Guest opinion by Robert McCarter
This is an apology to all those commentators over the years who pronounced on the underlying Marxism in the debate over climate change. I am a scientist by training and have tried my best not to sully the argument with politics, when commentary turned to ‘watermelons’ I turned to another article. Naively I thought the argument would be settled by data not dogmatism.
I recently attended a seminar given by a professor emeritus from UBC on ‘Global Population, Growth and Sustainable Development’, with an introduction by Rex Wyler co-founder of Greenpeace International. Sure that was a clue I was entering the dark lands, but my training make me want to cut out the middlemen and see things for myself.
The softening up started with the idea of social constructs that were artificial and could be replaced with ‘truer’ constructs, as an example the anthropogenic climate change construct that is ‘truer’ than the climate denial construct.
Then came the ‘ain’t is awful’ exponential population graphs, collapsing resource graphs, overflowing carrying capacity graphs and the de rigueur CO2 graph that I can summarize as ‘we’re all doomed’. Note that the population graphs only showed a global trend, and did not display how wealthy nations are getting their populations in order and limiting their growth rates such that increases are largely dependent on immigration. When reminded of this, the lecturer quickly dismissed it – ‘wealthy people are more selfish and do not want to share their wealth with their young’.
What followed was a litany of doom and gloom, how terrible things are now (longevity increasing?, health improving?, poverty decreasing?), that fracking fracking and don’t expect Elon Musk to come to the rescue (I finally agreed with something) with his electric cars and semis and emigration to more hospitable Mars – not a mention of the possible benefits of GMOs (Greenpeace after all), greenhouse greening or small modular reactors. The lecturer implied that billionaires were greedy and did little to share, ignoring that billionaires invest their money and only get a proportion of the great wealth that they create for others.
Having sufficiently depressed the audience it was time for the reveal. We are not doomed if only we change those arbitrary social constructs like capitalism. Roll back your expectations by 75%, have your governments share your wealth with the poor of the world. Hmmm he seemed to have missed the ‘give a man a fish … teach a man to fish …’ proverb. How about Cicero’s “It is human nature that what starts as gratitude, becomes dependency and ends as entitlement.”
But of course he was concerned about all of those extra resources being squandered on the hoi palloi – I get it now!
So having had doubt about climate change being a political rather than scientific problem I am now a bit wiser. Here is another guise for the Marxists, the warmunista peddling their bureaucracy controlled, idealistic sharing in a world driven by more basic motives like if ‘I work harder I gain more’. Sure capitalism has problems and has created problems but it has also created solutions. Our skies are clearer, our water safer, energy more abundant, wildlife is more protected and the future has potential for those willing to work.
ps As a Canadian I apologize for Naomi Kline.
Great post. Thank you. I will save this.
As a Canadian you should apologise for trudeau. Dollars to doughnuts you voted for him and his failed political, affirmative action cabinet.
Mick, as an American, I apologize for Trump. Remember, Hillary did get more votes than him.
Sorry Mark S, Trump had 304 votes and Hillary 227.
In the places that were not sanctuaries Trump won by a landslide. California was a virtual tie. I say Trump won the most legal votes.
@Marc S. Johnson:
Which would matter if:
A) We were a direct democracy, which we are not as it is an unstable form of government that even Plato said was bad and destroys minority rights. “Democracy is 2 wolves and a sheep voting on what is for lunch”
B) Places like California didn’t hand out voter reg like chocolate to anyone with a pulse no questions asked.
C) California was not overrun with millions of illegal aliens who are encouraged to vote. (I live here. I see it.)
D) Places like Chicago didn’t pack ballots. (My son reported overhearing a very liberal democrat black lady behind him in voting line complaining she was only voting 3 times this year and had done better in prior years) In Chicago, you need not have a pulse to vote…
E) Our founders had not been so wise as to preserve country minority rights vs. City dominance via the electoral college.
F) Democrats had not been caught on camera discussing tactics for bussing / driving voters to multiple presincts to vote many times. Oh, and the email…
G) You had not lost, Huge!
Tom in Florida…..for your information “We the People”, (aka the popular vote) elected Hillary.
All votes counted were “legal” Douglas. Now it’s up to you to show which ones were not.
EM Smith:
A) We wouldn’t have our inept president if we were a direct democracy.
B) So?
C) Illegal aliens cannot vote in Federal elections, even you know that
D) I see you believe in fairy tales
E) Our founding Fathers also thought slavery was a good thing.
F) More fairy tales?………..speaking of email can you spell R-U-S-S-I-A?
G) As of today, this country is lost….what’s your point?
As another Canadian I think I can say with confidence that someone who posts here is not by any means certain to have voted for Trudeau. It may be the case but probably odds are against it. Trudeau is an uninformed adherent to all global warming dogma, and has not had the valuable enlightenment described by the very thoughtful and honest writer of the above post.
In almost every US election for president, the mob vote has been close to 50/50, with a difference of a few hundred thousands. Even in “landslide” victories, the split widens only to 60/40 or so.
“We The People” doesn’t include only the people who voted for your side. Treating a 51/49 split as some sort of popular mandate is laughable. Only dictators holding sham elections get “popular mandates”.
Mark S. Johnson
“All votes counted were “legal” Douglas. Now it’s up to you to show which ones were not.”
Actually since few states had “recounts” you cannot prove they were “legal” or illegally cast and no one else can either. But…in the states that did hold recounts it was found the Hillary Clinton lost votes and illegal votes were found on the democrat side by people voting more than once. When that was found the Democrats dropped the recount process.
State and district Gerrymandering has been a part of the election process from the very start and if you think getting rid of the Electoral College Vote will help elect more Democrats, you are living in a fantasy world. The majority of the big city population may be Democrats – Progressives, Liberals, Socialist and Communist – but the whole area outside of those cities win republicans more seats in both the state and federal congresses in the majority of the states. Having a few cities with high populations and/or states with high populations is exactly why the Electoral College was created to prevent them from ruling the whole country in every election, which a direct Democracy Vote would be gerrymandering on a federal level.
” Hillary did get more votes than him.”
..and if the shoe was on the other foot…you would take it and run with it
…..you would be saying how fair the election was because of the college
Mark S Johnson October 14, 2017 at 10:27 pm
“Tom in Florida…..for your information “We the People”, (aka the popular vote) elected Hillary.”
Mark S, for your information “We the People” and the popular vote is NOT how a President is elected. Apparently you are not from this Country so I can understand your misunderstanding how it actually works. But you should at least done some research.
Mark ….. Trump wouldn’t appear inept to innocent bistanders if it were not for your left wing, global warming Main Stream Media making crap up about him and misrepresenting every word he says. For example:
– satisfying the oath he took to actually uphold the laws of the US on all matters including immigration gets portrayed by your buddies at NBC, WaPo, CNN etc as “racist”.
– pulling out of the Paris agreement is akin to destroying the planet
– ending Obamas Energy Policy equates to wanting dirty air and water.
– repealing the disaster known as Obamacare is akin to ‘wanting to take your healthcare away’
Etc.
There simply is no logic in the leftist environmentalist brain. …. pure dumbed down emotionalism.
johnson, not if you discount the illegal votes.
johnson, I know you are paid to distract, but here’s to answer your latest ignorant diatribe.
As Al Gore’s campaign manager stated just prior to the 2000 election, if the rules had been popular vote, both teams would have run vastly different campaigns.
Only a total troll would wait until after the fight was over to decide which rules to apply.
illegals aren’t supposed to vote, but as you well know, the leftists fight very hard to make sure that there is no way to prevent them from doing so.
Mark S Johnson; …..for your information “We the People”, (aka the popular vote) elected Hillary.
For your information, in the baseball World Series of 1960 the NY Yankees scored 55 runs and the Pittsburgh Pirates scored 27. If one does not understand the game, one might think the NY team won. The Pirates became the champions that year.
Why?
The Pirates won more games!
Hillary lost.
Mark S Johnson. Do you lot realise just how dumb you look to the rest of the world? Even if the allegations are true, you aren’t upset at what the Democrats did, you’re upset that the Russians told you about it.
Seriously, could the American left be any more pathetic?
If Canadians have to apologise for Trudeau than the muricans should apologise for Shillary. We can hear her screeching all the way across the pond in Australia. When is it going to stop?
I am a game designer and a systems analyst. And I am telling y’all that if we abandoned the electoral college system, the dems would find 10 million votes in a car trunk in Vermont every time.
The EC limits corruption and also the effects of corruption. And I have a prediction: If we go to popular vote, Chocagoans will suddenly be so interested in voting that there will be a 250% turnout.
The giveaway was hearing top dem operatives boast about stealing votes (complete with how not to get caught) and then laughing that the republicans’ honesty was a result of lack of dedication. (I was seething over that one. But it was instructive.)
People think other people have short memories…when the media has reported on thing’s and can be found online.
We had illegal aliens vote in the Federal Election in 2008 that were caught when they were called to Federal Supreme Court Duty in 1009. Saying they weren’t citizens and having no proof of legal citizenship. Here in Arizona.
Would McCarter care to respond to Tim Ball and perhaps correct the wrongs here?
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/10/15/collapse-of-global-warming-deception-triggers-variety-of-bailouts-and-revisionism/
He already did, see WUWT main page
Robert M, you sound like the Hollywood idiots when they talk about Harvey! You knew all along! How can you call yourself a scientist? COWAR..D is a better title.
Correct. People call themselves ‘scientists’ and are even accredited as such, but refuse to actually do ‘Science’, which is to always follow the Scientific Method. Sadly, most scientists have never been taught nor learned the actual process outlined in the Scientific Method (and it only takes a few minutes) – but it corrects for all sorts of errors one could make.
CC,
If the author is a coward, why would he tell us that he didn’t realize the “Marxist” aspect was so strong, rather than tell us a story that made it appear he “knew all along”?
(I suggest it’s possible for “Marxist” types to exploit issues and causes that are not “born” of, or propelled by Marxist ideology/intent . . and that at least some rational observers would have a tendency to dismiss the presence of “Marxist” type con-artists exploiting something like the CAGW scare, as inevitable. As a bees to honey sort of inevitability, which does not in and of itself indicate that the underlying “consensus” is a vehicle of “Marxist” types . . (I am quite sure no real big shots at all actually intend (or want) anything more “Marxist” than what a Pharaoh of Egypt had going ; )
(Dr. Ball is a coward? surely you jest) MOD
(Mod; Mr. Ball? . . I was speaking of “Robert M” . . and suggesting he might not be a coward . . )
As an American, I would apologize for Al Gore, but most of us would gladly give him to the developing country that bids first. No, none of us must apologize for our misbegotten countrymen/women, we just have to fight them with fact and logic, and hope it is enough.
Yes, McCarter is only responsible for himself, not for anyone else – and he did not use the Scientific Method !
“…most of us would gladly give him (Al Gore) to the developing country that bids first…”
I’m not sure that’s how bartering would work in his case.
Maybe we could pay a developing country to take him?
By weight
Must not be very old. The greens have been “progressive” since the late 1960’s, if not earlier. Try finding copies of Ramparts on environmental issues, and the green blob has not changed much.
Actually, there is no excuse for Naomi, but welcome to the fold.
Thank you for apologizing for one of the Toronto effete. I feel better already.
Having lived in both Toronto and Vancouver I can sympathise. One friend in N Van told me, after listing the problems we face, that the answer was “scientific socialism”. The surprise is how unscientific and antisocial it is.
It might surprise one that there are many in the world who have no interest in giving up hearth, home, family and tradition to imbibe the nectar of materialism and the bespoke morality in California North.
Ha vancouver. There are too many weirdos out there.
Dave Bolland
Chicago Blackhawks
I wish Naomi Klein would disappear. I am a Canadian too and remember David, Steven Lewis, related by marriage to Klein, extreme socialists. Very dangerous!
I understand your point, however….. Really, Ms. Klein is a WONDERFUL spokesperson for junk science and envirostalinism. Keep it up, Ms. Klein! The more people like you defending socialism/enviroprofiteering, the better. 🙂
The American David Middleton agrees with the Canadian David Middleton… 🖒🖒
Along with Joni Mitchell.
