – here is a copy of the entire book. The .pdf document has 1649 pages, and the quote is on page 1280, although in the original document/book it is actually on page 837. “PAGENUMBER 837” can be seen on page 1279 of the .pdf document.
https://ia802705.us.archive.org/23/items/Ecoscience_17/JohnHoldren-Ecoscience.pdf
Why not promote CO2?
CO2 saved the planet! How CO2 re-greened the Earth
CO2 saves the poor! Helps crops grow for farmers in the 3rd world.
CO2 – helps you breathe better. (It’s what triggers us to breathe at all!)
CO2 – keeps polar bears breathing!
And the same for carbon. No, more so.
Carbon – without it your loved ones will die.
Carbon – without it X (all life – including polar bears) will die.
Save the polar bears get rid of evil Obama.
Obama hates polar bears!
Ah the possibilities are endless 😉
++++++100000000 !!!!!
http://s19.postimg.org/mkjk6feib/CO2_greening.jpg
Brilliant.
Can I print this off and put it in the window, please?
They assumed, incorrectly, that a CO2 increase causes a temperature increase.
======================
You will get yourself into trouble on this site if you make such claims. I happen to agree with you. There is no conclusive evidence that CO2 is causing the current warming. It might be causing the warming, but there are so many past examples of similar warming not being caused by CO2 that one cannot reject the null hypothesis.
I am yet to see a single example from the past of rapidly increasing CO2 being directly linked to rapidly increasing temperature on the time scales we are seeing today. Now maybe someone can show us just one example. Just a single one from the billions of years of earth’s history showing where a build up of CO2 over 50 years caused a similar increase in earth’s temperatures.
A single example. Anyone?
Because I can show a whole lot of examples where low CO2 caused rising temperatures and high CO2 caused falling temperatures. Here they are. When CO2 is low, temperatures start to rise. When CO2 is high, temperatures start to fall.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/400000yearslarge1.gif
“When CO2 is low, temperatures start to rise. When CO2 is high, temperatures start to fall.”
I prefer to point out that higher CO2 CANNOT SUSTAIN the higher temperature.
but same thing 🙂
And people need to realise that the low CO2 point on that graph, (around 180-200ppm) is the PLANT DEATH point for most plants.
At that point, they CEASE TO GROW, at all. !!! That is seriously SCARY !!!
Fred Burple:
“There is no conclusive evidence that CO2 is causing the current warming. It might be causing the warming, but there are so many past examples of similar warming not being caused by CO2 that one cannot reject the null hypothesis.”
http://phys.org/news/2015-02-carbon-dioxide-greenhouse-effect.html
http://cdn4.sci-news.com/images/enlarge/image_2541e-Greenhouse-Effect.jpg
Increasing CO2 and increasing forcing from that increase.
“I am yet to see a single example from the past of rapidly increasing CO2 being directly linked to rapidly increasing temperature on the time scales we are seeing today. Now maybe someone can show us just one example. Just a single one from the billions of years of earth’s history showing where a build up of CO2 over 50 years caused a similar increase in earth’s temperatures.”
There have been, I’m sure times in the geological past when volcanic CO2 and other GHG’s overwhelmed the biosphere.
However in the record so far discovered CO2 has acted as a feed-back. It followed rising temps as the Earth’s orbital eccentricities played out (Milankovitch cycles).
Co2 can both drive and feed-back. Normally (as above) it acts as a feed-back. Until anthro CO2 emissions. Now It is driving warming and not following.
And the comment “where a build up of CO2 over 50 years caused a similar increase in earth’s temperatures.” is precisely why it’s alarming, as we do not see it in the geological record. Because humans weren’t around to cause it.
Toneb,
Your charts are simply overlays. There is no cause an effect demonstrated. And they compare ‘forcing’ with CO2. ferd berple asked for CO2/T causation.
Ferd is right, there are plenty of charts showing the only verifiable causation, such as this one:
There are other decade long periods where CO2 and temperature are anti-corellated. So much for your claim that ∆CO2 causes ∆T. It clearly doesn’t, at least not to any measurable degree.
Here is another chart showing the only measured causation:
[click in charts to embiggen]
Note the Note in the chart: the cause of ∆CO2 is ∆temperature.
The CO2=AGW conjecture is so shot full of holes that it has been completely falsified. It is wrong; it’s simply a failed conjecture, and those who promoted it should admit that it has failed, then go back and try to formulate a conjecture that works. That’s what the Scientific Method requires.
But they refuse. Instead, they come up with endless explanations to try and rescue it. So at this point, CO2=AGW is no longer science, it’s politics.
“If an honest man is wrong, after demonstrating that he is wrong, he either stops being wrong or he stops being honest.”
Tone,
which is the cause and which is the effect of each of the two characteristics.
Communism was created by the same bankers who promote global warming. Same with Feminism, same with the SJW’s. There were Fourier Socialists who promoted a decentralized kibbutz style of communal living before Marx and his top down central bank version. The Cultural Marxists of the Frankfurt school all came from banking families. All designed to concentrate wealth and resources under oligarchy control. Another good place to look at what’s happening is the COMER vs Ministry of Finance lawsuit.
I was going to post –
“The common enemy of humanity is man.”
Can it get any more Orwellian than that? But several other commentors beat me to the punch.
Oh, well. I guess I can just keep the echo chamber resonating.
The common enemy of government is The People.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Nicely put.
The common enemy of The People, is government.
The bigger your government, the smaller the people.
“The bigger your government, the smaller the people.”
… cause or effect; which is which
?
Reblogged this on Climate Collections and commented:
When the Iron Curtain fell, the “Reds” dropped their red flags and picked up the green.
By bring in the right and left theory, we are harming the real issues of environment. Pollution is creating pollution. This in fact growing at non-linearly and affecting the environment — human health, water resources, etc. We must reduce the confusion.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Completely disagree. Sure, we should tackle pollution but there really is no support for the suggestion that pollution ‘..is growing non-linearly’.
The modern pollutions that we are worrying about today are far less damaging than the old pollutions our population faced in the days before the technological revolution. Only because we can now afford to set the bar so much higher do we behold the illusion that things are getting worse. Precisely the opposite is true. It’s really the same illusion that constantly updates the old scares about increasingly scarce resources, and the same DELUSION that motivates the whole thing, from the Club of Rome down to Leonardo di Caprio. It is very human to think these things .. it’s just not true.
mothcatcher — sorry sir, it is not so. In the ancient time cooking pollution only. Now with the chemical input agriculture technology & industries, water pollution causing severe health hazards and reduction in the potable water availability. Chemical input technology created food pollution that introduced new diseases. Air pollution, there are several ways. To cure health hazards related to pollution [air, water, soil & food] started drug manufacturing industry, polluting activity — hospitals are created, polluting activity. These are creating new diseases. Again new pollution. The vicious circle goes on — this is non-linear increase in pollution and thus health hazards. Whether rich or poor are affected by the pollution.
In USA MIssissippi river with its agriculture pollution created dead zone in Gulf of Mexico. The might river Ganga is polluted, government is spending lakhs of crores of rupees on this. In my own place [Hyderabad] all most all water bodies and ground water is contaminated with pollution and River Musi became a cesspool of poison. Using the water from this river, crops are grown — milk is fetched and supplied to Hyderbad city.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Dr Reddy –
Yep, some parts of the world have some catching up to do.
Dr Reddy, I would respectfully submit that, while it is true that there is chemical pollution from industrial waste in the Ganga (Ganges) River, there is also a very significant amount of pollution from untreated sewage, dead bodies, ashes from cremations, and sick people bathing in the river. These latter activities have been going on for thousands of years – since ancient times. So I don’t think that you can blame all the pollution on “modern” activities such as agricultural technology and the building of hospitals.
