By Anthony Watts
Originally published at Climate Realism
Unable to win the debate in the court of public opinion, climate activists are increasingly calling for the imprisonment of climate realists. The latest example is an article in The Carbon Brief titled “How climate change misinformation spreads online.” The authors, who are all University of Exeter professors, advocate fines and imprisonment for people publishing “climate misinformation” online. They justify their call for imprisonment by claiming tremendous harm from “misleading information that is created and spread with intent to deceive.”
That’s one take, another take is that those who publish what the Left deems as “misinformation” are actually publishing what might be dubbed “inconvenient truths.” The 2006 film by Al Gore of the same name is a case in point. Gore, not being particularly good at details, published a boatload of misinformation in that film, and social media responded to correct the record. In one scene Gore used an animated clip of a polar bear in danger of drowning, trying to get onto a tiny ice flow made smaller, presumably by global warming. Gore cited this as the new normal of drowning polar bears. The reality? Scientists documented one drowned polar bear at sea after an intense storm, something that hasn’t been seen since. According to an Associated Press article:
“A federal wildlife biologist whose observation in 2004 of presumably drowned polar bears in the Arctic helped to galvanize the global warming movement has been placed on administrative leave and is being investigated for scientific misconduct, possibly over the veracity of that article.”
Social media was the first to point out problems with Gore’s polar bear claims, and they were proven right.
Then there’s the claim Gore made about Mt. Kilimanjaro losing its ice cap due to “global warming.” Again, social media was the first to point out that what was really happening was a consequence of deforestation around the base of the mountain making less water vapor available by the process of evapotranspiration – trees releasing water into the atmosphere. Without as much water vapor aiding replenishing snows, the ice simply dried up like old ice cubes in a freezer, a process known as sublimation.
And finally, Gore made the bold claim in 2009 that the Arctic ice cap might be gone in five years. Again, social media was the first to point out the problems with this claim. To this day, the Arctic ice cap remains, and Gore no longer references any of those claims he once made.
If it weren’t for social media, we’d still be hearing about these claims. The mainstream media choose not to subject alarmist climate claims to even cursory analysis, and investigative reporting is virtually non-existent. Yet, because social media does investigate and fact-check, pushing against a group-think narrative and exposing the lies and real misinformation surrounding the climate scare, climate alarmists have to fight back using dirty tricks like labeling social media authors as if they were radical enemies of the state, worthy of imprisonment in the gulag.
This isn’t the first time such wild calls for criminalization of contrary climate opinion have been made, in fact, it goes back to 2014: Lawrence Torcello, a liberal arts professor at Rochester Institute of Technology, NY, writes in an essay at The Conversation that climate scientists who fail to communicate the correct message about “global warming” should face trial for “criminal negligence.” A commenter on his article went even further to suggest that I should be sent to the war crimes tribunal in the Hauge for having a different opinion on climate:
“… I believe Anthony Watts should be frogmarched to The Hague as well. No question, in my mind. In fact, I find the idea of a defense of his actions ethically reprehensible.”
It gets worse. An ugly theatrical play, called Kill Climate Deniers, was even created in Australia about the issue.
The bottom line? Imprisonment of political dissidents has been a common theme with repressive regimes going back to the beginning of history. When those seeking power can’t convince the populace of the merits of their ideas, they start putting people who disagree in jail, hoping that fear will keep the rest in line. Fortunately, we live in a country where free speech is guaranteed by the Constitution.
But, should the time ever come when I’m going to be imprisoned for my viewpoints, I won’t go quietly, and neither will the thousands of independent thinkers on social media.
Truth or falsity is now determined solely on whether or not it advances the socialist cause.
Showing that the things Gore spoke of were incorrect doesn’t prove them wrong.
I only wish that the above was sarcasm.
Those same Climate Hactivists had better be very careful or they might get exactly what they’re pushing for…and all wind up jailed for spreading “Climate Misinformation”
Bryan
Yes, it is evidence that they aren’t really as bright as they think they are and haven’t thought it through. It would seem to me that regardless of what these fools may believe, if they were to bring charges, they would be expected to be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that their beliefs were true and correct while those they accuse would have to be shown to be willfully spreading what they know to be lies. That is a pretty high burden of proof. So far, the more vocal alarmists have not been willing to defend themselves even in the court of public opinion, with less stringent constraints than testifying under oath.
That would be the right way in justice, but it’s not the way religious activists will act.
You know what proved to be a witch in earlier times, in case there was any interest to prove s. th.