I used to bang my head against the walls every time I heard that whiny voice spouting limp wristed environmentalist songs -‘ put up a parking lot’ etc.etc.
As saki once said, Canada is all right, just not for the whole weekend…
I have no idea where these comments are going,
certainly not about climate change so far,
but I have to defend Joni Mitchell.
She writes a lot of good songs,
plays guitar well, with an unusual tuning,
and has a decent, although quite high, voice.
Mitchell’s songs The Circle Game, California, Woodstock and Help Me
are classics, IMHO, although for each song I prefer a cover version by another artist.
I agree it’s hard to listen to such a high voice for an entire album,
which I’ve only done once, but I do like quite a few of the songs she has written, one at a time.
For highest sound quality, which really helps with her high voice,
there is DCC Gold remastered CD of the album “Blue” that I have, and recommend.
Not for you, of course, but for others!
Maybe you need better audio equipment to appreciate her?
Her voice on records was not such good sound quality.
Other good musicians from Canada include k. d. lang and Diana Krall.
There are not a lot of great musicians from Canada, even considering the small population,
but some are very good. I’ve seen k. d. lang in concert three or four times.
R. Greene
Audiophile, and collector of recorded music since the 1960’s
Richard sounds like the stereotypical Canadian. Sorry Richard.
PS. vis a vis Trudeau, I agree with Andy pattullo way up above.
Nodding and nodding and saying to you, “Well said, Mr. McCarter. Good. For. You.”
You quoted (with excellently cogent annotations), nevertheless, so much of the vile spew of the envirostalinists that I feel a strong need to take a good dose of brain-cleansing truth.
From the finest economics mind of the 20th century, Milton Friedman:
(youtube)
The record of history {i.e., data! 🙂 } is absolutely crystal clear
that there is no alternative way (so far discovered)
of improving the lot of the ordinary people
that can hold a candle
to the productive activities that are unleashed
by {a} free enterprise system.
Well, thanks to the selfishness of “EdChoice” of youtube, the above clip will not play here. No wonder he or she doesn’t reveal his or her real name (interesting, is it not, how the vile somehow sense the need the need to hide their own vileness? And why in the WORLD do they care? End of rant.
Here is the same video clip from a decent youtube account holder:
(youtube — Milton Friedman on Free Enterprise and Greed)
Hi Janice,
I trust you paid the copyright holders for the rights to this clip? Or do you believe in solcalism when it comes to digital media?
Since I did not make one DIME off the playing of that clip and CAN-not, G., your comment is nonsense.
Thanks Janice, what a great – and to the point – reply to the question / accusation.
I only wished I could put to memory Mr Friedman’s reply / retort.
Plus 1,000+ Janice!
Thanks, D B H and Theo! 🙂
God I love Milton Friedman!
I was well on my way to being a Keynsian when my school introduced me to Milton and the Chicago School and saved my soul!
@Geronimo:
Do note that Fair Use allows media to be used for educational purposes. While that may not apply to anything you watch, it does apply to many more other folks reading and watching this. Furthermore, professors and educators are granted broader fair use than most. I’m pretty sure Janice has some credentials….
Since no money was transferred to Janice by this use, it is defacto noncommercial.
Supporting free markets for commercial use does not negate educational fair use.
Essentially, open discource is free, only commercial use is proprietary.
Geronimo…. you are an INSULT to the original.
ClimateOtter:
Either he can’t spell or his handle is ‘Germonio’, I can’t tell which. I call him ‘Germ’ for short.
Janice, you continually post comments that are succinct and to the point. Milton Friedman is one of my heroes too. That you for giving me the opportunity to hear him speak–even if briefly.
There’s that daily dose of Janice we all admire so much ! ^^^
Germonio October 14, 2017 at 6:35 pm
Public domain. Many more than 28 years ago, without copyright renewal. If anyone still owned the rights to it, it wouldn’t be on Youtube.
It’s worth noting that if you search for Milton Friedman videos you will most likely come across the TV debates between different economists, including Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams when they talk about the Welfare State. And they aren’t afraid to talk about sensitive subjects.
My surprise was learning that this was on a major TV channel in the US. And that people tuned into watch it!
Try that today.
. . . the finest economics mind of the 20th century, Milton Friedman
Apparently, no one here has heard of
Ludwig von Mises. Sad.
Heh. Well, I have heard of him and have read much of his work in economics. I’ve also read some of the works of his predecessors.
Klein that is, hey they gave us Elizabeth May so I think we are square with the Americans.
Her too.
If we take the implementation of Marxism in Russia to be from the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution to when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991 it spanned 74 years.
Analogously, if we take the start of global warming activism to be the summer of 1988 with James Hansen’s testimony to the Senate (with the air-conditioning turned off), we might have to put up with such nonsense until 1988+74 = 2062.
I guess I have lived a life of fantasy, I have had the believe that people have learned to ignore carpetbaggers.
The good news is you can lop 13 years off that start date – Margaret Mead (1975), plus another Margaret about the same time, for different reasons.
…. did I say good news?
It’s not looking good for the promoters of CAGW.
It’s not looking good for totalitarians.
I wonder if Trump has anything to do with this.
Think how different it would be had Hillary been elected. The world would be headed over the cliff.
Until this moment, I had not heard of Naomi Klein. Then I checked Wikipedia, and see that she has been awarded “the Sydney Peace Prize”.
I don’t need to know any more.
I met her once. One of the few people who have ever made my skin crawl. A truely evil and manipulative personality. At a Stanford climat presentation.
I had the same reaction to Laura Nader decades ago. She came to speak at the university I attended and one professor required our class attend the talk. I had the temerity to question some of her reasoning.
Know how you feel. Morris Dees lives just south of me. Got the creeps just typing that.
+1 … I had not heard of Klein either – search brought up “Naomi Klein and Jeremy Corbyn discuss Trump, climate change, and the future of progressive politics” – that was enough.
I bought her book the Shock Doctrine and only got as far as the first chapters. She had a very warped sense of Milton Friedman.
Excellent article.
Plants and crops that had been starving from a CO2 deficient atmosphere for millennia? are responding:
http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/csdb/en/
http://www.co2science.org/education/reports/co2benefits/MonetaryBenefitsofRisingCO2onGlobalFoodProduction.pdf
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth
The last 4 decades have featured the best weather/climate for life in at least 1,000 years. Dial in the increasing beneficial CO2 and the resulting booming biosphere during that period and we’d have to go back much farther than that to find conditions this good.
Socialism.
http://www.germany.info/contentblob/2690768/Galeriebild_gross/766773/Goerlitz_B.jpg
Capitalism.
In capitalism, a shop sign says BUTCHER and inside there is meat.
In socialism, a shop sign says MEAT and inside there is a butcher.
Good point George, but you forgot something. In capitalism, since there is no butcher in the shop, all the meat in the shop will rot. Wouldn’t it be nice if the butcher was in the shop with the meat?
Another total NONSENSE of a johnson post !!
How DO you just keep churning out the bizarrely empty-minded posts.
Mark,
Within 2 miles of me, that I know of, are 2 Lucky’s supermarkets with a butcher and good selection of affordable meats and fish, a fine Italian market with more meat choices than I know how to cook, plus fish, birds and more, with several butchers on duty, A nice higher end grocer with butchers and many prepared ready to cook meats (things like stuffed pork chops and marinaded steak strips) AND a sushi chef preparing sushi to go, a Whole Foods with a vast selection of organic meats, fish, and poultry; and many butchers. A Persian Grocer with butcher and Halal Persian meats. Plus an Indian grocer with butcher that I’ve only visited once so far. The Marina Asian markets with more kinds of fish than I can name, and butchers on duty.
I’m sure there are more, but I can’t shop everywhere.
I’m left to conclude that you are either exceptionally clueless, or are Trolling For Effect. In either case, nothing at all worth listenig to. Please try to be less obviouly bogus. It might make you marginally interesting.
E.M.Smith & AndyG55….
…
What Curious George neglected to mention was that in “socialism” where the shop sign says “MEAT” there is more than just a butcher inside.
That only reads like a joke. I visited Ukraine in the mid-’90s. They were attempting to get a handle on the “new order” of things in what used to be the USSR. In Sebastopol on the Crimean peninsula there were “magazines” – buildings with shelves inside, a surly attendant, and occasionally an object on a shelf, though over priced and not worth buying. There was also a public market (a huge neo-classical “temple”) with booths where you could buy everything from honey to plastic bags – you paid for bags unless you carried a “possibles” bag (a net bag most people stuffed in a pocket or purse and used for shopping). Such public markets were fairly commonplace in the US up until after WW II. There were also open-air markets that resembled a flea markets in empty lots. There you could point to a chicken or duck and the critter would be headless and plucked really quickly. Goat and mutton were available and so were fresh fish. You could also get excellent fresh bread, excellent milk, and decent vegetables (in the summer). You could pick up a bottle labeled “Scotch” that contained something alcoholic that had never been within a thousand kilometers of Scotland, and with luck a very decent Cabernet. The dollar and Deutshe Mark were readily accepted, Rubles not so much, actual Ukrainian currency – not likely.
This is a freaking funny and powerful argument. Yes, absolutely. Anybody who lived in Romania can tell how good the life was. No carbon footprint, but soot everywhere. And people fled that climate if they ever got the chance. Rarely they did.q
johnson’s only skill is in distracting and diverting.
johnson, yes, under socialism there are also customers angry because the government allotment of meat has been hijacked by apparatchiks yet again.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/07/nicolae-ceausescu-execution-anniversary-romania
Hi Mark S Johnson October 14, 2017 at 7:29 pm
Is the above the butcher you were referring to?
A “true” Socialist butcher.
also , hi Janice Moore October 14, 2017 at 5:53 pm how you doing, I was in the hospital for a while. Better now.
oops
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/07/nicolae-ceausescu-execution-anniversary-romania
Hi Mark S Johnson October 14, 2017 at 7:29 pm
Is the above the butcher you were referring to?
A “true” Socialist butcher.
also , hi Janice Moore October 14, 2017 at 5:53 pm how you doing, I was in the hospital for a while. Better now.
George, Having worked in Moscow in 1992-95–I noticed a stark difference between our two cultures–one simple illustration that few mention is the way they address correspondence. It says it all.
Communism:
Country
Code, State, City,
street, apt
Individual
Democracy:
Individual
street, apt
city, State, code
Country
Simple and powerful argument. Thanks, Ms.
http://thefederalistpapers.integratedmarket.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/CapitalismQuality.jpg
Four years after the dissolution of the USSR, I followed a friend to his 20th floor apartment in Odessa, Ukraine. The elevators didn’t work so we took a stairwell. Foul smelling sewage seeped from the gray cement walls in the stairwell as we made the climb to the apartment. –equally shared misery for all of those tenants.
I know what you mean noaaprogrammer, I smelled that same foul odor in Deer Park TX, after Harvey hit.
Mark’s Johnson likens socialist destruction to Hurricane Harvey.
Pretty much spot on, except the hurricane is but fleeting.
Johnson, you are SUCH a dope — like Klein, you are a wonderful representative for the Cult of AGW. Keep up the good work.
What? You just do not understand how your comment is a ridiculous non sequitur to NOAA Programmer’s? No point in explaining, is there.
Mark,
Deer Park however doesn’t always smell that way. Socialism is like a natural disaster every day.
And the misery of socialism isn’t shared equally. The Politburo and nomenklatura aren’t miserable, while the state slaves they misrule are.
Andy G. — Very good analogy (not even close to where Johnson’s little brain was going — you give him far too much credit, lol).
Janice: “Johnson, you are SUCH a dope”
…
Sticks and stones.
Correct AndyG55, they are “fleeting” just like tossing paper towels to the crowd.
Gabro, two points….
1) Deer Park isn’t under “socialism”
2) Socialism doesn’t make Deer Park smell.
Mark S Johnson October 14, 2017 at 7:07 pm
No. A hurricane which stayed around the same spot due to local WX conditions caused flooding in low-lying areas.