Just like weather/climate pollution is a local problem, but pollution is a problem everywhere. If the $trillions wasted studying CO2 (it has not, nor do I believe it ever will be “controlled”) were applied to real pollution problems we could all be much better off.
Monna,
and it seems that they have also known about the hazards of pollution for a long time too (… well, at least in the Kippling tales).
BILLY FISH: Enemies all around. The Bashkai are worst. All towncome out and pisses downstream when we go bathing.
The only reason governments keep people around is they need someone to pay the taxes. If governments ever figures out how to collect taxes from machines, people will very quickly be replaced.
Sheesh, and I thought I was a cynic.
Last I heard the government employees work at the pleasure of the taxpayers.
Might be time to remind them of that fact.
Thanks to the EU, we are already in a situation where unproductive workers outnumber productive workers by as much as four to one. (I include designers etc doing paperwork as productive workers, unproductive are those who simply exist to fill in forms or ensure compliance with regulations.) If it were not for machines boosting the output of the productive few we’d have gone bust long ago.
Time for Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B, then
First government prints money, okay because it’s backed by foreign investors, right? Then they pass out the fresh money, trillions in all, only to those who support and befriend government. When the successful get hold of that money it is forcibly taken, called taxation, to be given back to friends of government. That is the cycle of our current socialism.
I would definitely endorse Environmentalism and Global Warming Belief as being Religious Totalitarianism. Socialism normally leads to Totalitarianism as did Communism, as people start to see that the system (read CAGW) is not working for the masses, but only for a small elite, who have to introduce terror to control the masses and enforce the system.
I recently read a fascinating explanation of how the Nazi salute originated.
Apparently it was the ‘opposite’ of the clenched fist salute that the ‘eco warriors’ in your picture are using!
Nazi salute has its origins in Ancient Rome, where it was meant to symbolize that the greeter bears no arms. Clenched fist has always been used by communists – right from their beginnings, to this day…green is the new red, so why change things…
CAGW is a political phenomenon, not a physical one.
Scientifically, the CAGW hypothesis has already been disconfirmed, because CAGW projections already exceed reality by a sufficient disparity (2+ standard deviations) and duration (20 years) for official disconfirmation under the rules of the Scientific Method.
CAGW alarmists have so far gotten away with adjusting the raw data to artificially meet CAGW projections, rather than adjusting the hypothesis to match the empirical evidence…
The alarmists are quickly running out of time and wiggle room, and their desperation is palpable. The poll numbers of taxpayers that still think CAGW is a serious existential threat are falling. As the CAGW disparity and duration continues to increase unabated, it’s only a matter of time before further adjustments may become legally actionable under malfeasance of public fund laws.
Because of various natural climate factors now taking effect, in about 5 years, the disparity and duration will likely increase to 3 standard deviations for 25 years, which is when scientists outside of climatology will have no other choice but to expose the incongruities between CAGW hypothetical projections and actual observations.
CAGW is at the beginning of its demise.
Hopefully the collapse of CAGW will enlighten people to the overall ideological failures of Socialism, which requires false agendas and the initiation of force to gain unwarranted control, power and money over the people it rules…
“CAGW alarmists have so far gotten away with adjusting the raw data to artificially meet CAGW projections,”
I could be mistaken, but I believe even the adjusted data fail to meet the IPCC model projections.
There are always some gullible enough to believe that correlation is causation. CAGW, once sufficiently debunked, will be replaced with another red herring. Human history is never without authoritarians wanting to control/exploit everyone else. They will always find some boogeyman to exploit for their selfish goals.
Environmentalism is indeed a code for living by for many people these days, for whom it has replaced religion. In principle that’s not a bad thing, but what’s happened is that a few clever people have basically emulated Hitler and his hijacking of the NSP, by hijacking the environmentalist movement into supporting their climate scam. If the victims of this deception stopped for a moment and thought about it, the climate scam actually has about as much to do with environmentalism as extermination camps have to do with socialism.
nothing eposed the CAGW agenda better than this recent Thomson Reuters’ piece.
18 Feb: Thomson Reuters Foundation: Help at hand for countries desperately seeking climate cash
Several big international funds, including the U.N. Green Climate Fund, are trying to dole out billions of dollars to countries and communities to help them tackle climate change by adapting to extreme weather and adopting renewable energy.
But most government officials and smaller institutions simply do not know how to access this money, experts say. Meeting the funds’ conditions is often laborious…
***High standards are needed to ensure the money is spent well and in line with funds’ policies on gender equality, for example…
(Reporting by Alisa Tang, editing by Megan Rowling. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, corruption and climate change.)
http://www.reuters.com/article/climatechange-asia-funding-idUSL3N15W3SZ
Reuters, with their Point Carbon, now Carbon Pulse, is basically climate central, yet only an African website and UNCCC carried the above, despite all MSM being subscribers to Reuters.
the above piece also explains the MSM’s obsession with identity politics, the claim women and the poor are the most vulnerable to CAGW, and their insistence that CAGW is a left/right thing (huh?).
Good article so far as the socio-political analysis goes. But this bothered me, “The author believes the evidence shows that human CO2 is not causing AGW, that the hypothesis is not proved.”
In science and statistics, we do not prove hypotheses. We disprove the null hypothesis, which for climate science is the hypothesis that climate fluctuations are driven by natural factors.
On presently available evidence, we cannot reject the null hypothesis and therefor we cannot accept the alternative hypothesis that the activities of mankind are driving secular climate change, secular global warming.
On presently available evidence, we can observe that the climate has fluctuated before and after the industrial revolution. But we cannot accept the hypothesis that climate has changed and will continue to change in one direction on the scale of centuries because we have too short a period for which we have reliable data.
We cannot reject the hypothesis that natural drivers of climate have had and will continue to have more impact on the climate system than mankind.
The religious beliefs that support AGW go back even before the Greek concept of hubris to the belief systems of the Near and Middle East that predate both Moses and Abraham. The myth of the Tower of Babel is an example of the inclination towards belief in retribution for departing from religious notions of the proper place of mankind.
The fable of Cain and Abel is similar in its message: the evil farmer (Cain) has killed the good nomadic herder (Abel). The religious message was that farming goes against nature but nomadic herders comply with nature.
I note that the promoters of the Gaia religion are those whose economic and financial status is not threatened by policies that would reverse the growth in living standards of the middle class. Those who regard themselves as the elite among us seem to share nostalgia for the way things were before the industrial revolution when people were more respectful of their betters, when servants and workers did what they were told, nostalgia for the days when it cost so little to engage a plumber, an electrician, a maid and gardener because so few alternative employment opportunities existed until the industrial revolution.
For let there be no mistake, the consequence of radically reducing the use of fossil fuels will be to reduce the living standards of most people in most countries. If the industrial nations succeed in radically reducing the emission of CO2, only the financially independent will enjoy security for themselves and be confident that their children will do the same.
“On presently available evidence, we cannot reject the null hypothesis” Not everyone agrees.
Lovejoy has rejected the null hypothesis you describe.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00382-014-2128-2
seaice1:
NO! Lovejoy has NOT rejected the Null Hypothesis; he has only said he has.
Without evidence I would not accept that he or anybody else had rejected the climate Null Hypothesis, or they had flown a glider to the Moon, or anything else.
You are making the false claim that Lovejoy has rejected the Null Hypothesis so YOU have the responsibility to justify your claim. That responsibility requires YOU to read your link then to report back saying the observation of Lovejoy which YOU are claiming refutes the Null Hypothesis.
Richard
“The fable of Cain and Abel is similar in its message: the evil farmer (Cain) has killed the good nomadic herder (Abel). The religious message was that farming goes against nature but nomadic herders comply with nature.”