Clyde
I was reading the proposed clean air act , in my country Wales it’s based on particulate matter, smoke , ammonia PM 2.5 ,nox and a whole host of other things, if it becomes law which I think it will, you will be breaking the law if you produce the above above certain limits , I cant see how you can defend if you break the law certainly not in a lower court, that means money and the knowledge to defend in a higher court, to challange the law not the so called crime you just committed.
The most worrying thing about the act ,is the reducation of the masses ,and the brainwashing of schoolchildren, they link climate change to air pollution, within the proposed act is the banning of petrol/diesel garden tools, bonfires, education ,tax companies who supply company cars as well as the users , taxing private car parks ,reducing parking facilities, in rural and urban settings ,( already built into planning laws)
The BBC article that brought this to light was there for a few hours,then disappeared, this has happened before with similar articles,long enough there to say”we told you so” but not there long enough for a meaningful amount of people to see it.
Ironically a company who builds 4x4s has announced its mothballing plans to build a new production plant in Wales because of another green policy , a extension of the m4 motorway to avoid a bottle neck through two tunnels was abandoned by the Welsh government, the section of motorway takes hours to drive through at peak times and is under a constant 50mph limit in in the dead of night for pollution reasons.
The very government that has refused to modernise the motorway was disgusted that the 4×4 company was mothballing its plans.
Well let’s start by sending Al Gore to jail for deliberate misinformation. In view of magnitude of the crime, the extent of it and persistent re-offending, a couple of consecutive life sentences would be in order.
Bill Nye the science lie, can get a few years for his faked “greenhouse” demonstration that was so wrong he had mislead by rigging the video in post production to make the thermometer go up.
St Greta will probably qualify for being burnt at the stake.
Hey, takes two to tango !
BdC
We’re really talking about two different things. If a law is passed, then one has to obey it or risk punishment. The only recourse (other than asking the court for leniency) is to attempt to get the law revoked. One might do that by publishing information showing that the law is not necessary or does not accomplish what supposedly justified it. The alarmists are basically proposing that anyone who disagrees with alarmist opinion or law, with respect to climate, be punished for lying or misinforming. That is, preventing any public attempts at correcting bad laws or social programs that are based on bad science or political ideology.
The left knows that the courts will never hold them to the standards they are setting up for others.
More laws means more weapons to use against those who oppose the government.
You misunderstand. It’s only ‘misinformation’ if it doesn’t conform to doctrine. If it promotes the true cause, any lie is ok. Just look at what NOAA, the UK Met Office & Australian BOM do to the temperature record.
In the post-postmodern world, “truth”, or TRVTH, is more important than facts. Truth being subject to adjustment to serve the greater good.
After all, 2+2 can equal 3 or 5 if the Party requires it Winston.
After all, I think our host here has been on the receiving end of the Two Minute Hate more than once.
Orwell was bloody optimist.
In the post-normal world, they em-pathetically speak truth to facts, in lieu of inconvenient facts, and force a consensus through allegations of diversity (e.g. racism, sexism) and other classes of bigotry where people are unsympathetic to their special and peculiar interests. Case in point: rape culture, to normalize reproductive rites or selective-child, and clinical cannibalism, for social progress and medical progress, respectively, the wicked solution of the modern left.
The number 2.4 rounds to 2. Add 2.4 + 2.4 and you get 4.8, which rounds to 5. Ergo for some people’s TRVTH, 2 + 2 can equal 5.
No problem if you accept another person’s assumptions, regardless of how ridiculous.
So Biden was not just losing marbles when he said “truth over facts”?
It’s suddenly become clear to me that the leftists/Antifa/Green Team will use intimidation to solve “their” view of the climate crisis, whether it exists or not.
Then the damage will be done, and no matter what the outcome, will be justified by the then current events.
Most of us here do not support extreme climate measures, do not support riots and destroying history to get our way, and may be in the majority. It may not matter. The majority of people of all races absolutely do not support civil insurrection, but are powerless to stop it.
Told you so, decades ago.
Sallie Baliunas, Tim Patterson and I correctly called the climate-and-energy scam in 2002.
I correctly called the Marxist covert agenda in 2012 here on wattsup (below).
For your own sake good people, wake TF up! You are sleepwalking through a Civil War. You are being conquered by Marxists, and if you continue on this path you will lose all your prosperity and all your freedoms!
Tired of warning the deaf and dumb, regards to all, Allan MacRae
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/03/05/abc-sees-positive-climate-change-lessons-from-coronavirus/#comment-2931982
I called it in 2012 – see my post below.
The global warming/climate change scam was never about the climate.
It was apparent years ago that the global warming alarmists were knowingly deceiving us – no rational person could be that stupid for that long – and they must have a covert agenda.