The lack of socialism in TX isn’t to blame. Neither is the presence of capitalism. Blame the WX gods.
But in socialism, the ongoing disasters are the acts of anti-human persecuters.
You can lead a socialist to Venezuela, but you can’t make him see the misery.
“Correct AndyG55, they are “fleeting” just like tossing paper towels to the crowd.”
Well that comment was about a moronic as they come. !!
did your two brain cells fail to engage as usual . !
FTOP_T if you have a point to make, please make it.
..
Gabro, “But in socialism, the ongoing disasters are the acts of anti-human persecuters” ……excuse me, but I have not idea what a “persecuter” is.
AndyG55, I’m sorry. I apologize, and hope you won’t feel badly about me. I’m sorry I made a comment that was exceeded your level of comprehension.
roflmao..
i doubt even you know what you were thinking.,.
The bizarre thoughts of an irrational mind, no doubt !!
…. but it sure was errant nonsense.
AndyG55: “i doubt even you know what you were thinking”
…
Well Andy, here’s a clue for you……if I don’t know, nobody does, least of all you.
“if I don’t know, nobody does”
Its almost certain your single brain cell mis-fired.
A regular occurrence, cause by you touching the keyboard.
I prefer the unbiased photographs from space to show the differences between communism and capitalism.
https://www.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/670d65/communism_so_shitty_you_can_see_it_from_space/
I see that troll johnson is trying to pretend that he’s just too smart of the rest of us to understand again.
He just doesn’t understand that everyone is laughing at him, not with him.
Thank you MarkW, I do appreciate it when you start with the name calling: troll. Do you lose all your arguments that way?
I have friend, an immigrant from the Ukraine. He’s in his fifties, so he grew up in the late ’70’s, early 80’s. He’s smart as a whip, but his big complaint is that in the US you have to make all your own choices. In the Ukraine he grew up and everything was planned for you- where you lived and who your parents were determined where you went to school, what clubs(mainly career training hobbies headed by experts), where you shopped, what you could eat, which part of the military you went in, etc. Nobody(peons) had much or was paid much but stuff they needed was cheap and serviceable, but drab, drab everywhere.
When he moved here he wasn’t “qualified” for anything but he had learned how to learn for himself and improved and got promoted every place he worked.
For him probably the worst was navigating the US “healthcare” system.
He complains about having to make choices, but he learned how to learn.
That looks like a picture of what developers are turning Sydney into now rows of houses being demolished with tower blocks in their place. ALl built to the lowest price.
Bill Whittle has a great quote to the tune of: “Socialism: great idea, wrong species. Works great for ants, not so well with people”
Absolutely. The problem with socialism isn’t its goals–after all isn’t a major Christian tenet to be your brother’s keeper. The problem with socialism is that it conflicts with human nature. If you think otherwise, then I challenge you liberals out there to tell me that when filling out your federal and state income tax returns, you forego taking legal deductions because of your love of your fellow man.
No, it is not a Christian tenet to be your brother’s keeper.
You are to care for your brothers, not “keep” them.
The one place in that Bible where the phrase is used is just after Cain has killed Able, and God has asked Cain where his brother is.
It most certainly is *not*. I am to recognize God, accept the Grace given through His Son; and to love others as I love myself. I am *not* my brother’s keeper. I am my neighbor’s helper, when necessary.
As far as ants go – ever read T H White’s “The Once and Future King”? In it, he has Merlin place Arthur in an ant colony, where the basic law is “Everything that is not forbidden is compulsory”. Remind you of anyplace?
Socialism.
http://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/BEIJING-articleLarge-v3.jpg
(Note: the accompanying article mistakenly uses this image of REAL pollution in an article about curbing plant food (CO2) emissions. lol — D’oh!, reporter, do your homework. (head shake))
Capitalism.
Janice, “capitalism” in Los Angeles: https://tse3.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.3PnPcR3kFZ5fARlQU4cztwEsDr&pid=15.1
https://www.wired.com/2010/07/0726la-first-big-smog/
1943… so NOTHING to do with CO2, just the natural weather patterns of LA that trap real air particulates.
Did you know that Mark, and just being a petulant prat? Or were you ignorant?
You do know that CO2 has NOTHING to do with pollution, don’t you Mark ?
AndyG55 I suggest you direct your comments to Janice who posts a picture labeled: “Socialism” which clearly shows air particulates.
Sure, Mark. Everyone is persuaded by your overwhelming evidence that Chinese air pollution isn’t all that bad. Heh. Oh, you didn’t KNOW that we knew that most of the people in L.A. do not wear masks to prevent breathing problems while they do commonly wear such masks in Beijing? Oops. Better luck next time.
LOL @ Janice, unable to differentiate the skyline of China and Los Angeles
PS Janice, it was government regulations (aka “socialism” ((LMAO))) that cured the air pollution problems in LA, not “capitalism.”
Mark,
Capitalism, ie economic freedom, creates the wealth to allow luxuries like clean air. Democracy, ie political freedom, allows people to vote to clean up their air.
China enjoys limited free enterprise, but always under regime control. The people don’t get to pick their rulers, so if they want clean air, they get a bullet in the back of the brain, with the bill sent to their families.
Yeah, socialism is great!
Gabro, you are historically challenged. Capitalism created all the pollution in LA until the government regulations on things like automobile catalytic converters, EGR and other technologies were mandated. Has nothing to do with “wealth” and every thing to do with what automobile manufacturers were required to install on the products they sold.
If you disagree Gabro, please explain to me why the capitalists (aka auto makers) fought tooth and nail to block the requirements for polllution controls on their products?
” it was government regulations (aka “socialism” ((LMAO))) that cured the air pollution problems in LA, not “capitalism.””
So, you say that the smog is cured in LA……
Make up your teeeeny weany little mind, FFS !!
“Janice, “capitalism” in Los Angeles: https://tse3.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.3PnPcR3kFZ5fARlQU4cztwEsDr&pid=15.1“
LOL @ AndyG55: “So, you say that the smog is cured in LA” …….. nope, that is not what I said.
…
But, it’s a lot better today than it was in the 1970’s
..
Guess you’ve not lived in LA.
It is EXACTLY what you said.
Read your own words, if you can comprehend them.
Mark Johnson-
You are missing the most important factor. The reason Capitalist societies clean themselves up is because they can afford to. I suspect you knew that but it’s hard to maintain a belief in something that has never worked without willfully turning a blind eye to the very obvious truth, is it?
Or can you point out an example of Socialist paradise?
No John Harmsworth, you are wrong. In a capitalist system, if it is cheaper to dump your wastes into the nearest river you will not spend money to dispose of the waste properly. It’s the rules and regulations of government which prevents my local automobile service station from dumping waste lubrication oil into the river, and forces it to collect it and send it to a waste disposal company. It costs more to have the waste disposal company collect this oil than it is to dump it into the river behind the shop.
But then John Harmsworth, if you really really persist in demanding “freedom” I suggest you take the waste oil from your automobile, and pour it on your front lawn for disposal. It won’t hurt anyone other than yourself, so just do it.
Your mind really is a squirm of mindless spaghetti, isn’t it johnson
Sensible government regulation is NOT socialism, and your moronic attempt to say it is are becoming quite farcical.
You are behaving like a mix between a demented yapping chihuahua and a slimy sewer troll.
Wake up and stop the child-minded attention seeking.
Socialism … river pollution in China
http://all-that-is-interesting.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/water-pollution-in-china.jpg
The Yangtze river below the 3 Gorges Dam
Socialized USA government induced pollution
Even Socialized Capitalistic countries have pollution (in this case created by the socialized government agency the EPA)
Go home, Mark. Your village is missing its idiot, and they’re starting to think it’s you.
Bryan. China is “communist” in name only . It is a capitalist dictatorship now.
That has really only been since Brits lease on Hong Kong expired and China learned the power of capitalism.
So China’s problem is then the fact that it is a Communistic Capitalism.
“Gabro, you are historically challenged. Capitalism created all the pollution in LA until the government regulations on things like automobile catalytic converters, EGR and other technologies were mandated. Has nothing to do with “wealth” and every thing to do with what automobile manufacturers were required to install on the products they sold.”
Utter and total nonsense.
Who voted for the government that did that? Capitalists – or did somehow the capitalists that created the mess suddenly disappear? And how did they pay for the changes? With the wealth created by capitalism. And why did they need to do it? Because capitalism made everybody so wealthy they all had cars.
It is not socialism to pass regulation to clean the air, just democracy – unless you are claiming voters didn’t want it?
+ 1,000,000,000
Well, this is nominally a science blog, so let’s talk science.
Communism is an attempt to control a distributed parameter system via centralized actuation. Such a system cannot remain stable without limiting the bandwidth significantly below the lowest fundamental modal frequency.
What that means is that the system is necessarily sluggish in its response, and highly sensitive to disruptions. Any attempt to increase the bandwidth will either produce exponentially instability, or will have to be done open loop, in which case it will diverge spectacularly from its intended path, i.e., also unstable, but at not as rapid a pace.
The former approach was tried in the former Soviet Union, and it led to sclerosis, and failure. The latter is being tried in China, and has created a sprawling mass of widely divergent performance which eventually will either tear itself apart, or devolve into a self-limiting construct due to the unbalanced onset of co-dependent limiting factors.
Capitalism distributes control authority to co-located sensors and actuators, creating a robust, positive real feedback dynamic. Despite the empty claims of scientific inevitability by communist cheerleaders, capitalism is scientifically the most dynamically stable economic system that has yet been devised.
OMG Bart!!!! “Communism is an attempt to control a distributed parameter system via centralized actuation.”
…
The USA is under communist control!!!!…..The Federal Reserve’s centralized actuation of interest rates is attempting to control our distributed parameter system.
…
We’re toast.
As always, troll johnson isn’t smart enough to deal with reality so it pulls up ever more false equivalencies.
LA’s problem is due to the fact that it is in a natural bowl that frequently suffers from air inversions that trap pollution.
If you want to blame capitalism for causing air inversions, go ahead. We’ll just keep laughing at you.
Greg, China has introduced elements of capitalism, but only someone with no idea what capitalism is would declare that China is capitalistic.
As always, when in a hole, troll johnson responds by digging faster.
I’m guessing that your pathetically limited mind can’t comprehend that fact that the US has elements of both capitalism and socialism.
Mark S – you don’t know what the Federal Reserve does, do you?
I think I’ll go use my Johnson to relieve myself
Dammit, stop calling CO2 plant food. It is the building blocks, the foundation of plants and life. Of us.
(And stop feeding the goddam troll)
Mark S Johnson
“PS Janice, it was government regulations (aka “socialism” ((LMAO))) that cured the air pollution problems in LA, not “capitalism.””
Responsible governance is not socialism. Responsible government regulation is not socialism.
Good governance operates well with Capitalism.
Bad governance operates badly with socialism.
The worst excesses of socialism were demonstrated in the 20th Century, Hi*ler, Mussolini (left wing indoctrinated) Mao, Stalin, Castro to name but a few, and continue today with the likes of the Kim dynasty and Venezuela.
“Empirical evidence that free markets make people nicer”
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/free-markets-and-free-trade/
Trolls like johnson exist in binary worlds.
To them capitalism is the equivalent of anarchy. No government.
“Trolls like johnson exist in binary worlds”
Single brain cell.. on/off. !!
The US had had some of its own wakeup moments. The 1948 smog event is credited by some as starting the process to Nixon’s signing of the Clean Air Act.
https://www.sites.google.com/site/donorahistoricalsociety/1948-smog
Hmm, maybe I’ll write a post about it next year.
Without capitalism, where is the wealth supposed to come from? Perhaps another output from fairy dust and unicorn flatulence.
The government, silly!
Sarc / explanation available for millenials and others who need their fingers to add
Wealth – value – actually comes from work done. If there are those who desire the product of that work it acquires value. Communism as operated in the former USSR, and North Korea essentially classes a population in to an elite and serfs. The theory largely equates the work of all serfs regardless of skill.