It’s sure as shootin’ not the “religious message” I got from that scripture, and I recommend folks not fall for such fanciful declarations about what the Book is “really” telling us. Might as well believe it was a denouncement of all people who’s name starts with a “C’ . . ; )
Climatism is a culture. Literally, with everything from how to live your life, beliefs, religion, outlook and even diet. Only as a cultural shift could it gain any traction. To that end, it fits progressive and socialist thinking perfectly.
It is designed to do so, to tap into the macro cultures already out there, and combine them.
Self hating humans, socialists, control freaks, intellectual bean counters, progressives and environmentalists. All rolled up into one.
It is also one of money, not many poor people buy into this culture because when you are poor, you feel the effects of this culture first hand, well educated and cushy living standard progressives and the political class, all have pretty cushy living standards, they all drive travel and buy into consumerism in a big way.. and assuage this guilt by shouting about climate change
I acknowledge the President has the right to nominate a replacement for the late Justice Scalia but, if his nominee, or one of his nominess, is confirmed, it would mean President Obama will have appointed fully a third of the Justices on the Supreme Court.
can’t recall any articles defending the President’s right to appoint the new Justice mentioning this!
17 Feb: Bloomberg: Observers: Without Scalia, Clean Power Plan’s Odds Boosted
By Anthony Adragna, From Energy and Climate Report
“It’s an amazing sequence of events,” Jody Freeman, a professor at Harvard Law School, told Bloomberg BNA. “The Clean Power Plan proponents got the news of the stay and then suddenly Justice Scalia died and everything turned upside down.”…
One factor that could impact the case is whether Senate Republicans follow through on their threat not to consider anyone President Barack Obama nominates to the Supreme Court during the remainder of his presidency…
If an Obama or a nominee appointed by a future Democratic president made it onto the court, that justice could provide a crucial fifth vote to uphold the regulation, attorneys said. A Republican appointee might keep the current court balance that was seen as likely to overturn the regulation…
Beyond the impact to ongoing litigation, Scalia’s death and the apparent unwillingness from Senate Republicans to consider a replacement will likely help elect a Democratic president willing to appoint a justice favorable to the Clean Power Plan, Paul Bledsoe, a former White House energy aide under Democrat Bill Clinton, said…
http://www.bna.com/observers-without-scalia-n57982067390/
14 Feb: E&E News: Evan Lehmann: SUPREME COURT: Scalia’s death plunges campaigns, climate cases into chaos
(Reporter Jeremy Jacobs contributed)
The death of Justice Antonin Scalia instantly infused the presidential race with sharpened urgency and increased optimism among Democrats that the president’s climate initiatives would survive legal challenges…
Paul Bledsoe, a former climate aide under President Clinton, predicted that a prolonged delay to vote by the Senate could “backfire politically” at the height of an election year.
He also sees brighter days ahead for Obama’s executive actions on climate change.
“The court’s stay of the Clean Power Plan now seems even more a case of partisan overreach,” Bledsoe said in an email, adding, “the likelihood that the CPP will be upheld by the court has just increased dramatically.”
http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060032372/print
Tim Ball:
Your above polemical rant is a classic collection of falsehoods and misrepresentations of which Goebbels would have been proud.
It starts by presenting this set of unsubstantiated – because they are untrue – claims
The original “political agenda” was right wing (n.b. not left wing) and was rapidly adopted by people, parties and countries of all political persuasions. Marginalisation of opponents is a common political action used by all political activists and is called ‘negative campaigning’.
The scientific hypothesis of global warming had existed for a century and was ignored by almost everyone because the nineteenth century calculations indicated that global temperature would rise by about 1°C but it had not. Then, in 1979 the right wing Margaret Thatcher came to power as UK PM, and for personal reasons immediately upon taking power she raised global warming to become a major international policy issue. Why and how she did that can be read here.
So, in reality,
An interesting pattern developed early in the official involvement in global warming. If a person challenged the claim that humans were causing global warming (AGW), it was assumed they were Thatcherite (i.e. on the political right). If you supported AGW, then you were on the right. This categorization was not related to the science, but to the politician promoting the science involved.
The USA sensibly took little interest in global warming for nearly two decades after the scare had taken hold in much of the world. The reason for this is same as the reason why other countries adopted the scare. Thatcher had generated the global warming scare by campaigning about global warming at each summit meeting, and overseas politicians began to take notice of Mrs Thatcher’s campaign if only to try to stop her disrupting meetings, so they brought the matter to the attention of their civil servants for assessment. The civil servants reported that – although scientifically dubious – ‘global warming’ could be economically important. The USA was the world’s most powerful economy and was the most intensive energy user. If all countries adopted ‘carbon taxes’, or other universal proportionate reductions in industrial activity, each non-US industrialised country would gain economic benefit over the USA. So, many politicians from many countries joined with Mrs Thatcher in expressing concern at global warming and a political bandwagon began to roll.
Throughout this time the global warming scare ceased being a right-wing issue and became an all-party concern: the rewards for gaining economic benefit over the USA would be obtained by all other countries at the cost of the USA. To this day the global warming scare remains an issue that is opposed and is supported by people and Parties across the entire political spectrum. For example, communist China put a ‘death blow’ into the scare at the Copenhagen climate conference in December 2009.
But USA sensibly ignored the scare. Any USA response would involve the USA in consideration of involvement in activities intended to gain economic benefit by all other countries over the USA and at the cost of the USA.
Then Democrat Al Gore attempted to revive his failed political ambitions by making a poor sci-fi movie that scare-mongered about global warming. Released in 2006 the propagandist nature of the film is demonstrated by this promotion of the movie that says
Al Gore’s “life long commitment to reversing the effects of global climate change”? The global warming scare did not exist prior to 1980 and Gore was born in 1948!
The claim of Al Gore’s “life long commitment” is clearly and unarguably a falsehood. Indeed, it is as clearly and unarguably as false as your claim that “early in the official involvement in global warming” “a person” who “challenged the claim that humans were causing global warming (AGW)” “was assumed” to be “on the political right.”
Americans responded to Al Gore’s climate campaign by being pro and anti Gore: i.e. by aligning according to left and right wing affiliations. This uniquely US alignment of pro-AGW being left wing and anti-AGW being right wing occurred late in global warming scare and has not been adopted elsewhere.
The remainder of your lengthy article is built on the falsehoods I have here refuted and – being based on falsehood – they are almost all also false.
Richard
I love the way socialists define everything they disagree with as being right wing.
Which just proves to them that socialism is perfect.
I wish someone could explain to me how a system that takes money from those who work and uses it to buy votes from those who don’t want to work, is supposed to promote “freedom”.
PS: You have refuted nothing, just made more naked assertions bases on a belief that anyone who disagree with is right wing.
MarkW:
It seems you are as ignorant of your own country’s history as you are of politics.
The left/right split on the AGW issue uniquely exists in the USA and it is recent.
In 1997 the US Senate unanimously voted to not sign the Kyoto Protocol or anything like it. This was the Byrd–Hagel Resolution that was agreed by a majority of 95–0.
As I explain in my above post this US bi-partisan political unanimity on AGW ceased with the release of Al Gore’s sci-fi movie in 2006.
If there is anything else you want to know then please ask me and I will attempt the Herculean task of trying to educate you.
Also, socialists do NOT define anything they don’t like as being right wing. For example, communism is a left wing political philosophy that socialists oppose. In reality, it is the extreme right (i.e. fascists) who pretend everything their history exposes about them is left wing (e.g. see the very first post in this thread and which is by somebody calling himself Andrew).
Richard
I love the way Richard actually believes that he is the standard by which truth must be measured.
That the senators in 1997 knew that staying in office was more important than supporting the Kyoto protocol is not evidence that leftists as a whole aren’t committed to the AGW meme today.