That covert agenda is now clear – it is totalitarian control of society and personal profit based on the climate scam.
The global warming alarmists’ once-covert agenda is now fully exposed and the evidence is everywhere – the USA Democrats are shouting it from the rooftops.
Anyone who still questions the warmists’ treasonous agenda now is corrupted, delusional or both.
Regards,Allan
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/24/weekly-climate-and-energy-news-roundup-53/#comment-855037
Instead of arguing about the science of global warming, we should just listen to what these enviro radicals are actually SAYING and DOING.
Maybe they know their global warming science is bogus, but it suits their purpose to use global warming hysteria as a smokescreen to mask their true intentions.
The radical warmists have done everything in their power to starve the world of fossil fuel energy that is required for continued global prosperity.
They have squandered a trillion dollars of scarce global resources on catastrophic humanmade global warming (CAGW) nonsense.
Investing these squandered resources in clean drinking water and sanitation alone would have saved the ~50 million kids who died from drinking contaminated water in the past 25+ years of CAGW hysteria.
Intelligent use of these scarce global resources could have easily saved as many people as were killed in the atrocities of Hitler, Stalin, or Mao.
50 million people died in Hitler’s WW2. Josef Stalin killed another 50 million of his own people in internal purges. Leftist hero Mao gets the prize, killing as many as 80 million Chinese during his Great Leap Backward.
The radical environmental movement has done equally well, rivaling Mao for fatalities caused by the banning of DDT and the misallocation of scarce global resources on the fraud of catastrophic humanmade global warming.
Since many of these enviro radicals are latter-day Malthusians, Club of Rome types, etc., it is reasonable to assume that THIS WAS THEIR INTENTION.
Is this too radical a proposal? Well, NO it is not: In addition to what the radical enviros DO, let’s EXAMINE what they SAY (h/t to Wayne):
http://green-agenda.com/
”My three goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with its full complement of species, returning throughout the world.”
David Foreman,
co-founder of Earth First!
”A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.”
Ted Turner,
Founder of CNN and major UN donor
The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.”
Jeremy Rifkin,
Greenhouse Crisis Foundation
”Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.”
Paul Ehrlich,
Professor of Population Studies,
Author: “Population Bomb”, “Ecoscience”
”The big threat to the planet is people: there are too many, doing too well economically and burning too much oil.”
Sir James Lovelock,
BBC Interview
”We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination… So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts… Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”
Stephen Schneider,
Stanford Professor of Climatology,
Lead author of many IPCC reports
”Unless we announce disasters no one will listen.”
Sir John Houghton,
First chairman of the IPCC
”It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.”
Paul Watson,
Co-founder of Greenpeace
”Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing.”
David Brower,
First Executive Director of the Sierra Club
”We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.”
Timothy Wirth,
President of the UN Foundation
”No matter if the science of global warming is all phony… climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.”
Christine Stewart,
former Canadian Minister of the Environment
”The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.”
Emeritus Professor Daniel Botkin
”Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
Maurice Strong,
Founder of the UN Environmental Program
”A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-Development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.”
Paul Ehrlich,
Professor of Population Studies,
Author: “Population Bomb”, “Ecoscience”
”If I were reincarnated I would wish to return to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.”
Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh,
husband of Queen Elizabeth II,
Patron of the Patron of the World Wildlife Foundation
”The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization we have in the US. We have to stop these third World countries right where they are.”
Michael Oppenheimer
Environmental Defense Fund
”Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control.”
Professor Maurice King
”Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing – are not sustainable.”
Maurice Strong,
Rio Earth Summit
”Complex technology of any sort is an assault on the human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it.”
Amory Lovins,
Rocky Mountain Institute
”I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. it played an important part in balancing ecosystems.”
John Davis,
Editor of Earth First! Journal
**********************************
What Gore did was disinformation, not misinformation.
Misleading information with intent to deceive is disinformation, so they can’t even get their definitions right.
Actually none of them are Professors in the UK or Aussie sense. Two are associate professors and one a PhD candidate.
All they need to do is protest, threaten, bully, and intimidate people, children, too, then Democrats will go along to get along. Perhaps Occupy a city or two, some homes, too. There are precedents to organizing for action.
If I may quote, Senator Brian Boquist, a Republican from Dallas, Oregon, when Kate Brown threatened to send the state cops after them, in order to force them to be present for the climate tax vote.
“Send bachelors and come heavily armed. I’m not going to be a political prisoner in the state of Oregon. It’s just that simple.”