Capitalism in theory greases the production of new wealth by providing the means of acquire additional tools and material ahead of demand. It is “venture” capitalism because the actual demand cannot be guaranteed and thus the capitalist shares risk with the actual producer of valuable goods.
The capitalist doesn’t properly create wealth, simply facilitates the activity of those who do. The western world flirts with capitalism, but because of the immense influence of money on politics, governance does not encourage a true free market any more than we practice true representative democracy. Instead, we have a form of well-fare state that protects enterprises “too big to fail.” Ayn Rand had a term for this that I don’t recall for certain but I believe was “corporate socialism.” In fact, as money settles into huge pools, it largely ceases to facilitate work and actual value creation. One circulating dollar is far more valuable than a dollar stashed in financial instruments. Large pools of wealth are stagnant and fund very little useful work.
Money isn’t “stashed” in financial instruments any more than money in a bank account is stashed in a bank vault.
In my comments of how Fascism came to the USA it should be noted that Fascism is Cronyism in its highest form. The Government picks the winner’s and the losers by only helping those that play their game of regulations, license and taxation in the Crony Corporatism and Crony Capitalism. The Government has become infested by Cronyism in who they elect and give favoritism to those they want in positions of appointments. Lobbyist “greasing the palms” of those with power to gain power themselves for their “cause” is the status quo of how government works. The “Pay for Play” exposed by the Clinton Campaign only brought light to what has been going on for a long time in our history…on both side’s…that many people never knew existed. Those in other countries should consider how Fascist their government’s are.
Financial instruments fund investment in productive activities. Often financiers guess wrong, from retail investors to hedge funds to ordinary funds to the largest insurance company pools and banks. But private investors being wrong now and then is better than the government always being wrong, trying to prop up dying industries rather than accept the creative destruction of capitalism.
Not quite. Wealth comes from seeing a need and meeting it at a price people are willing to pay. Stuff is the result of wealth, not the creator of it. Money just helps grease the wheels. Also note that money is made by seeing a need and meeting it. Getting money isn’t the same thing as making it.
The word you want, Duster, starts with “f”.
Thank you, Lord, for opening the eyes of another. “Know the truth and the truth shall set you free”.
I don’t remember seeing Him in the audience.
Has anyone ever seen him in an audience? 🙂
What’s stated is obvious but much of WUWT for at least a pre-Trump decade was dominated by “about science” debate fantasy. Certainly many who linked the Marxist narrative to the inception of the green agenda including climate were roundly and routinely trashed on these boards as “conspiracy theorists” and “right wing fanatics”.
Now the science nerd skeptic wing is capitulating decades late. The green blob 10x greater then other wise would have occurred against the obvious political truth of climate science fiction. A generation of youth indoctrination accepted as normal, a perverse academic consensus at the West’s throats for years to come.
The apolitical skeptic base shares in the disgraceful results.
Please show us your wonderful efforts and their effect over the past decade.
Welcome aboard, Robert McCarter!
We have the same social communists in New Zealand ,The Green Party and a proportion of the Labour Party including the Leader Jacinda Adern who was involved with the world youth socialist movement .These people have mounted a ceaseless campaign against farming and farmers in New Zealand .These people have absolutely no idea of even simple economics .Farmers should be proud to promote irrigation schemes but they have to battle the Greenbeans all the way to the courts .They have to battle green propaganda which stretches reality to the limits .
For example the Central Plains irrigation scheme in Canterbury the farmers will multiply revenue and jobs 12 times and pay significant salaries and wages with intensification.and the rural towns will prosper and far more tax is generated for the wider community for health education ,pensions etc ..
The scheme will have a positive impact from the use of a small portion of the water ( less than 5% of ) that would normally flow straight out to the sea..
And of course they spout the global warming theme like parrots .
The issue in NZ is who owns the water and therefore who should pay to use it. The farmers are bahaving lik socialists claiming that everybody owns the water and therefore it is free to use. If they were capitalists they would be advocating for the ability to buy and sell water on the free market and the government could then quite rightly tax it.
Geronimo
No one owns water that falls from the sky Next you will say we all should pay for the air we breath .Then it would follow that we all pay for the CO2 that we breathe out with every breath .What a clown you are Geronimo ,if the water is not saved in dams it runs out to sea and does nothing for anyone .The rivers in Canterbury are nearly all snow fed ( except the Selwyn which is the poster boy for the greenbeans as it drys up due to shingle deposits under it and there is no irrigation taken from it .)
The thaw starts about now and if it is not stored in dams it runs out to sea .
.So Gerrmoaner you expect that every body gets a share for doing nothing .That’s communism or is it socialism .
I don’t know how much you know about New Zealand but we are paying a water charge now for monitoring .My farm which is not irrigated in the North Island receives about 1200 millimeters of rain per year on average but there is a large variation ..My calculation is that I am allowed to take and use 1.3 percent yes that is right and in a drought with a rainfall of 900 millimeters it would be one point seven percent 1.7% of the total rainfall and the majority of the water used is for milk cooling then reused for stock water or wash down which is spread back on to the land .
We have an issue with water in New Zealand because of different interpretations of the Treaty of Waitangi which was signed between the Maori’s and the British Crown in 1840 .
Some interpretations are that Maori own rivers lakes and streams and if the government introduced a system that users pay for water then Maori would claim the money .
The farmers are not behaving like socialists. They believe in property rights which are being eroded all around the world as well as in New Zealand .You were able to do any thing on your own land years ago as long as it did not affect any one else . Now every body is looking over the fence they all want a say .
As I have stated before New Zealand has a population of 4.6 million and exports high quality food to feed 45 million people around the world .
So, Robert, did you sleep well? Glad to see you have awakened.
Read Michael Crichton’s 2004 novel “State of Fear.” In addition to being very entertaining, you’ll find that it reflects your own awakening. (And be sure to read his prologue, which describes his original intent for the book vs. what he ended up doing.)
The awaking hasn’t helped or rendered my sleep much, but respect for my neighbor has declined.
I read it and got extra copies to send to friend.
Naomi is so irritating!! Apology not accepted! 🙂
“When reminded of this, the lecturer quickly dismissed it”
They (like most con artists) cannot afford to be seen as anything other than certain, so this is the invariable response when challenged on anything where there is a vulnerability or no pile of sophistry (“scientific” documentation) to point at.
CAGW has always been a Leftist political phenomenon, not a physical one..
It was devised as a massive global redistribution of wealth scheme for governments to steal $trillions, implement $trillions in unnecessary compliance costs on the private sector, and a tool for governments to control every aspect of people’s lives.
CAGW is the Harvey Weinstein of science. It destroyed the virtuous who refused to comply, and advanced others that either allowed themselves to be corrupted or those who remained silent despite overwhelming evidence of the nefarious corruption they knew was taking place.
When (not if) CAGW is tossed on the pyre of failed Leftist ideologies, I hope people will learn the true nefarious nature of Leftism and will realize the initiation of force is not a viable or ethical construct upon which to build a society.
CAGW is a strawman built by the folks that refuse to accept he real science of AGW. If you search the scientific literature, you will never find a “C” in any study of AGW.
Then there’s no reason to spend trillions of taxpayer dollars if there’s no pending catastrophe. Good news!
YHGTBSM!
If there be no “C”, then what’s the problem? A little warmer is better.
Clearly you haven’t been paying attention to what advocates of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change Alarmism have been saying for 30 years or more.
Have you really never heard of Hansen’s “Venus Express” from runaway man-made global warming? Boiling oceans aren’t “catastrophic”?
Did you miss where Obama called man-made climate change “dangerous”?
Besides catastrophic sea level rise, just a few other existential concerns found in papers since at least 1988 include global uninhabitability, destruction of agriculture and loss of the ozone layer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_climate_change#Runaway_greenhouse_effect
There is never a mention of “catastrophe”? It is never worse than we thought? Ho, ho, ho.
Mark S-san:
There are ample physics and empirical evidence to support AGW (ECS=0.6~1.2C) , but ZERO physics and empirical evidence to support the disconfirmed CAGW hypothesis (ECS=1.5C~4.5C).
Leftism abhors clarity, facts and honest scrutiny, and can only exist when emotional appeals (rather than rational thought) are used to brainwash people.
It’s difficult for governments to extort $76 Trillion (2008 UN CAGW cost estimate) from taxpayers to avoid an additional 0.3C of CO2 forcing between now and 2100…
That’s why rational people use the term CAGW….
I’m sorry clarity and honesty scare Leftists.
Why don’t we start with what caused the LIA, and the recovery?
The “real science of AGW” is simply a natural oscillation between GW and GC: What goes up (temp.) will come down, — at least until our sun turns into a red giant; and yes, if there are humans around when that happens, some of them will believe in ASW — anthropogenic solar warming.
There’s no A either! And for 18 years and counting, no GW! Unless you’re talking about Bush. Just accept it, help Bernie into his wheelchair and stroll off to Willful Ignorance Land.
The rest of us are trying to improve things.
1) PiperPaul: please tell that to the Pentagon
2) Gabro: I asked for a link/citation to a scientific study, and you provided a Wikipedia link? Seriously???
3) lee: If you have a point to mak, please make it.
4) SAMURI: I apologize. You are confused. Let me try again. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A CAGW HYPOTHESIS. Does the caps help you?
5) Pretty simple Frasier, the LIA was the continuing drop off due to Milankovich cycles, and the “recovery” due to CO2
6) “What goes up must come down” except for things that have escaped the gravitational pull of the Earth such as the Voyager probes, the Cassini probe, the Mars rovers etc.
…
And lastly Mr Harmsworth, please look at the entire satellite record: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/uah6/plot/uah6/trend Cherry picking an 18-year interval betrays your sophomoric comprehension of time series.
You have just highlighted you ignorance of climate systems.
There are actually 2 pauses in the UAH data, 1980 – 1997
and 2001 – 2015
The only warming has come from El Nino and ocean effects, which have NOTHING to do with anthropogenic anything.
So you are correct, even if only accidentally..
no “C” and no “A” ,
despite all the talk from the alarmistas of “tipping points” and other anti-science garbage and caterwauling.
…… . which you keep trying to push.
Andy, give it up. Do not break a data set into two intervals. It shows YOUR ignorance of measurements.
…
There is no logical reason to break the UAH data into two pieces.
PS Andy, RSS shows the same thing as UAH: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/plot/rss-land/trend/plot/none
Yes RSS does show the same thing..
No warming from 1980 – 1997
No warming from 2001 – 2015
Just those two El Nino warming steps.
NO “A” is there. No signing of any CO2 warming, just solar/ocean events.
Data is your enema, isn’t it johnson.
Thanks for that, johnson,
You have just shown that you HAVE to use the El Ninos to create a trend.
Probably too dumb to realise it, though.
Poor johnson shows he has ZERO comprehension of climate events.
Seems to think the EL Ninos didn’t occur, .. quite bizarre.
Ignorance is strong with this little trollette.
Poor johnson,
zero science, now zero maths, and zero comprehension of climate events.
go back and try again.. Junior high beckons you. !!
Good Lord man, you have to be one lonely individual to troll so much with so little knowledge. Often methinks that Griff creature of whatever it is, is, a paid troll. But, please go out and find yourself some friends who have actual economics and engineering experience and quit making a fool of yourself, and, giving me a headache as I try to read this blog.
I assume there’s no logical reason to break the RSS data into two pieces.
History records ample evidence that the Medieval Warm Period was a time when agriculture thrived in Europe, Greenland, and China. The Little Ice Age was a time when crops became much less reliable.
My awakening came when Dr. Michael Mann tried to use his hockey stick to refute recorded history. If the alarmists have to stoop that low to make their case, they don’t have a case.
It’s amazing how different things look when the shades come off.
Hey I’ve been awake for a while now about AGW – its the rabid socialism behind it that comes as kind of a shock.
It’s amazing how different things look when the
shadesscales come off. linkHUH?
If there’s no “C” in “CAGW?!?!
Then why all the fuss about “Coal trains of Death!”?
Ever see any of Al Gore’s home videos?