Socialists don’t admit to defining everything they dislike as right wing, but just read what they write, and it is obvious that this what they do.
You are a perfect example of this.
MarkW:
I know that fascists are not noted for logical statements, but your latest non sequitur is even more laughable than your usual offerings.
The above essay by Tim Ball is based on a claim that
My post explained that those assertions are the precise opposite of the historical reality.
You responded with untrue and irrelevant fascist propaganda and added
So, I replied
And your response says in its entirety
But my post demonstrated I think evidence is the standard by which truth must be measured: that is why I cited the evidence of the Byrd–Hagel Resolution.
Despite that, you claim I assert myself as being the standard by which truth must be measured. In other words, you ignore my answer to you and assert that I behave as you – and and all other fascists – behave.
Importantly, you pretend that the fact of the unanimous Senate vote in 1997 does not demonstrate bipartisan unanimity and you ignore the fact that the bipartisan unity ended in 2006 with Al Gore’s movie.
Simply, fascists attempt to define everything you dislike as left wing, and everything you write says you do.
Richard
As always, Richard makes naked assertions and expects everyone to bow down and worship them.
It really is fascinating how Richard declares that anyone to the right of him is a fascist.
I guess it’s easier than actually thinking for yourself. Once you convince yourself that your opponents are less than human, rounding them up into the camps becomes that much easier. It’s the socialist way.
MarkW:
I see you again think that falsehoods and insults refute facts, evidence and information. And you are being juvenile when you claim that facts, evidence and information are merely assertions.
I yet again point out that I do NOT think everyone to the right of me is a fascist.
I yet again point out that YOU have repeatedly demonstrated and YOU repeatedly demonstrate that YOU are a fascist.
Richard
… What planet do you live on ?
Basic Socialist motivation is to spread wealth more evenly.
So all this talk about wealthy socialists is so much hot air.
The reality is that since WW2 the top 1% have seen a massive increase in wealth at the expense of the rest of the population .
Some socialism!!!!!
The rich avoid paying taxes and once middle class professions (like scientists) are reduced to average or lower average incomes.
Bankers walk away with million pound bonuses after wreaking their banks and pass on the bill to ordinary taxpayers.
Britain now has extensive networks of charity food banks.
This slip into absolute poverty was unheard of just 10 years ago.
Now in the USA there is a left/right split on the question of increased CO2 in the atmosphere.
However most people in the UK would regard the american Democratic Party as being on the right wing of the British political spectrum
Was GW Bush a left winger?
What was his opinion about CAGW?
The effects of increased atmospheric CO” a question of science and will one day be settled.
To say its a left wing plot is just a right wing rant.
Articles like this do nothing to build an alternative narrative to the CAGW .
I’m glad that in the UK there is no such left/right split on the question.
Typo
The effects of increased atmospheric CO” should be
The effects of increased atmospheric CO2
Bryan:
You say
Yes!
My post now in moderation explains how and why the “left/right split” uniquely exists in the USA.
Richard
Look forward to reading it !
This is rubbish at many levels, it doesn’t matter to the greater theme of expanded statism that there were cross political currents over the long history of green inspired AGW claims. That happens.
Dr. Ball correctly labels the PRIMARY leftist nature of AGW activism. If there are rightist who make counter claims, say anti-coal Union purposes under Thatcher etc. these were trivial to scheming of academics desperate to get their claws into big energy by creating a human “problem” to rationalize government authority on a planetary scale, similar to monetary authority or socialism in general.
cwon14:
The “rubbish” is from you.
Right-wing Margaret Thatcher created the AGW-scare. Her reasons for promoting the matter internationally were personal. Opposition to UK coal unions was not pertinent to – and could not be pertinent to – her promotion of AGW as an international issue.
You admit that right-wing Margaret Thatcher created the AGW-scare but assert with no supporting evidence of any kind that “Dr. Ball correctly labels the PRIMARY leftist nature of AGW activism.”
I can and do assure you that every Brit who lived through the 1980s knows nothing Margaret Thatcher initiated was of a “PRIMARY leftist nature”.
Richard
Byron,
There is almost no “right” left in England in elected office. It’s a reflection of statist decline of Europe as whole. That there were willing facilitators in US Republicans are obvious but it doesn’t change the broad point of the article.
Ooops!
Obviously, in my post now in moderation, I intended my first summarising para. to say
So, in reality,
An interesting pattern developed early in the official involvement in global warming. If a person challenged the claim that humans were causing global warming (AGW), it was assumed they were on the political left . If you supported AGW, then you were assumed to be be Thatcherite (i.e. on the political right). This categorization is not related to the science, but to the politician promoting the science involved.
Sorry for the error.
Richard
And, largely missed, is the fact that liberals tend to take government jobs….bureaucrats…..and tend to take University positions at much higher rates than conservatives. It fits their brain to not take risks, except with other people’s money and it allowed the dogmatic global warming to infiltrate down to five year olds who are now worried that eating meat is sucking all of the water out of the ground. I can’t even watch a children’s show with my daughter without pores reeking it for crap political proselytizing.
..And as teachers unfortunately !
Prescreening……what is this spell check auto changing?
Totally and very off topic, but EVERY Aussie out there needs to see this poll from 2GB and Andrew Bolt
(sorry AW, but this is a political thread 😉 )
http://s19.postimg.org/iofywde7n/Abbott_hands_down.png
Reblogged this on Norah4you's Weblog and commented:
Please remember one of wattsup blogs I reblogged earlier this year: But, since the middle of 2005 (that would be slightly over 10 years), the arctic sea ice area anomaly has been oscillating steadily at right around -1.0 million sq kilometers. So, whatever 70 year cycle or natural change or polar bear shitte piles caused it to “change” from its 1979-1990 average of +1.0 Mkm^2 to -1.0 Mkm^2, the effect has NOT done ANYTHING to further melt arctic sea ice since 2005. In fact for almost all of the past 18 months, arctic sea ice area has been hovering right at the -2 std deviation levels all the time. Not increasing to be sure, but not decreasing either.True facts presented in comments of “Gosh a new model based study puts temperature increases caused by CO2 emissions on the map, Wattsup with that 2016/01/20 Have all the money gone to find a model supporting CO2-believers beliefs….. ?????
A further suggestion to add to the writer’s article is that my experience of sitting on a UK county council committee was that the warmists seemed to be Arts Graduates who had no conception of what electricity was so thought that it must be stored like water or gas so wind ‘farms’ were our saviour. As for the CO2 effect then they just accepted the ‘scientists’ view as being right. Here as in the U.S. (I think) most universities adopt a left wing stance on just about everything thanks to the infiltration of communists in the early post war decades.
If Socialism – the ‘far left’ variety – was the answer to all our environmental concerns and the solution to AGW, then the pre-1989 East Germany would have been a paradise on Earth and the world and his wife would have been beating a path to its borders. The fact that Erich Honecker and his chums laid waste to a large part of the planet, and then ‘imprisoned’ the populace of that sad, polluted state says it all, for me.
This will be very upsetting for the USDA and World health Org., i.e. UN. Van der Nest made another crucial point during cross examination of th HPCSA’s final expert witness, Stellenbosch University psychiatry professor Willie Pienaar, one on which this hearing hinges, saying: “South Africa has a constitution that specifically guarantees scientists freedom of speech.
“This is important not only for our democracy, but for the development of humankind that scientists not be muzzled and that their freedom of speech is protected.”