This statement alone scared the control freak fascists in our state legislature so badly, they don’t even let him come on the property unless he calls in advance.
well….standing out in the highway didn’t work out so good
50 shades of Charlottesville, except the driver was not spooked by a trap set by Antfia for national press propaganda. In other cases, the protestors would assault vehicles and bully drivers, they pulled a truck driver from his cabin and beat him. It didn’t work so well when they threatened Miami police officers, who were neither intimidated nor alone.
Also check out the very carefully non-reported race of the driver. If it doesn’t fit the narrative, it didn’t happen.
“I find the idea of a defense of his actions ethically reprehensible.”
Even during the War Crimes Tribunals, the defendants were permitted to put up a defense.
These totalitarians are so convinced of their moral superiority, that they won’t permit those they accuse to defend themselves.
“Fortunately, we live in a country where free speech is guaranteed by the Constitution.”
I’m not sure how much longer that will be true.
https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=15219
If they like, they shut up.
Beware a democrat victory (honest or not) in November The world as we know it will end.
You’ll be cancelled long before you are ever arrested. The law is so passe for the left they are completely ignoring it.
Jail, phfft, who needs a jail when you have a mob?
I’m really surprised WordPress hasn’t been shamed into removing WUWT.
some weirdness IS hppening at wordpress iceagenow.info ran an item yesterday on Fkbk censoring one of his page posts with REAL data refs
when commenting or trying to on his wordpress page about that event..
I kept getting a errror 403 from a supposed Wpress sec bot. very odd indeed
the magic words seemed to be FKbk and spying
I think you are giving too much credence to their air of superiority and confidence. If push comes to shove the “silent majority” will react and it will not be pretty. The riots and looting we just had were nowhere near as violent as those of the 60s. The Progressive clowns are a little too lazy to make a huge impact.
“When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say.”
Can we just fine any Exeter Uni. climate ‘scientists’ for being thick as bricks, unable to win an argument and being goddamn Nazis?
There are a lot of nuts up on that hill in Exeter, plus some fruit trees.
Only if we want to be hypocrites.
Who will do it? An Obama type judge?
Make no mistake, Western society is under siege by the Marxists/Globalists. As long as they have control of the media it will remain the same. The narratives will change as each one is discredited or dies out but there will always be a replacement.
The Internet has given everyone the opportunity to have a worldwide voice and one of the side effects has been of like minded people herding themselves into social bubbles.
The end result is that the only correct opinion is the one they and their group hold.
As they will deplatform or cancel you if you argue against their viewpoint, nothing penetrates their little self contained worlds that float like bubbles in the ether, bumping into one another and sending out self congratulatory messages on their woke liberal and correct views
Tonyb
A letter was recently sent to Facebook to silence the CO2 Coalition (skeptic organization) on Facebook courtesy of the Climate Power 2020 organization and a group of the usual suspects including..
Stacey Abrams, Founder, Fair Fight and the Southern Economic Advancement Project
LaTricea Adams, President, Black Millennials 4 Flint
Ken Berlin, CEO, Climate Reality Action Fund
Carol Browner, Chair, League of Conservation Voters Board; Former EPA Administrator
Dominique Browning, Senior Director and Co-Founder, Moms Clean Air Force
Michael Brune, Executive Director, Sierra Club
Gerald Butts, President, New Climate; former Principal Secretary to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
Alex Cornell du Houx, Co-Founder and President, Elected Officials to Protect America
Abbie Dillen, President, Earthjustice
Ken Kimmell, President, Union of Concerned Scientists
Lori Lodes, Executive Director, Climate Power 2020
Gina McCarthy, President and CEO, NRDC Action Fund; former EPA Administrator
Tamara Toles O’Laughlin, North America President, 350.org
Collin O’Mara, President, National Wildlife Federation
Erich Pica, President, Friends of the Earth
John Podesta, Founder, Center for American Progress
Tom Steyer, Founder, NextGen America; Climate Activist
Robert Wendelgass, President and CEO, Clean Water Action
Jamie Williams, President, The Wilderness Society
https://www.climatepower2020.org/facebook-letter/
Quote:
“..Above all, you told the world that climate change is not “an opinion.” It is fact.
Facebook is allowing the spread of climate misinformation to flourish, unchecked, across the globe. Instead of heeding the advice of independent scientists and approved fact-checkers from Climate Feedback, Facebook sided with fossil fuel lobbyists by allowing the CO2 Coalition to take advantage of a giant loophole for “opinion” content. The loophole has allowed climate denial to fester by labeling it “opinion,” and thus, avoiding the platform’s fact-checking processes…”
The oppressive nature of Marxism is still alive and well here in the 21st century. Now though, it is hiding in the bushes of climate alarmism waiting for the right opportunity…..
Anthony wrote, “Fortunately, we live in a country where free speech is guaranteed by the Constitution.”