I don’t believe you are dense enough or stupid enough to actually believe what you just said is true.
But you are dishonest enough to say it anyway.
OOPS!
meant as a reply this comment, not the original post.
Robert McCarter, stay honest with the science and keep your eyes open.
Gunga Din, can you please provide me with a link to a scientific study in a reputable journal that expounds the “C” in the AGW hypothesis.?
There is another talk scheduled next week.
Mark S Johnson
Can you provide a credible, empirical study that demonstrates CO2 causes the planet to warm?
troll johnson, show me a politician who limits his “evidence” to peer reviewed studies.
PS Gunga Din, you know full well that ” Al Gore’s home videos” are not published scientific studies.
Mark S-san:
You are correct. Algore’s hilarious propaganda film was devoid of scientific fact and empirical evidence, but it was an important Leftist tool to advance the disconfirmed CAGW scam…
As I mentioned in an earlier post, “The vast majority of mankind accept appearances as though they were reality, and are influenced more by those things that seem than by those things that are..”~ (Machiavelli The Prince)…
Yes, “An Inconvenient Truth” was laughable, but it was extremely effective in deceiving millions of naive people into believing a lie…
Mark S Johnson, have you ever been to Venezuela, or any socialist country? Do you have any idea of what you are talking about?
SMC, I live in the USA which is socialist, and I’ve been to England…..so the answer to your question is “Yes I have.”
Now your brain has really gone off the reservation, johnson. !!
No you obviously HAVE NOT been to a real socialist country.
No idea WHAT SO EVER, have you johnson.
A real world traveler you are.. So your answer is, ‘No I haven’t.’
You should trying visiting a socialist utopia sometime. It would be enlightening… maybe… assuming you are capable of understanding what you’re seeing, the differences between the USA and a country like Venezuela and why those differences exist.
The USA is socialist, yet, thank God.
The USA isn’t…
dang fat fingers. 🙂
AndyG55 & SMC…..
…
USA……
…
1) Social Security
2) Medicare
3) Earned Income Credit
4) Subsided medical insurance.
5) Food Stamps
6) CHIPS
7) Pell grants
8) TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families)
9) WIC and Head Start
…..
You guys crack me up….oh…by the way, the government owns most of the roads and highways, which if I am not mistaken is “government ownership” of the means of transport.
Oh, yeah, I forgot, a lot of oil and coal companies have to pay the Federal government royalties for extracting mineral resources (fossil fuels) on the land they lease from said government.
johnson misinterprets responsible capitalism for socialism
Has no idea what real socialism is. DOH !!!
His ignorance continues unabated.
By the way SMC & AndyG55, are you telling me that the bailouts of ……oh…….corporations like GM, and AIG are “capitalist?”
Please AndyG55, tell us all what “socialism” is.
“responsible capitalism” …..oh…….tell me, how much $$$ does Pfizer spend on treating opioid addiction treatment?
I can’t fix your ignorance , johson.
No-one can, you are NOT rational.
Your mind is obviously on thought distorting drugs of some sort..
In a capitalist system there is no such thing as “too big to fail.”
…
So why is AIG still around?
Off you trot to North Korea or Venezuela.. I dare you..
…. or are you comfortable in your inner city capitalist haven?
AndyG55, in a capitalist system there would not be any institutions such as “Fannie Mae” and “Freddie Mac.”
…
Without government support, corporations like General Dynamics would cease to exist. That doesn’t happen in a capitalist system.
AndyG55, you seem to be confused. North Korea is a totalitarian system. That is a political organization. Do you know the difference between “economic” and “political” systems?
Since there is some confusion about socialism and capitalism, let’s start with definitions.
so·cial·ism
ˈsōSHəˌlizəm/
noun
a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
synonyms: leftism, welfarism, radicalism, progressivism, social democracy,communism, Marxism, labor movement
policy or practice based on the political and economic theory of socialism.
(in Marxist theory) a transitional social state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of communism.
cap·i·tal·ism
ˈkapədlˌizəm/
noun
an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.
synonyms: free enterprise, private enterprise, the free market; enterprise culture
Thank you SMC
…
Now, your problem is to show how the USA is not socialist
Off you trot to Venezuela.. I dare you..
…. or are you comfortable in your inner city capitalist haven?
Or do you rent your abode from the government.. or sponge off the taxpayer in public housing ?
Save money for your substances.
So funny watching you try to DENY that you live in a mostly capitalist society, where capitalism is used to help those who can’t/won’t help themselves. (like you, I suspect)
You think that is socialism…. really ?
Amazing twist of reality.
Bend it to what your “feelings” say you want it to be.
Here is the problem SMC…..
you posted in your “definition” of socialism: ” or regulated by the community”
….
Last time I checked, most banks were “regulated” by the Federal Reserve.
Last time I checked, most airlines/airplane makers were “regulated” by the FAA.
Last time I checked, most telcom/cable outfits were “regulated” by the FCC.
Last time I checked, most shareholder owned companies were “regulated” by the SEC.
Last time I checked, most insurance companies were “regulated” by the states they did business in.
Last time I checked, you couldn’t sell a newley manufactuerd automobile that didn’t meet Federal “regulations.”
…
Geez….hard to find gasoline without ethanol in it these days…..
….
So….get the picture?
LOL @ AndyG55: “capitalism is used to help those who can’t/won’t help themselves”
…
In capitalism, if you don’t work, you don’t eat, and you die. In Capitalism, a paraplegic would be left to die. No part of capitalism would support a paraplegic. Capitalism does not provide ANY charity.
Hmmm, well, that’s a toughy…Not. The US government does not control Ford or US Steel or Budweiser or Exxon or goodness knows how many other companies or corporations of various types big and small.
In, let’s say, Venezeula, the government controls PDVSA, the paper mills, food distribution and production, the brewers, the distillers, etc… All government controlled. All have failed. Which is why Venezuela is in the mess it’s in.
Governments, regardless of type and organization exist to provide the political direction and control over the actions of the members, citizens, or inhabitants of communities, societies, and states.
LOL @ SMC: “The US government does not control Ford ”
…
Really?
…
So tell me SMC, why on earth does Ford put those stupid catalytic converters on their trucks and cars? They are not necessary for the vehicle to move down the road, they are an unnecessary cost to install, and they decrease the efficiency of the vehicle. Ford could make more profit by not putting them on cars and trucks.
Capitalism would very much support paraplegics and does.
It is called HUMANITY. You should try to find some in your life.
Your backwards views on what capitalism is are REALLY DISGUSTING.
No wonder you are trying to twist the USA into a pretend socialist state that suits your putrid little mind.
.
Humanity and capitalism are two distinct and different things. They are not related in any way.
…
Stop confusing an economic system with your personal feelings.
AndyG55: “Capitalism would very much support paraplegics”
…
Nope, before the government stepped in, the only way they survived was with charity. There is no profit in supporting paraplegics, in fact, it is more profitable to let them die.
“they survived was with charity.”
PRECISELY.. thanks for proving my point.
“they survived was with charity” does not prove your point. Capitalism does not provide any charity. There is no profit in charity which is why there is not in capitalism.
“they survived was with charity” does not prove your point. Capitalism does not provide any charity. There is no profit in charity which is why there is none in capitalism.
You really are a twisted, sick-minded, evil, little piece of hatred, aren’t you, johnson.
“You really are a twisted, sick-minded, evil, little piece of hatred”
…
If you cannot conduct a civil discussion of the facts, and need to resort to ad-hominem attacks, goodbye.
Mr Johnson sir (and with all due respect)
There is a vast difference between Socialist and Socialized,
and apparently a Vas Deferens between your brain and your mouth.
so·cial·ist
ˈsōSHələst/Submit
noun
1.
a person who advocates or practices socialism.
synonyms: left-wing, progressive, leftist, labor, anti-corporate, antiglobalization; More
adjective
1.
adhering to or based on the principles of socialism.
“the history of socialist movement”
so·cial·ism
ˈsōSHəˌlizəm/Submit
noun
a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
synonyms: leftism, welfarism; More
policy or practice based on the political and economic theory of socialism.
synonyms: leftism, welfarism; More
(in Marxist theory) a transitional social state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of communism.
so·cial·ize
ˈsōSHəˌlīz/Submit
verb
past tense: socialized; past participle: socialized
1.
mix socially with others.
“he didn’t mind socializing with his staff”
synonyms: interact, converse, be sociable, mix, mingle, get together, meet, fraternize, consort; More
2.
make (someone) behave in a way that is acceptable to their society.
“newcomers are socialized into orthodox ways
A person (or nation) can be Socialized without being Socialist
AND
A Socialist Nation and be anti-social
I’ve read through your discussion so far and find you’re missing a great deal of what the USA has become since FDR brought Fascism here with his New Deal and changed everything.
Fascism is an economic system that unlike Communism that the government owns everything and controls everything from products being produced to production quantity and quality to distribution to the population where the elite take from the top and leave the rest for the masses that are required to work to produce the products in a purely Marxist Socialism System.
Fascism has the population owning the property and the products production and industries, that are extremely regulated and taxed by the government to control the products production and quality and quantity and what is and isn’t produced or allowed. Thereby the government is funded to support the Socialist benefits of distribution of benefits through the taxation, licensing fees and fines imposed upon those whom are in noncompliance of regulations.
You cannot have Communism or Fascism without the base of Socialism. The USA has not been a Free Enterprise system (Capitalism) since the New Deal was adopted by the Democratic Party that brought regulations, taxation and socialism into the Federal Government. This was called the Progressive Movement in both Europe and the USA. It should be noted that Fascism shouldn’t be confused with Hitlerism in the atrocities he committed.
And yes, what is going on in Venezuela is a repeat of what Lenin, Castro and Mao did that led to mass starvation and oppression to their populations by Socialism faithfully followed.
Mark S Johnson
“SMC, I live in the USA which is socialist, and I’ve been to England…..so the answer to your question is “Yes I have.””
Excuse me?
I live in what you would describe as England, which is in fact the United Kingdom relative to it’s political structure.
If you have indeed visited, you clearly took no notice of the country, it’s people, nor it’s political system.
It”s like saying “I went to California, and now understand how America works”.
Take your size eleven out your mouth mate.
The AGW narrative was instigated and is now perpetuated by the UN and the globalist cabal. Various of its’ members have openly said AGW is about wealth redistribution …. the catch phrase du jour of Marxism/Socialism ….. and has nothing to do with temperature. They are getting more bold and open about their intent as the AGW farce is failing and the science is brought to light. I don’t understand why more people don’t see this obvious attempt to gain political control using the AGW bogeyman.
As a bit of supporting evidence, see the link below from a UN press release. It quotes Christiana Figueres, the Executive Secretary of UNFCCC, describing the desired intentional transformation of the world’s economy:
“This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history”, Ms Figueres stated at a press conference in Brussels.
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the industrial revolution.”
http://www.unric.org/en/latest-un-buzz/29623-figueres-first-time-the-world-economy-is-transformed-intentionally
Mark S Johnson
You are a clown Of course the government owns the roads the schools and hospitals in most capitalist countries .In New Zealand they sold the railways and then brought them back .Part of the railways is the Cook Straight Ferry s . A small trucking firm could not get their trucks across the straight in the nineties so Jim Barker started his own ferry service This is Blue Bridge and is in direct competition with the government .Without competition the rates to cross the straight would be astronomical .I applaud Jim Barker a capitalist who once ran a fish and chip shop in Auckland .
Thank you gwan for showing that the government “owns” the roadways…….but..the government does not own all of them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_highways_in_the_United_States
@ Robert McCarter,
You told us what everyone else thinks…….yet your arguments seem half-hearted.
I mean it’s not like we are planning the future of civilization or anything 🙂
Sarc/
AndyG55: There is no profit in supporting a paraplegic, so you are wrong to assert that capitalism will support a paraplegic.
You truly do lack any sort of HUMANITY, don’t you , johnson
No AndyG55, I simply prefer a SOCIALISTIC system that takes care of the less fortunate (i.e. paraplegics) as opposed to a capitalistic system that would cast them out and let them die.