Just the same fight as Climate Change. Tim Noakes: caught in a turf war over an inconvenient truth? http://www.biznews.com/low-carb-healthy-fat-science/2016/02/22/tim-noakes-is-he-caught-up-in-a-turf-war-over-inconvenient-truth-banting-lchf/
What the UN’s World Health Org., and USDA don’t want you to know ! If the HPCSA hoped its hearing against UCT emeritus professor Tim Noakes on a charge of unprofessional conduct would shut him up, the opposite has happened. http://www.biznews.com/low-carb-healthy-fat-science/2016/02/22/tim-noakes-is-he-caught-up-in-a-turf-war-over-inconvenient-truth-banting-lchf/ parallels with Climate Change is astonishing. In Noakes Medical Intervention there is no money to be made. Big food and Big Pharma are very concerned.
So just out of curiosity, is there anyone on in the comments section that would identify as left wing? e.g. vote for Bernie Sanders (or comparable politician when not from the US) ?
No one who cares about the issue, which I believe would be 100% of Skeptics/Climate Realists would vote Sanders or Clinton, or anyone who espouses the CAGW dogma. It is the most important issue of our time. All others pale by comparison.
Is it really that important? I mean, if you subscribe to CAGW, then yes, it’s catastrophic and therefore important. But if you don’t, well… then all you have is a bit of fossil fuel being replaced by renewable (which is a good thing considering that our oil money mostly goes to terrible governments that we don’t want to support). And a lot of woowaaa in UN conferences that tend to not have any effect on the real world anyway. So why is it so much more important than say… massive debt causing possible economic collapse in the near future?
benben:
The left/right split on the AGW issue uniquely exists in the USA and it is recent.
In 1997 the US Senate unanimously voted to not sign the Kyoto Protocol. This was the Byrd–Hagel Resolution that was agreed by a majority of 95–0.
As I explain in my above post this US bi-partisan political unanimity on AGW ceased with the release of Al Gore’s sci-fi movie in 2006.
Richard
Interesting post. Thanks. But it seems like in my country there also is a tendency for right-wing to be less concerned about the environment. I’m guessing it has something to do with that if you intrinsically don’t like big government you’ll tend to distrust issues for which you need big government to make it work. Except for nuclear energy and fighting massive wars in far away countries. You definitely need a lot of government for those, but right wing types still tend to favour them.
benben:
Thanks for that.
I note your opinion that “in {your} country there also is a tendency for right-wing to be less concerned about the environment” and I suspect that may be true, but I have not seen any evidence that it is true.
I intend no offense when I say that such opinions (both pro and anti right or left) tend to reflect the positions on the political spectrum of those providing the opinions. Hence, my desire for evidence.
What I do know is that throughout the world there are ‘rent seekers’ of every political persuasion who support (or have supported) the AGW-scare for reasons of personal advantage. And throughout the world there are also people who oppose the AGW-scare for reasons of scientific and/or political integrity. Which, of course, does not deny that there are people who support the AGW-scare for reasons of genuine and altruistic concern (to be clear, I think they are mistaken).
Richard
NO and that goes for Hilary and Trudeau .
“the marginalizing of those who questioned the science by linking them to industries and their wealthy owners”
This sentence might have more bearing than its author intended, naming as it does the root cause of political problems far beyond CAGW: “Industries and their wealthy owners” are, or should be, the very definition of “mainstream” in a modern industrial society that literally lives off their productivity. But what has happened instead? Those associated (or associating) with this centerpiece of our society are regarded as “marginalized”, an alleged association with “big oil” etc. is even widely regarded as a smear boardering on libel. The very parts of society that generate wealth cannot logically be “marginal”. Looking at them in this way is IMNSHO the falsehood upon which all the others in today’s politics are built.
Claiming the moral high-ground is a large driver for AGW, larger than the science. Ironically even when acting like unethical thugs AGW zealots still claim the moral high-ground. When ideology and moral posturing supersedes reason, reality, ethics, and common sense you end up with something like Climate Science.
Which is exactly what happened during the era of prohibition. Not favoring prohibition meant you supported immorality. You denied the dire prediction of “knowledgeable and informed” politicians, scientists, scholars and doctors of the certain destruction of society and eventually the country due exclusively to alcoholic beverages.
People ask how can so many believe in AGW, including so many scientists, if AGW is not true. The answer is in another question; how in the world did the Eighteenth Amendment pass prohibiting alcohol. It is extraordinarily difficult to add an amendment to the constitution but this ill conceived, completely out of touch with reality and common sense idea was passed. The cloud of stupid that passed over the entire nation like a plague for this amendment to pass is incredible, but it did. Which as we know led to rampant growth of organized crime, draconian measures by government, poisonous alcoholic beverage substitutes, and after much violence, death, blindness and suffering finally repeal of the amendment.
So if anyone asks how is it possible for AGW to be wrong if there is so much agreement on its being right, mention how the 18th amendment was passed with much more overwhelming agreement and it was one the wrongest, stupidest things this country did as a nation.
Jonah Goldberg’s book ‘Liberal Fascism’ gives a good insight into the rise of national and international socialism under Mussolini and Hitler and Stalin with a good view of liberalism and eugenics (the population control referred to in the article).
This is the essential observation that so many would-be skeptics shy away from for many personal and in the past professional reasons. It’s exceedingly depressing for those of a certain generation to admit your society has sunk to tolitarian agenda science standards especially if you share the same general political sympathy as most do in “Eco” science fields. Add to that the “the just cause” rationalizations for the behavior (ends justify means) and a special conspiracy hate culture surrounding “big oil” etc. and you see the road we are on.
The large growth of government fosters large populations who feel immune to market driven society and even resent it deeply. The Bernie Sanders/Socialist moment is another similar lesson, if people resent the future production economies offer then they seek academic and abstract choices (government and protected enclaves) that are more immune (at least shorter term) to market forces. It explains Obama in 08′ in response to the largely misunderstood “financial crisis” and the general drift down after the revival of the 1980’s of the private sector. As long as they can find rations to distribute (such as climate science research funding) it’s a relatively large audience and stream of like minded experts who will support government control over private interests and freedom. A “Road to Serfdom” cycle if ever there was one.
Some of it is willful ignorance of the consumer of consensus climate narratives (maybe much of it) but at the higher end of academic community in particular there can be no forgiveness for the aversion to directly link AGW to the particular political culture that incubated it from inception. It was always a money and power ploy to expropriate private to government interests for “the common good”.
The enviromental movement is only one sect of the government religion of Secular Socialism.
The Secular Socialists “SS” have been evangelizing in competition with Christianity for decades and has been successful in its efforts particularly since, as the state religion, it has the power to attack the various Christian sects eliminating school prayer and other competing symbols. Its various denominations IPCC, NOW, LGBT, NAACP, SEIU, ACLU, SPLC, etc. have been very successful in recruiting membership and reducing the membership of the competition from Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, et al. The similarities of the SS with deist religions as well as its differences are thought provoking.
The SS membership has a particularly powerful belief system versus its competition. The SS can ignore the actual evidence of its doctrinal failures. Christianity & Islam can only raise money and membership based upon the faith in a Supreme Supernatural being by promising a utopia in life after death even though there is no proof either for or against the premise. The SS has successfully been able to promote its faith in a Supreme Central Collective and promise of an earth bound socialist utopia despite the existence of historical facts that its dogma when instituted has been an abject failure resulting in murder, poverty and destruction of freedom every time it has been implemented.
Speaking as a non-Marxist “practical” socialist, I can honestly say that all environmental radicals that I have come across are not socialists per se, but pseudo-religious theocrats. To them, AGW is their religion. There is no other way to describe how people could rationalize 35 years of non-stop failed prophesies of apocolyptic doom as gospel truths to be defended like Crusaders to the Cross.
As for government policies, AGW is just another perfect hiding place for corruption. Look at the wind farms. Prime example. It’s all about collecting fat subsidies for a power source that rarely works put into place by bribes to politicians. Same with ethanol, which has been the longest running “renewable” subsidy scam.