You really are a twisted , sick-minded evil little piece of human hatred and despite aren’t you.
Has the world REALLY treated you that badly ??????
Andy, it is not Mr Johnson which lack humanity, it is capitalism. You seem to fail to realise that it is capitalism that lacks humanity, by definition. The more you demand an unregulated free market system, the less humanity you will get because the dollar is the be-all and end-all driver of society.
It seems that you would favour some kind of “mixed economy” where pure capitalism is tempered by a degree of “humanity”. In reality all modern states are such a mix and the argument is about where to draw the line.
I see Greg has the same hateful opinion of society.
Sad.. and very socialistic of you both.
So you really think socialism help those worst off, like you two seem to think you are.?????
They suffer more, because everyone is dragged down to your level.
Greg
You should read more Bastiat. His most famous idea is the Broken Window Fallacy but it goes a lot deeper. The blind pursuit of profit that most people think Capitalism is (unless you actually read Adam Smith) is unsustainable because there are secondary effects. These effects are humanity itself. Social cooperation is a trait that has more benefits that drawbacks – the key is how you do it. Smith talks about the rich giving back to society, much like the farmer who rotates crops for the long term.
To add to my point. If you pursue capitalism you very quickly hit upon the idea of opportunity cost and the compromise between instant and delayed gratification. Bastiat is most famous for this.
Greg like troll johnson have failed to get what they want out of life.
Instead of blaming this failure on themselves, it’s easier to blame the system.
Mark S Johnson.
You are spouting absolute nonsense .I have lived in New Zealand all my life and have traveled around the world .You don’t seem to know the difference between a capitalist system or a socialist system .I went to school in the 1950’s and our country was not wealthy at that time but any one leaving school who had the will to work has done very well .A number like myself went farming and were able to buy small farms and then work towards larger holdings .One classmate founded an engineering company that built thousands of front end loaders for tractors plus other machinery ..Another took over a two truck operation and now close to retirement has a large number of semi trailers and other assets .Under capitalism those who work hard and take risks with smart ideas can prosper .I have got to know a Vietnamese family who run a bakery seven days a week and working over ninety hours a week .They are working for themselves to make a new life under a capitalist system but why should it be limited to a small family concern .If they want to start up a chain of bakeries that is what capitalism is all about .The governments in capitalist countries tax the population to provide roading hospitals schools and social security but socialist governments want to go much further and control commerce.and industry .The free market has its flaws but it is amazing how well it works without big brother telling every one how to run their lives.I cannot comment on The USA but many countries including New Zealand are moving slowly towards socialism with a big push from the Progressives who seem to be mainly in the universities
I guess he would have loved to have lived in NZ at the time Herr Clarken Fuhrer reined. Anyone earning more than NZ$60k was “rich” and suddenly had to pay more income tax.
The Chinese Communists figured out that government needs free enterprise to create the wealth to tax, and indeed just to feed, clothe and house its subject peoples, so that they don’t revolt.
Eventually economic freedom brings political freedom. The ChiCom regime has managed to hang on, but its privileged elite see the writing on the wall, so are buying up property in the US for when they need to flee the angry peasant mobs demanding their heads.
And of course for two generations now they’ve been sending their kids to study and work here, both for espionage and to serve as immigration anchors apres le deluge.
Mark S Johnson
AndyG55: There is no profit in supporting a paraplegic, so you are wrong to assert that capitalism will support a paraplegic.
“The astonishing enrichment of the world in the past 50 years, when extreme poverty has fallen from more than 50 per cent to below 10 per cent of the world population, could not have happened without free commerce and the innovation it delivers. No serious economist denies this. The liberalisation of world trade since the Second World War has been responsible for making the world not just wealthier but healthier, happier and kinder too. If that sounds incredible to millennials, then perhaps they should ask their professors to give them some less Marx-inspired reading matter.” http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/free-markets-and-free-trade/
And I suppose Stalin and Mao cared about paraplegics.
Much of the support for the Para Olympics and various other disabled sporting events comes from commercial organisations.
troll johnson as always demonstrates that he has no understanding of anything.
In troll johnson’s world paraplegics and their families have no money, so obviously there is no profit in taking care of them.
Also in troll johnson’s world, capitalists have no heart and never, ever do anything that doesn’t directly profit them.
Sorry to point out obvious “Marxist” reality to you but billions wealth comes from the work of others, not a philanthropic, hurculean personal effort by the billionaire.
Businessmen create the conditions in which others can make lots of money for said businessmen and gives a small proportion of the gain to those who do the actual work. The state provides physical security at both street and national level and takes a large proportion of the gain in the modern day equivalent of a feodal tithe payment: a kind of official protection racket.
You are perfectly correct. climatology is riddled with politics and has little to do with science. I hope that you are better versed in your own field of science than you are in politics and creation and meaning of wealth.
Do those people share in the risk that the business man has in starting the company? Does an employee take less money when the business doesn’t do well that year?
No. They sign up for certain working conditions. Any “benefits” comes out of their wages. They could contract instead and get paid more but at higher risk.
Greg
You labour under the illusion that wealthy individuals squirrel their money away in secret bank accounts when, in reality, the vast majority re invest their money into more businesses, creating more jobs, paying more taxes and benefiting society as well as themselves.
They take risks with that money you can’t comprehend, and they rely on finding people willing to work hard so they can also enjoy the fruits of their investment.
I wonder who you work for; a business that pays you well for your efforts from their profits; or perhaps the civil service, which ensures you profit from your daily toil thanks to the taxes paid on profits made by hard working businesses and individuals.
Capitalism has no compassion because capitalism is a system, it has no emotions, it’s the people within the system with emotions.
Your belief that only under socialism do people have compassion is insane, but then so are most socialists.
Under socialism, compassion is expressed by a bunch of people ordering government to take other people’s money and spend it on people the voters believe; to be more worthy. That isn’t compassion.
Please give an example of paraplegics being thrown out to die in the U.S .
Are there no hospitals ?
An enquiry from New Zealand.
That is because the US is not a purely capitalist state. It is what is called a mixed economy. There are many things that are based on socialist (dirty word, sorry) ideals, though they are not prevalent in the structure. Neither are most people in favour of a total dog-eat-dog society of pure capitalism.
It is not even a case of humanity or philanthropy, even the Chicago school of thought has abandoned the dogma that total unregulated capitalism is the most efficient way to run a country.
My enquiry was ironic.! It would be a good idea if Mark Johnson did not get his ideas from Wikipedia. as it seems he does from his posts. The internet is not a good place to look for basic information. It is by nature superficial
And he should ponder this from Joseph Crabtree
No set of mutually inconsistent observations can exist for which some human intellect cannot conceive a coherent explanation, however complicated.
I also suggest a look at this site for Socialism in the Soviet Union after 1917 . How humanitarian their clearance of the peasants from their land to make collective farms.
The Soviet Union as it really was and not as it is idealised in young person’s minds these days.
.http://russiapedia.rt.com/
I remember Stalin but not a lot about him so it is useful to see some information from his own country.
Mark Johnson is not an isolated instance of a half educated young man , or self educated older man who likes to waste the time of others on the internet.
It was an ironic enquiry!
Perhaps Mr Johnson would like to ponder this.
Crabtree’s Bludgeon
No set of mutually inconsistent observations can exist for which some human intellect cannot conceive a coherent explanation, however complicated
For the workings out of a Socialist State I recommend http://russiapedia.rt.com/
It isn’t a good idea to depend too much on information on the internet . Wikipedia does not have a good name in Science , for instance. Look up older text books and avoid new best sellers with startling titles.
No, USA is a humanitarian mostly capitalist state.
Socialism doesn’t do humanitarianism.
The “not so fortunate”, become even less so, as society drifts aimlessly downwards.
Only capitalist countries and afford to help the less fortunate.
Aren’t you lucky you live in a capitalist country, johnson.
I can only image where you would end up otherwise. !
typo.. “and afford” -> can afford
“that are based on socialist ideals”
Greg mis-interprets community and humanity for “socialist”
They are very different ends of the spectrum.
Yeah. The question is always ‘How much socialism is enough socialism?’, similar to, ‘How much government is enough government?’.
Funny thing, prior to the creation of these vast socialist boondoggles, the parapalegics weren’t thrown out to die either.
Pure capitalism is not dog-eat-dog. That’s actually a better description of socialism.
To bad socialists can only defend their desire to live off the labor of others by denigrating those who work.
I would like to point out that capitalism does indeed support humanity and philanthrophy. Capitalism virtually demans it. Under capitalism, your intent is to maximize profits. If you look at the balance sheet of any business, you will see that one of the largest items under assets is ‘intangibles’. That includes things such as name recognition and goodwill. Increasing that value comes from bring ‘good corporate citizens’. Go into a Publix or a Target and you will see signs posted of how many millions of dollars they have given to schools and charities. Go into smaller stores, and you will see plaques on walls honoring them for sponsoring little leagues, scouting, etc.
This isn’t done because corporations are altruistic. It is done because IT IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS, a way to distinguish yourself from the competition, and it increases the value of your business..
Clearly, there would be no such need for goodwill under a socialistic system. You have no choice as to where to shop.
Australian aboriginal Noel Pearson seems to be on the right track about the devastation caused by “sit-down-money”
http://aliceonline.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/2007-07-19-sit-down-money-aborigines-226.jpg
“sit-down-money” (welfare) is how the Democrat party in the US re-enslaved the black population (ie, physical slavery to political slavery). Does anyone remember president Lyndon Johnson’s (Democrat) comment that welfare (Great Society) would cause blacks to vote Democrat for 200 years?
Except Johnson didn’t say “blacks”.
Apology accepted.
Welcome to the club. I am intrigued by the quote from Cicero. If I remember correctly, he wrote it before the collapse of the empire.
https://twitter.com/JamesADamore/status/919015149532352512
There are people who wake up in the morning and think: today I am going to improve the world. They invariably muck up the lives of countless others.
There are other people who wake up in the morning and think: today I am going to improve myself. There is a chance that in doing so they also improve the lives of countless others.
The latter kind will work their socks of to create wealth, while the former end up devising traffic-calming measures.
There is only one motivator that makes people work hard, do anything, go the extra mile, and that is if it benefits you and your loved ones. The ‘common good’ is not one.
So what about that paraphlegic laying by the wayside? Perhaps you know the biblical story of the Samaritan who came to the rescue? The real message of that story to me is the crucial observation that the man could do what he did was because he had the resources to do so, he was rich. That paraphlegic is better off in a capitalist society of enterprising but caring people than in the much poorer socialist experiment. When Hugo Chavez was treated for cancer in his admired Cuba, the specialists had to be flown in from Russia. No such treatment available for the ordinary Cuban. Why? Because Marxist collectivism makes for poor peoples.
People invent better widgets, not because they want to better society, but because they want to benefit themselves and their families.
In the process, society is also benefitted, but it’s a side affect, not the primary purpose.
Mark,
my first 36 years I lived in Socialism. You cannot tell me what Socialism is, and how it takes care of its citizens. The SYSTEM was not there for us – we were there for the SYSTEM.
How many years of experience do YOU have living in your dreamed up Socialism?
I suggest you stick to things you know, not things you have no clue about.
johnson is one of those people who believes that the dictionary definition of socialism is what the end result will be. The many failures of socialism are merely the fault of the people who ran the system.
The next time it will work.
The main difference between capitalism and socialism (ignoring the obvious structure) is that capitalism provides an incentive for progress which socialism does not. The mantra “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need”, very quickly reduces the need to develop any ability to provide for oneself and leads to a culture of “expectation”, “dependence” and “rights”.
There was a Cicero quote up thread that alludes to the development of human nature from gratitude through dependence to entitlement.
Both systems have their problems and extremes, but where would one choose to live I wonder.
On one side there is the western based “democracy” under capitalism (or a version of). On the other, there are various “non-democratic” socialist versions known as China, Venezuela, N Korea, Iran, Daesh, ISIS. If you think this is unfair, then please give an example of a “socialist” system that hasn’t evolved into one of these extreme categories.
I was a socialist until my early twenties, then I realised that the system under which one lives has to make “a profit” in order to be able to provide benefits to those who are unable to generate their own “profit”. The difference being that one has to recognise the situation where one is unable to provide for oneself and accept what is given with no expectation of entitlement. This is a natural law of survival of the fittest (plus some “less fit”, when there is a surplus).
Could this be why the (albeit imperfect) capitalist model has been so successful, and socialist models have withered and decayed with no real progress.
This is how Nature works.
SteveT
If you are 18 and not a socialist, then there’s something wrong with you. If you’re 38 and still a socialist, now then there’s something really wrong with you.
My personal epiphany came when I was 18 and saw how the Soviet brotherhood came to Prague to protect their Tsecho-Slovakian brethren against bad influences. They came with tanks and pointed the guns at the good people of that city.
Yes, Lenin himself said this about Communism: It makes no money, ergo, it has to have capitalism to survive as it is a parasitic system. That don’t teach that in colleges these days. The reality, the ruse, the true intent versus the public proclamation… Govt. is always a Hegelian Dialect on steroids. As Ronald Reagan said the scariest works you will ever hear are: “We’re from the govt. and we’re here to help.”
johchi7 October 15, 2017 at 3:41 am said:
“State and district Gerrymandering has been a part of the election process from the very start and if you think getting rid of the Electoral College Vote will help elect more Democrats, you are living in a fantasy world. The majority of the big city population may be Democrats – Progressives, Liberals, Socialist and Communist – but the whole area outside of those cities win republicans more seats in both the state and federal congresses in the majority of the states. Having a few cities with high populations and/or states with high populations is exactly why the Electoral College was created to prevent them from ruling the whole country in every election, which a direct Democracy Vote would be gerrymandering on a federal level.”
I think you will find that the Electoral College was created because of the poor transport system of the 1770s. No railways, not aircraft, no telegrams, no email, no Internet, and the roads – such as they were – were abysmal in winter (remember, November to January) – snow, ice, and if warm enough, mud. As a result it could take weeks for a person elected in some of the more remote areas – and remember that most of the original States were remote – to get to Washington (or Philadelphia?) to deliver the result of his (no women, remember) electorate. Actually the electoral college – while nominally unique to the United States, reflects the situation elsewhere. In the UK voters elect members of Parliament, the MPs elect the Prime Minister. Ditto Australia. Ditto Canada. Ditto New Zealand (though NZ has borrowed Germany’s daft electoral system).
Now consider a hypothetical country with 100 voters. They live in 10 equally populous constituencies. There are two large cities where Party A has an overwhelming majority – 9 to 1. That means 18 votes for Party A and only 2 for party B. In the rest of the country, (the other 8 constituencies) the mix is more even, in four cases 6 for Party B and 4 for Party A, in the other four there are 5 each. Here there are 24 plus 20 = 44 votes for party B and 16 plus 20 = 36 for party A. Total votes for party A are 54 votes, and 46 votes for party B. Assuming that where the vote is split 50/50, each constituency returns a half vote for each party (similar to Maine, Nebraska???) the constituencies return 4 for party B, 2 for party A, and 2 each from the evenly split areas. Total, Party B wins 6 to 4, even though the actual votes went 54 to 46 for Party A.
This is always the result where a majority – however large or small, “takes all”. It happened in South Africa in 1948, when the Nationalists won the election 5 to 4 while the United Party won the vote 5 to 4. The United Party piled up large numbers of votes in placed like Durban, but that did not give them any extra seats in Parliament. Same in many constituencies in England. Same in South Australia – where I believe that the electoral law has been changed – somehow – to provide that the party winning the most votes must get the most seas – I don’t know how this is done so I can’t help – perhaps some South Australians can help there.
The only way I know to fix this problem is to use multi member seats, and where votes have a Single Transferable vote, where the probability is that the seats won by the various parties will be more proportional to the votes cast. Not always, but much more likely, especially if the numbers of seats per electorate is of the order of 9 of 10.
But don’t knock the Electoral College, remember that there wasn’t much is the way of political parties in 1776 – the members of the college were supposed to use their brains and knowledge of the candidates to select the most suitable for the position of President. And the runner up was to be the Vice President! Just fancy, President Trump and Vice President Clinton (the mind boggles!)
Regards
Dudley Horscroft
In the early USA voting was mostly by the more affluent population that lived closer to cities and the more rural area’s population rarely knew there was an election to go vote in it….which left government more to the elite population making the political direction our country headed. Since there were a higher number of illiterates that was a good thing at the time. Senators were still elected by the states representatives for the Federal Congress Senate to represent the State’s, now they’re democratically elected like those in the House of Representatives and not beholden to the States interest. And at first the President was to be elected by the Congress…meaning the elites of the population. Frankly our whole Federal Government is made up of whom was more popular and the more elite and affluent and influential to get elected. Billy Bob and Mary Jo from the majority of the population really don’t have a voice in politics unless it’s voting for whomever is running for a seat that has the most money to get their campaign out to the population. It has always been a choice between the lesser of evils.
Without the electoral college, whichever side can steal the most votes wins.
With the electoral college, stealing votes only wins you a state that you were going to win anyway.
The reason for this is because the only place you can cheat reliably and expect to get away with it are those areas where one party or the other controls everything.
I would favor a system where the winner of each congressional district would get 1 vote and the winner of the state as a whole would get the two votes for that state.
Each stare creates their own voting rules to favor the majority that is more populated. Which is why the majority of people living in New York, New York that’s more Democratic overrule the rest of New York State that is more Republican. If there was a direct vote for elections in every election more people would get out and vote. Many people don’t vote because they feel their vote doesn’t count, because they have been overruled repeatedly in past elections by the other ruling party. When the majority of the big cities in the USA have been controlled by Democrats for decades to nearly a century in some of them and they’re the most corrupt and crime ridden places here…you’d think common sense would at some point, point out how much their Socialist Societies have failed to solve their problems. But the people like the benefits they get for doing very little will support the Democratic Party, while the rest pay more and they get less of the benefits tend to vote Republicans into office’s and are out voted. The Electoral College worked and only those that are the losers want it changed. They forget that the Electoral College worked in their favor more times in the last century than for the Republicans. The more they lean Left the less favorable they have become. People are starting to wake up because the media that has favored the Leftist is being exposed.
+1000
The Democrats would totally lose their blue wall of Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Probably lose most of the electoral votes in California and New York.
This is closer to the popular vote that the Democrats want since now a Democrat voting in Austin would have a vote that meant something same as a Republican in Northern California or upstate New York. But they would never go for it because no matter how much ballot box stuffing you do in a single district you would only net you 1-3 more electoral votes.
“dudleyhorscroft October 15, 2017 at 4:49 am
Ditto New Zealand (though NZ has borrowed Germany’s daft electoral system).”
Not only did NZ borrow that system, they screwed it up so much so that list candidates can enter parliament as MP’s without receiving a single vote.
A command economy can’t work, it’s probably impossible.
Free markets work. Everything else about communism vs. capitalism is religion.
I couldn’t help but notice the mindless prattle from Mark S Johnson in the comments. Everyone needs to realize that he is a member of the flock of the religion of Secular Socialism; a faith in an all powerful supreme central collective with a promise of a socialist utopia on Earth. Versus arguing and providing facts about the failure of socialism and disparaging his deity the federal government, I think you would have an easier time arguing the virgin birth with an Evangelical.
In no way does a socialist economy produce equally shared misery. You don’t really think Nicolas Maduro or Kim Jong-Un are going hungry, do you?
Climate science and even renewables and sustainability have nothing to do with Marxism (a term too loosely thrown about without understanding) or leftists or progressives.
It is science or engineering or economics.
Any article ascribing and condemning it on grounds of Marxism is mere political opinion – and juvenile, prejudiced and ill thought out political opinion at that.
I am dismayed to see this sort of thing on a site which bills itself as a site concerning climate change.
Climate science is being used by the Marxists, Leftists and Progressives of the world as a device for increasing their wealth and power over the people of the world, so it is relevant to discuss climate science and its relationship to political ideologies on this website.
Btw, Capitalism = Free Enterprise. The communists invented the word Capitalism as a perjorative, in an effort to undermine and demonize the concept.
FREE! FREE! FREE! That’s where the focus should be.
Griff
You keep reciting this drivel, yet Christiana Figueres, amongst others, have stated otherwise.
You know this as I have posted it before, yet you keep posting this nonsense, like a child asking for an ice cream.
Facts only exist when they serve to advance the agenda.
Much like growing arctic ice doesn’t exist, but every downward dip in arctic ice is proof that we are all gonna die.
Heck, just ignore the quoted words of the party leaders.
Griff has spoken/
“mere political opinion – and juvenile, prejudiced and ill thought out political opinion at that.”
Griff describes the AGW agenda is a short sentence… Well done griff. 🙂
You know that AGW is basically just science-free garbage, why do you keep pretending and making up stupid unsupportable statements.
Troll Griff .
You know very well that the left push CAGW and declare the science settled .They rave on about that CO2 at 406 parts per million is the highest it has been for a million years .
When the two longest running temperature records in the world from 1880 to at least 2004 show no warming and also that it was warmer between in the 1930s and 40s than it is at present, questions have to be asked about compilation of records at this time .Are they sliced and diced to create the warmest year ever The medieval warm period has been eliminated from the records when it was a factual event over many years with temperatures higher than present .They are still not farming in Greenland as the Vikings did 1000 years ago.l
If the left where concerned about warming they would embrace Nuclear power plants which have negligible emissions in construction and operation .Modern society around the world demand energy . Only the left want to go back to the poverty of 100 years ago .
Both the “Poverty” and population levels
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population
Griff wrote: “Climate science and even renewables and sustainability have nothing to do with Marxism”
Sustainability is a socialist plan for the world.
If it were science or engineering or economics, it would NOT exist.
10 cents worth of advice…
Griff,
If this site offends thee, go someplace else (DeSomg Blog would probably welcome you and their content would be unoffensive to your delecate nature)
(I wouldn’t suggest plucking out your eyes so you don’t have to read the content though)
I owe much to Universities, but didn’t major in Entitlement Studies or Self Righteousness. While I am sorry to say I haven’t been generous to my alma maters, I hope my lack of support is not missed in the flood of donations from the correctly educated.
Do not engage those who post just to be contrarian. They will disagree and bait you with every response because they are not here to have a reasonable discussion. It’s a waste of time to try and reason with such commenters. Silence is quite often the best response.
Says who?
🙂
Says me, you got a problem with that? ;*)
I will accept your apology for Naomi Kline if you will accept an American’s apology for Al Gore, Michio Kaku, and Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
Canada however has a lot more for which to answer than just Kline. There is David Suzuki, for instance. And everyone in Greenpeace who hasn’t resigned.
US federal government spending is about 25% of GDP
and state and local government spending is about 10% of GDP
— that adds up to about 35% government spending as a percentage of GDP.
I hereby declare the US to be 35% socialist and 65% capitalist.
Is there something else to argue about?
It’s close to 50:50 as to employment. If you add SS and other government payments to jobs, the number of people “working” for the state is a majority. Although the SS money is theoretically the recipients, mishandled for them by the feds, it no longer is, since it has all been spent by elected thieves over the decades.
For a while progressives scolded us about “global warming”, but it turned out that the warming they wanted to prove was not “global”. It was missing in places that it should not have been missing. Now we are just scolded about “climate change”
I don’t deny that less than 25,000 years ago northern Illinois was under a mile of glacial ice and about 1,000 years ago the Vikings in Greenland were growing barley to make beer. I don’t deny that from 1408 to 1814, the River Thames froze so solidly that 26 times in all those years a frost fair was held on the river. But that climate change does not count. Only some climate change.
When the solutions demanded by advocates of “climate change” all converge far more to socialism than to making a better climate for human habiation, I know what the real goal of “climate change” is, and it has nothing to do with the weather.
From one Canadian to another. Neither of us us is responsible for Naomi KLEIN (sic). Like Tucker Carlson, she has beautiful hair. But, unlike Tucker, she is stupid.