Also, AGW is all about fear. Anyone who has watched the devolution of the mainstream news media knows that Fear is the preferred method of controlling populations these days. Terrified people are more apt to prefer the infantile security of totalitarianism over the adult uncertainties of democracy.
AGW is also very useful in the Republican versus Democrat power struggles…. or “good fascist, bad fascist” as I like to call it. It’s a fringe issue like abortion and gay rights that can be used to keep the party faithful in line and not questioning more important issues such as economic mismanagement, disastrous foreign policies, and support for terrorists, racists, and authoritarian regimes abroad.
“Practical” socialism I define as the use of moderate social control over a capitalist economy, to provide for the goods and services that capitalism cannot, will not, and should not provide on it’s own. There are certain things that should never be operated on a for-profit basis, prisons being the number one example. Capitalism allows for creative expression in the commercial sphere but regulations are required to protect the population from those predators who abuse the system. A healthy and prosperous working class is the most solid base for a strong economy, not a handful of financiers hoarding all capital and impoverishing the majority. There is always a need for social services for the infirm, the elderly, and the abused that capitalism will not provide. The better we take care of each other, the stronger and more resilient we are as a people.
The “liberals” who want to censor all speech, tear down flags and monuments, put people on trial for free speech and scientific inquiry, destroy fossil fuel production and therefore modern civilization, etc….. they’re just infantile morons. They’re pig ignorant of how the world works. They are convinced they are superior to all others simply by calling themselves liberals. They think electing one man to the White House will instantly cure all the ills of society. They’re ridiculous. They would be completely laughable if not for the fact they are being used as pawns in the Politics of Fear.
Tim Ball,
You have addressed a set of world views that must be discussed if we are to avert a dark age. Thank you.
John
Socialism is really a method for having a few people with great power ruling all of us. These few will have the wealth of the the government to spend and the power of the government to use against the rest of us. It will be 5% on top and the other 95% as slaves. That is what it is about. The smartest (and the most thuggish) of the so called socialists know this and plan to be in the 5%. Others, including the misguided academics, will be slaves, they just do not know it yet. Look at what the USSR was (and in many respects still is), look at China, look at Cuba, look at Venezuela. The concept of socialism as being a viable political / economic system is a sham. Is only about a powerful thuggish elite and the rest slaves dressed up as a compassionate fairy land.
Read “1984”, read history, think. I know it is tough after all of these years being given everything for doing nothing. But try.
Dave the Engineer:
You say
That is as untrue, is as divorced from any reality, and is as ridiculous as the above polemical rant fro Tim Ball.
Richard
I love the way Richard actually believes that all he has to do to refute someone, is to just shout “not true” over and over again.
Oh yea, there’s also the standard “far right wing propaganda”.
While the theory of socialism may not involve totalitarianism, the actuality of it does.
There is no way to force people to live as most of them don’t want to, without massive amounts of force.
MarkW:
I despise the way that you spout untrue political nonsense. All people of good will oppose fascists such as yourself.
‘Dave the Engineer’ posted the untrue nonsense which you have supported with your fascist propaganda.
‘Dave the Engineer’ made the assertions and he needs to provide evidence to support those assertions. All anybody else needs to do is – as I did – to point out that his assertions are falsehoods.
Richard
Can you explain? Socialism is often used as a ruse for totalitarianism. USSR / Stalin, NASI Germany / Hitler, Cuba / Castro, Venezuela / Chavez.
Can you explain? Socialism is often used as a mask for totalitarianism. USSR/Stalin, NAZI Germany/Hitler, Cuba/Castro, Venezuela/Chavez.
There he goes again, the socialist declaring that anyone who disagrees with him must be a fascist.
PS: As usual, Richard declares that because he disagrees with it, it must be wrong.
GTL: By definition, socialism promotes freedom.
Fascism et. al. don’t promote freedom.
Ergo, socialism isn’t fascism.
It’s really simple once you understand how socialists define away any disagreement with their perfect system.
GTL:
You conflate a series of mutually exclusive political philosophies and call them all “socialism”.
NO! I gave a clear explanation of socialism – and the other philosophies you assert – on WUWT here and I subsequentlt discused the matters in that thread.
Please ignore the ‘noises off’ from MarkW: as fascists always do, he tries to ‘shout down’ truth.
Richard
MarkW:
I do NOT say anyone who disagrees with me is a fascist. Your assertion that I do is merely more of your fascist propaganda.
I say YOU by your words and your actions have repeatedly demonstrated and do repeatedly demonstrate that YOU are a fascist.
Richard
Richard,
Thank you for the referral to your earlier posts in another thread. They were helpful in understanding your thinking.
Please reread my post. I did not equate USSR, NAZI Germany or the others with socialism; I said socialism has been abused for more nefarious purposes. You are correct in saying they were not socialist.
My point is a centrally controlled government (as Marx would define socialism) to often is abused to become totalitarianism.
That is not to say that other economic models have not been abused. Capitalism in Argentina has been abused to create corporatism, where the government is controlled by corporations for the benefit of corporations. I believe the Pope is confused about capitalism as a result.
Idealistically, socialism has more appeal than capitalism. Bad as capitalism is, it has worked better than any other I am aware of to date.
GTL:
Thankyou for that. It seems we have much agreement and some disagreement. That is good.
I point out that I strongly agree with you when you say
Indeed, as I said in my linked post you have read
The great risk is not that socialism will evolve into communism (which can never work), but is the same as the great risk of any other form of government: i.e. no system of government guarantees that totalitarians cannot gain control (e.g. see how democracy evolved in Germany in the 1930s). That is the risk to be defended against whatever system of government is adopted.
And I also thank you for ignoring the ‘noises off’.
Richard
GTL:
I genuinely appreciate your answer. My response to your answer has ‘vanished’ and I hope it has gone in the ‘bin’. If it has not appeared in the morning I will resubmit it.
For now, I want you to know I am grateful that you have ignored the ‘noises off’.
Richard
Richard,
No need for thanks when you are correct.
I have always appreciated your responses regarding science, I seek you out in these posts. Your “duels” with Ferdinand (who I respect also) have been a great source of climate education for me. I remain skeptical of “mass balance” and as you know despise the silly bank deposit analogies often employed in that argument.
As you have stated, we likely agree on a great deal more than we disagree.
David democrats keep you poor and uneducated – Discussion on Topix
http://www.topix.com › Louisiana › Natchitoches Parish › Natchitoches
Jan 15, 2015 – It’s really sad to see an entire population be manipulated by a political party who wants nothing more than to KEEP them poor and uneducated …
No matter which system you have, someone will try to game the system and seize power. Freedom isn’t free. You have to work for it. Trying to rely on a ‘system’ to protect you from the power hungry is a mug’s game.
Our democracy is badly corrupted. Folks are willing to elect Sanders or Trump because they have figured that out.
commieBob:
You and I usually disagree, but I agree each and every of your statements in your post I am answering.
Richard
Reblogged this on ClimateTheTruth.com and commented:
A succinct and insightful explanation of the genesis of and moving forces behind the massive disinformation campaign that is Climate Change alarmism.
Jonathan Cohler:
Except that Ball’s essay is a massive disinformation campaign that is a fabrication of history. As Bryan said of it in this thread
Indeed, he understates the matter because using blatant falsehoods against CAGW risks harming opposition to CAGW when the falsehoods are exposed. And the falsehoods are blatantly obvious to people outside the USA because the purported left/right split on AGW only exists in the USA.
Richard
Why does Tim Ball keep on wanting to publicly demonstrate that his knowledge of religious history is about as good as Michael Mann’s knowledge of climate science? For example, he states, “In the medieval Catholic church, you could buy Indulgences to bypass the punishment.” Really? Well, anybody who is prepared to distort reality can make such a claim. The reality is that some people may well have attempted to sell Indulgences. Is that the same thing as ‘The Catholic Church sold indulgences’? Not to anybody with a modicum of reasoning ability. If, say, some Republican politicians were found guilty of embezzling party funds would anybody, with a fair mind, conclude from that ‘The Republican Party promotes embezzlement’?