Stopped reading at marxism. I have no idea what the rest of the article says but the second that comes up in any debate from a supposed uni graduate i know youre not so much graduate as much as person who argued with as many people as they possibly could as often as possible on irrelevant things while sometimes getting the right answer but for the wrong reasons.
Like climate change isnt man made at all…. BECAUSE CHEMTRAILS! Instead of – because even a casual look at long term data by the dumbest layman in about 50 different fields says its been going on for… billions of years before humans were a thing.
But hey clearly MUHCONSENSORS that think either aboriginals had open sea going vessels or arafura sea over the land bridge between papua and australia just suddenly magically appearered the second the first steam train went into revenue service in the uk, setting off a magical chain reaction just to kill polar bears are totally right and we are all morons for not believing them. TV physicist and amateur climate scientist Brian Cox said so! And hes a doctor!!!!
“Then came the ‘ain’t is awful’ exponential population graphs, collapsing resource graphs, overflowing carrying capacity graphs and the de rigueur CO2 graph that I can summarize as ‘we’re all doomed’. Note that the population graphs only showed a global trend, and did not display how wealthy nations are getting their populations in order and limiting their growth rates such that increases are largely dependent on immigration.”
The dwindling populations of European countries are the justification that Merkel is using for the mass migration policy in the European Union.
All countries are forced to take a quota of Syrian and Libyan refugees.
Victor Orban is one of the few elected leaders who has told the EU that decisions about who comes into the country, and the country’s demographic identity, are matters of national self-determination.
Perhaps the fact that the populations in Western countries have flat lined is in reality the sad result of the Baby Boomers’ pet overpopulation theory (mixed in with a cultural contempt for domestic married life and also the student debt from going to Universities). I certainly think it is. Women in France, Spain, and other Western nations have been having less than 2 children since the 70s.
And the mass migration and free movement of people and labor, as a multicultural utopian theory, has not been so lovely in practice — although pointing that out makes you a right wing racist and fa..ist on the European political spectrum.
Perhaps this is the first the entire Holdren Population Bomb Baby Boom generation has heard about demographic collapse and transition, so I will not expect to much appreciation at first.
This is not a criticism of WUWT or the author. And I am sure someone meant to say something about the lack of replacement (also known as “having a family”) in too many Western nations, even though it has been at least 24 hours and there have been 309 comments.
I tried to do my share. My wife and I had 3 kids.
3 kids? Oh alright, twist my arm.
Of course I wanted five but the mate wanted three, so we compromised and had 3.
And of course the reason I wanted to bring it up is because this —
“Note that the population graphs only showed a global trend, and did not display how wealthy nations are getting their populations in order and limiting their growth rates such that increases are largely dependent on immigration.”
—this is a perfect description of the crap sandwich Europe is eating right now.
What you said is what I generally said in another comment. That government’s reach a point where the citizens don’t produce more citizens. They create ways to bring people from other places to grow their population. When that happens it is bringing more people from less economically stable countries to the more stable economy countries. Because people in countries that are economically stable usually don’t want to go somewhere else, unless the feel they can become paid more or/and have better chances than where they’re leaving. So when government’s just hypothetically throw their doors open to anyone that has a pluse and don’t vet them for what they can add as a benefit to the country. It harm’s the population of the country that has to foot the bill to those that have little skill or abilities to prosper as an individual, without reviving government benefits that the citizens pay…because government’s have no money that doesn’t come from the citizens. And that harm’s the low skilled and poorest of that countries citizens the most. On the other end are all the graduates that are looking for jobs in the field of their studies that cannot find jobs, because the government has been bringing in more skilled people from other countries that have experience in those fields.
Devolped countries tend to slow their population growth when a degree of financial security is lost and it becomes more expensive to have children. Government’s want a growing population to fund more government and when the population cannot proliferate they look to outsiders to fill that need. After WWII the “Baby Boomers” created a population growth in the USA that created a era of prosperity that by the time LBJ and his “Great Society” was through it took that prosperity and created a bigger “welfare state” of sharing the wealth taken from the well to do to give to those less productive. And he – LBJ – started the population growth by removing the limits set on immigration. After roe v. wade made abortion legal the mostly leftist population started losing it’s voter base by killing the unborn and to get more voter’s the Democratic Party changed their tactics on illegal immigration to replace what they lost in the welfare state that used abortion as birth control…where places like Planned Parenthood put the majority of their office’s in the poorest neighborhoods. That people from Latin countries and the Middle East lean more family oriented and to democrats ideologies of Socialism they have flooded the USA with future voter’s if they can get them legalized. That a bigger population requires more energy production and capitalism to support it is the hypocrisy of their ideologies.
Politicians are not born; they are excreted.
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.
http://www.azquotes.com/author/2894-Marcus_Tullius_Cicero
Global warmening must be happening because penguins are dying from too much ice-
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/blogs/tim-blair/not-global-warming-it-was-warmal-globing/news-story/835257b77f6becaba94c7af006809215
So more grants and legislation desperately needed if you really care about what mankind is doing to penguins.
How about taking the responsibility of your actions and start to pay back the damages and harm you have caused during the past years, mr McCarter? First thing you should do however, is to give up your science titles, because you are not capable in unbiased, open and scientific way of thinking. How about a new career as a janitor of some highschool, mr MC Brainer?
From your description, Robert, I think that this was the event:
https://parksvillequalicum.whatsondigest.com/event/saturday-speakers-series-growth-and-sustainable-development
The speaker was neo-Malthusian Dr. William “Bill” Reese (“one of the foremost advocates of limits thinking”).
Wikipedia has a flattering article about Dr. Reese, here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_E._Rees
GWPF has a less flattering article about him, here:
https://www.thegwpf.com/wendell-krossa-limited-thinking/
Rees signed the 2014 “Environmental Laureates’ Declaration on Climate Change,” begging for more money to finance the poor, starving climate change community:
https://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2014/09/22/who-signed-the-climate-declaration/
From JunkScienceArchive we find this snippet of an article by Peter Foster in the Financial Post section of the National Post newspaper:
Over on the NotALotOfPeopleKnowThat blog, someone posted a quote from Dr. Reese: “The human population should be controlled safely below each planning region’s average carrying capacity, and with due consideration of the global context.”
Oh, goodie, you’re in luck, Robert. This event was just one of a series:
https://www.cheknews.ca/event/achieving-global-sustainability-decent-life-viu-eldercollege/
BTW, if you’re wondering how I found all that info about Dr. Rees, most of it was found using Leo Goldstein’s Climate Search Engine. Bookmark it.
Oops, I misspelled his name. It’s “Rees,” not “Reese.” Sorry!
The dwindling birth rates in the more economically developed Western nations is the great “problem” that solved itself without direct intervention by the state.
Environmentalists, and Malthusians general, ought to celebrate this and learn from it. That they refuse to do so tells you all you really need to know about their mind set. They apparently want and need problems requiring control over other peoples lives. Actual solutions and self-limiting problems are of no interest to them at all. It is the exercise of power and control of other human lives that really appeals.
+100 Exactly so.
It is good to see someone with enough awareness and interest to actually see this issue as political and not scientific. To some it has become “religious “ and thus indifferent to any reasonable discussion
I remain “curious “
daveburton enlightens the entire discussion:
This brings so much clarity to the discussion about the Ruling Scientific Paradigm of the environmentalist movement.
But it also wonderfully addresses several comments which present the elevation of selfishness and seeking personal power as the real basis of the free market economy.
These comments are influenced by the philosophy of Aynn Rand, a neitzcheian and a eugenicist, who brought in a secularist Darwinian explanation for the reason that free markets worked in the American experiment. And by the way, it is true that in her version of capitalism, there should be no reason ultimately for the strong to help the weak. That would, in her mind, cause the survival of unfit persons. But neither Nietzche (rule by the ubermensche) nor Eugenics (population control) are welcome in the actual conservative American base.
The reason I say the above quote addresses the question regarding the real reason for the success of the American free market model is here: “Alarmist environmentalism does not appreciate the fundamental human impulse to seek something better, to progress, and to create a better life and world. This impulse makes us truly human and leads to the humanization and benefit of all life.”
In other words, people do wish to both sustain and to better themselves and their property, and America became a nation in which any person could better themselves materially, mentally and spiritually. Now, the reason people do so is all-important and determines the results obtained: real people are doing it to provide for their own families and to serve the people around them with excellent value. There is a rationality and intelligence that is grounded in human bonds and commitments (starting with marriage & raising one’s own children, and including securing the civil well-being in our nation), which the selfish social Darwinians and the environmentalists cannot comprehend, and without which everything fails.
Hi Zeke!
I fear you have been misinformed about Ayn Rand. She was no eugenicist, and while Nietzsche was an early influence she repudiated his philosophy. See, for instance,
https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2017-spring/ayn-rand-contra-nietzsche/
That article is not sufficient to make your case, but it was nice and short and I thank you for the link.
She holds the same views as Nieztche does in saying that altruism or self-sacrifice are “immoral.”
Ayn Rand: Why Altruism is Wrong dur 3:10
She Americanizes it a little towards the end, in saying that N zis and Commies were “altruistic,” but she is making as strong a racial Darwinian and Neiztchean case as far as she can considering that she is here in the US.
In “Ayn Rand on “Subnormal” Children and the Handicapped” dur 2:54
she generously applies the eugenicist gradations of being in determining who is worthy of education and who is not. While it is under the thin veneer of saving tax dollars for the worthy and gifted children, it still is just eugenics cloaked for American ears.
You know, there are reasons there are jokes online about people becoming complete jerks while reading her books. If you find you are a really self-focused person and you are using science and economics to justify your contempt and hatred of others, you really need to repent.
The trolls spent a lot of time & effort trying to distract from the point of this post.
Griff, Mark Johnson, etal are showing what they fear.
No amount of apology for Naomi Kline shall ever be sufficient.
As for the rest of it, better late than never…welcome to the struggle.
As an American, I apologize for Michael Mann.
And as a Floridian…hey, was that you in that Winnebago with several bicycles strapped to the back end, and pulling a pick-up truck, and with a golf cart in the cargo bed of the pick-up, and a little scooter in the back of the golf cart (with…and I am just guessing here…a skate board on the back of that scooter, and roller skates tied to the skate board)?
WOW lots of chatter. Fact is global warming dogma is based on political science, not real science.
Fact is we are entering a cooling phase which is actually bad for humans. Fact is USA would be even worse off if Hillary won.
Great article. I have heard all the arguments on why we have to transform our economies away from fossil fuels to renewables. Apparently it is because of the anthropogenic climate change. My quesIf people would FACT CHECK before they post & spread half truths they would be better off. Another Left Wing politician on headline news again this morning & people jumping on the Bandwagon of half a truth. The following is exactly what Trump said to the widow of the soldier who was killed on their phone conversation.
” This is what Trump said in truth: Quote: Here is the reported full quote –
“They know the risk, they know what they sign up for but they still volunteer to put their lives on the line for their fellow Americans. We owe them a debt that can never be repaid” – President Trump to the widow of Sgt Johnson End Quote.
All you have to do is FACT CHECK!tion, which I can not find an answer to, is what percent of the dreaded two degree increase is man made?? In 2100 will fossil fuels have caused 2% of the increase or 98% of the increase?? If they can not answer this question after billions of dollars in research money then we can’t know if we need to try to stop our emissions or adapt. For millions of years, plants, animals bugs and all sea life have all adapted to climate change. When it warms there is an explosion in biodiversity, when it cools we get mass extinctions. Maybe we are better off to adapt.
Maybe it’s just my opinion. But I feel if we humans have any slight ability to warm the planet… That we should be doing everything we can to heat it up before the next LIA or GM happens. Excess Carbon Dioxide is needed now than ever to support more life. Instead of this demonizing CO2 scam being detrimental to the environment. Adapting is evolution. Promoting better sustainable fossil fuels energy to the population of poor countries will do that and bring them up to modern technologies and prosperity to feed their own population.
how agriculture is contributing to the climate change??