As to Indulgences not reducing sins because they simply bought you a ‘get-out-of-jail-free card, that just shows in bucketloads that Dr Ball just has not bothered to find out the real meaning of an Indulgence.
This website published article after article saying that the climate alarmists are ignoring the evidence. Well, people can hardly expect the climate alarmists to take any notice of people who show that they are wrong if those same people take no notice when people point out that they are wrong.
As to Hitler, he was never a socialist. He joined the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. For a time this party had a manifesto which could be described as having socialist elements but Hitler was never in favour of those policies. Eventually he removed from influence in the party those who actually did believe in socialism. People who have read the history of the Nazi Party, rather than be mesmerised, by its name know that. Hitler got most of his party funds from rich industrialists, hardly supporters of socialism.
John Oliver created his mown church to prove the fraudulent nature of exemptions and the legal definition of church. Watch the video in the link I give below and pay close attention at the 8 minute mark,
http://www.newsweek.com/irs-under-microscope-after-john-oliver-televangelism-segment-365291
Maybe real and honest scientist’s can form an organization to counter the opposing ‘religious views’ .
IRS UNDER MICROSCOPE AFTER JOHN OLIVER TELEVANGELISM SEGMENT
One of those posts and comments that really makes me wish Anthony turned on thumbsUp
A large component of the battle is between the honest able and the amoral mediocrity .
“If a person challenged the claim that humans were causing global warming (AGW), it was assumed they were on the political right. If you supported AGW, then you were on the left.”
I find this ironic, since the AGW story was pushed into international and American politics by right wingers. Margaret Thatcher is the key figure, but Al Gore was also influential. (Gore was a member of the Democratic Party, a right-wing American political party somewhat more right-wing than the British Conservative Party. The American Republican Party is vary far right wing.)
Sundry money-shufflers and the like (including ENRON) also supported the idea. Hard to image they were left-wingers.
…WTF ? … ” Gore was a member of the Democratic Party, a right-wing American political party ” ?..ROTFLMAO !
The Democratic Party meets 11 of the 14 defining characteristics of a fascist party or movement. Republicans meet all 14. They both support militarism and ultra-nationalism. Both oppose human and labor rights. Both are obsessed with “national security” and crime and punishment. Both use scapegoating as a unifying cause. Both support corporate power and an exclusive and controlled mass media. Both maintain and benefit from a corrupt political system based on legalized bribery and fraudulent elections.
The only three points they differ on is sexism, religiousity and disdain for intellectuals, though they may not differ that much on the last one and AGW may make them similar on the religious factor.
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/fasci14chars.html
11 out of 14 is 86% fascist. Democrats are right wing. Any outward appearances of “left-wing” posturing is merely for show to their fanatically devoted followers and is completely negated by their actual behaviour and policies.
..I guess you live in a fantasy fairy wonderland..Talk to any elves lately ?? LOL…NUTS !
I love the way socialists actually believe that they get to define the terms everyone must use.
What are these so called human and labor rights that Republicans and Democrats oppose?
Are they the standard socialist garbage about having a right to steal from others just because you want to?
I suppose that even having a military is proof that you are obsessed with national security?
It must be sad to live a life so devoid of rationality.
“the Democratic Party, a right-wing American political party”
?
Andrew
To a communist, everything else is right wing.
For an example, while he’s probably not a communist, but Richard defines anyone who disagrees with him as right wingers.
If you still disagree with him after being so corrected, you get promoted to the category of far right winger.
PS: Of course socialists always graduate into full blown communism as their favored scheme of wealth redistribution fails and they need ever more control over the masses to prevent them from keeping their own money.
MarkW:
I yet again say that your fascist beliefs are your problem and I object to your smearing me because of them.
Richard
Let’s see. Pointing out that the National Socialists were socialists makes me a fascist.
It sure must be nice living in Richard’s world were everyone you agree with is pure, and those who disagree with you are unalloyed evil.
Richard demonstrates quite ably the mental gymnastics that socialist use to justify the extermination of those who disagree with them.
PS: I see that Richard still isn’t man enough to apologize for his various libels, worse still he doubles down on them.
It must be sad living with so much hatred in your soul.
MarkW:
More fascist propaganda from you.
Socialists accept the definition of the political spectrum that has existed for centuries. As posts in this thread demonstrate, fascists ‘tear up’ existing definitions and try to pretend that their ‘made up’ definitions should be applied.
Richard
MarkW:
I deserve – but don’t expect to get – your grovelling apology for all the fabrications, insults and smears you have posted about me.
I have NOT libeled you.
Firstly,such a libel is an impossibility because a libel can only apply to a named person or persons and you are an anonymous internet troll. Secondly, I have NOT said any falsehoods about you and/or your behaviour.
Richard
MarkW:
Only fascists have a reason to assert the falsehood that naz1s were socialists: they do it as a method to pretend “it wasn’t us”.
Everybody else recognises the truth that the naz1s were – and neonaz1s are – fascists.
And I do NOT declare anybody who disagrees with me as being right-wing. I say that your actions repeatedly have and repeatedly do demonstrate that YOU are a fascist.
Richard
Moral imperative. Secular pretense. Religion trending cult.
Redistributive change. Monopoly formation. Socialism trending leftward.
Science conducted outside of a limited frame of reference, establishing phenomenon that are incompletely characterized and unwieldy. Philosophy trending faith.
Meet the new orthodoxy. Same as the old.
..Liberal LEFT insanity !…
” cash-strapped California is planning a $15 billion water tunnel designed, at least in part, to save a tiny fish that may already be extinct. ”
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/02/22/critics-calif-water-tunnel-project-claim-its-govt-waste-to-save-tiny-smelt.html?intcmp=hpbt4
I tend to think that Inductivism is at the core of the problem, much more than political orientation.
“The discovery of instances which confirm a theory means very little if we have not tried, and failed, to discover refutations. For if we are uncritical we shall always find what we want: we shall look for, and find, confirmation, and we shall look away from, and not see, whatever might be dangerous to our pet theories. In this way it is only too easy to obtain what appears to be overwhelming evidence in favour of a theory which, if approached critically, would have been refuted.”
― Karl Popper, The Poverty of Historicism
“I was shocked to have to admit to myself that not only had I accepted a complex theory somewhat uncritically, but that I had also actually noticed quite a bit of what was wrong, in the theory as well as in the practice of communism. But I had repressed this – partly out of loyalty to my friends, partly out of loyalty to “the cause”, and partly because there is a mechanism of getting oneself more and more deeply involved: once one has sacrificed one’s intellectual conscience over a minor point one doesn’t wish to give in too easily; one wishes to justify the self-sacrifice by convincing oneself of the fundamental goodness of the cause, which is seen to outweigh any little moral or intellectual compromise that maybe required. With every such moral or intellectual sacrifice one gets more deeply involved. One becomes ready to back one’s moral or intellectual investments in the cause with further investments. It’s like being eager to throw good money after bad.”
― Karl Popper, Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography
“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”
– Leo Tolstoi
Of course pseudo-science based CAGW hypothesis is conveniently adopted as a means to further implementation of socialism on all scales: on levels like; the local community, regional, national and global (international). I do not lay the fundamental cause of the current situation on the ideological activists or radical environmentalists or politicians who adopted the CAGW hypothesis. They are using the most expedient means, of course. I lay the fundamental root cause of the GW situation at the feet of a subjective school of the philosophy of science which, in principle, must have subjective ‘science’ be the means to some other pre-science end; where a pre-science end is required by the broader philosophy that created the subjective school of the philosophy of science.
None of the pseudo-science based CAGW hypothesis could exist without the subjective community of scientists whose ‘work’ forms the pseudo-science based CAGW hypothesis. Yet, I think the broader community of Science has to answer as the cause for the existence of all of it.
I think the broader community of science is the fundamental cause of the dominance of the pseudo-science created CAGW hypothesis because it did not objectively demarcate out of science all of the subjective school of the philosophy of science. Science (with a capital ‘S’) alone is guilty.
John
Real simple, folks.
The Left/Right divide is a sliding scale with “Equal stuff” on the Left and “Individual Liberty/freedom” on the Right.
On the far Left you have Communism with no private-property rights, little individual freedom, with the State controlling all means of production and massive cradle-to-grave rules, regulations and mandates implemented by a gigantic bureaucracy through the initiation of force.
On the far Right is Anarchy with no central government, and individuals cooperating among themselves to their own mutual benefit.
The US was originally founded just to the left of Anarchy with a VERY limited central government that was granted by the People to perform just 18 simple tasks. States and Municipalities were free to implement anything they wanted under their respective State Constitutions, providing they didn’t usurp the 18 powers granted to the Federal government.
The US Constitutional Republic was severely wounded in 1890 with the Sherman Anti-trust Laws and was effectively killed under Wilson in 1913 when he: implemented Federal income taxes, established the Federal Reserve and did away with Senators being appointed by State Legislatures.
The US is now just another failed Socialistic Democracy like the rest of the world, which wastes 40%+ of GDP on government spending, has $20 TRILLION in national debt, $100+ TRILLION in unfunded liabilities, wastes $2 TRILLION/yr on rules and regulation compliance costs, a fiat currency, zero (soon to be negative) interest rates, Obamacare, etc., etc., etc.,
Prior to Wilson, State, Local and Federal spending was only around 7% of GDP…. and the US was: the fastest growing, freest, most affluent, had the highest standard of living, lowest unemployment, largest middle class, highest per capita income, highest saving rates, most technologically advanced, most patents, highest literacy rate, best schools and universities, longest life span, best hospitals, most miles of railroads, the largest economy. etc., the world has ever known. 50% of ALL the world’s goods were made in the US by 1900, yet the US only had 4% of the world’s population… Jeez…
It’s a mess now.
SAMURAI :
As rebuttal of your twaddle I refer you to my rebuttal of similar nonsensein an above post which I copy to here to save anybody needing to find it.
Richard
Fascism is just slightly to the right of Socialism because property rights are still recognized. For both Fascism and Socialism, power and control of its citizens, is still obtained through a massive bureaucracy, high taxes, and a labyrinth of befuddling and counterproductive rules, regulations, mandates and red tape.
Regarding you referring to NAZI Germany as an “extreme right” form of government, don’t be absurd… Need I remind you that “NAZI” was the German acronym for “National SOCIALIST” Party…Oops…
The Leftist historians love to re-write history to suit their political and ideological agendas…
My reply to your original “vanished” reply has also vanished…. LOL..
I was kind, so I don’t know why it was pulled…
I think it may have been pulled because I used the “N-Z-” acronym for the German’s National Socialist Party during the 30’s and 40’s…
My point is that it’s silly to call the… German National Socialists Party a right-wing construct, because, well, it was a type of Socialism; fascism to be exact..
Anyway, in short, just think of the Left/Right divide in terms of government control, power, taxes, agovernment spending as a percentage of GDP, collective rights vs. individual rights, and whether or not the state INITIATES force against its citizens to determine how far Right or Left a political system is… The stronger individual freedoms and individual rights are in terms of life, liberty and personal property and the smaller and less intrusive the government is the more right it becomes until you reach Anarchy, which is the absence of a central government.
Cheers, Richard.
Now that’s funny.
Richard is pointing a post of his which contains nothing more than empty assertions as proof that he is correct.
SAMURAI:
I have refuted your untrue nonsense in a post that has ‘vanished’ but I hope will appear. My ‘vanished’ post refers to my rebuttal in an above post replying to ‘cashman’ who asserted the same basic falsehood that you have repeated.
Richard
Richard–
I obviously didn’t see your “vanished” reply…
Perhaps if you stopped the ad hominem, they wouldn’t get “vanished”…
SAMURAI:
Refuting untrue nonsense is not “ad hominem”.
Richard
Comment to richardscourtney
Richard,
I have to thank you and confess that I did not know about the Methodist church as the genesis of socialism in England, discussed in the link you provided. It has made me think again and has forced me, however uncomfortably, to reappraise my prejudices.
BTW I’m strongly against both the ‘wings’. In my opinion, in practice one is authoritarian but passively elitist, the other is elitist but passively authoritarian.
cheers,
Scott
SAMURAI, in other posts Richard has actually made the claim that socialism promotes freedom.
I guess for those who get to live on the money stolen from others, they have the freedom of not needing to work.
Samurai and MarkW:
Your spouting fascist propaganda falsehoods may provide you with mutual support but adds nothing of value to the thread.
And many will have noticed that in this sub-thread SAMURAI falsely claimed I provided “ad hominem” while MarkW only provides untrue ad hominem.
Richard
I see that Richard is still trying to push the notion that even though the economic policies of the fascists were socialist to the core, they weren’t socialist because he says so.
MarkW:
Yes, Socialism requires the initiation of force against its citizens in order to rob Peter to pay Paul…
There will always be more Pauls than Peters, which is why Socialism will always end in economic collapse and tyranny…
A right can only exist if it doesn’t require the initiation of force or coercion to excercise it.
The American Constitution was originally written to prevent the government from initiating force against its citizens, however, the Constitution no longer exists as written, which is why the US is such an economic and social mess.
MarkW:
I promote truth. You provide lies.
It is not a “notion” that fascists were NOT and are NOT socialists: it is simply true.
Richard
Samurai’s post of February 22, 2016 at 8:30 pm and post of February 23, 2016 at 6:46 am get is exactly right.
Fascism and socialism are just flavors of statism, which all belong on the left wing. Placing two systems that create total state control over their citizens on opposite sides of any political spectrum is idiocy, but this is just a defense mechanism where a socialist tries to pretend the horrors of Nazism aren’t exactly the kind of horrors his ‘system’ always leads to.
shallow pond thinking
waves of ‘original sin’
sediment disturbed
HocusLocus,
Close, but no haiku…
(altho there may be forms I’m not familiar with)
Still, it reads good…
I also tend to think that one of the root causes for the trouble caused by United Nations can be found in the lack of robust scientific principles in the governing principles for United Nations climate pane panel (IPCC): PRINCIPLES GOVERNING IPCC WORK. I find the following parts particularly disturbing:
—
Paragraph 1 :
“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change … shall concentrate its activities …. on actions in support of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change process.”
The prejudice contained in this Paragraph is better seen with an extract from Wikipedia: “The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change .. is an international environmental treaty .. The objective of the treaty is to “stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”.
Hence the following will be a legitimate interpretation of Paragraph 1:
“The panel shall concentrate its activities on actions in support of stabilizing the greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”.
Obviously, paragraph 1 in the principles does not nourish a culture of systematic scrutiny, or attempts to falsify parts of the theory about anthropogenic warming. The way of thinking which is crucial to scientific conduct.
—
Paragraph 10 :
“In taking decisions, and approving, adopting and accepting reports, the Panel, its Working Groups and any Task Forces shall use all best endeavors to reach consensus”
Obviously, consensus is a very central value for the Panel. This can be regarded as a dangerous value to endorse – groupthink is a well known cause of unsound decisions – and argument by consensus is a well known logical fallacy.
—
“I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.”
– Michael Crichton