Yes, we do here in the US hold the rights and protections of Free Speech and Press. These are rights reserved to the People, not granted by the government. But those Univ of Exeter pinko-commie blowhards know all-too-well that the UK (and the rest of the world) does not have a 1st Amendment guarantee of press, speech and religion. That is why the Ignorati Left admires Communist China so much (“baizuo” are they are derisively called by Chinese). George Orwell understood that about the UK.
In the 1990’s China finally emerged into the monolithic Communist China and its ruling party with absolute control over the population. But before that, China had a “cultural revolution” in 1960-1970’s that was ruinous to much of their population and institutions, where they purged the “Four Olds.” They used adolescents and young adults in the “Red Guard” to tear down statues and attack institutions. Countless millions were killed. (Don’t try to read about on Wikipedia, though. Red China has so-far successfully exerted arm-twisting influence on Wikipedia’s authors to suppress the true death toll of their cultural revolution in Wikipedia entries, just as trying to read about the cultural repression in Tibet and the Chinese state attacks on the Dali Lama is problematic on Wikipedia). China crushes and interns a million ethnic Uighurs at will today, while the liberal western press ignores what happening there (and in Tibet as well). This kind of population control is what the Liberal Left envisions for the US and is actively working towards.
The Left first must go after Free Speech, the kind of repression from Communist China that finds its way into Wikipedia is essentially what the Liberal Left ignorati want to impose on anyone writing about the Left’s Climate Scam and all its climate dowsing divinations. Make no mistake, they *WILL* come for WUWT’s WordPress access if they can, just as the Left is exerting pressure on the big social media platforms to conform to the Left’s ideas on socialism and shadown-ban and repress Conservatives. And these University of Exeter pinko-commies who couldn’t think their way out of a paper sack will be more than happy to be judge, jury and executioner, that is until the “Red Guard” mob they create comes for them, as it always does.
Back in the mid 1960s at Cambridge University there were a couple of economists, Joan Robinson and her husband who thought everything in China was marvellous, and hectored us about how we should be following China’s example.
What they omitted to say was that the Red Guards with their Little Red Book were causing chaos and comitting a lot of iconoclasm.
Their first targets were the university professors and lecturers who were deemed to be not revolutionary enough and were sent to remote parts of China for re-education by working with the peasants on their farms in very primitive conditions.
Maybe a spell on Dartmoor manure spreading or in the Fens picking vegetables when the wind and rain comes straight from Siberia would help correct the Exeter professors’ thinking. And they might even see some benefit from fossil fuels and some climate change.
Amen!!!!! I wish I could explain it as fluently as you.. but I’m getting worried that it will fall on deaf ears and as you said, that won’t realize what they’ve created till there’s a knock on their door.
Funny – I’m of the humble opinion that the damage caused by the climate frauds are ACTUALLY what deserves a lengthy, well-deserved prison sentence.
Anthony
Were you aware that your friend and mine Richard Betts is Chair of climate impacts at Exeter University as well as of course high up in the nearby Met office?
It might be interesting to ask for his comments on the article which I thought tedious and poorly written as well as lacking much in the way of facts rather than emotions.
Tonyb
I quickly read the atricle but didn’t click on all the links, I don’t have all week. But if you do contact him, please ask for some examples of what Exeter University thinks is false information.
The Nazis burned books (‘Fahrenheit 374’), and thought this to be the ultimate idea, to win the world. Well, they lost, thank God. It does not help burning books. The contents of ideas will ever last. You cannot unmake an idea that has been published… Also, imprisonment of thinkers and Climate Realists, sounds just like Stalin’s world, where the concentration camps were filled with ‘dissidents’. In the USA, you had McCartneyism where people were put in prison for their ideas. For example publishing the book “Slaughterhouse 5” about the horrible Dresden bombing, was met with imprisonment of Kurt Vonnegut…..It does not stop the ideas from flourishing. We only need proper debate, and discussions, that’s what is needed: FREEDOM OF SPEACH.
McCarthy addressed the persistence and progress of Naziism and other subversive left-wing ideologies. He was right about its generational march through our society and culture, and the actors who, among other things, would normalize another wicked solution, diversity, cancel culture, political congruence, and redistributive change.
Martin
Which brings up that with the descendants of Native Americans and the descendants of former slaves complaining about White privilege and all that is wrong with the US, they apparently don’t realize that, at best, they would all be speaking German, and at worst, wouldn’t even be around to complain were it not for the White majority utilizing the resources of this country to defeat Hitler.
Speaking of racists, just look what the Nazis did to anyone they considered a “lesser race”.
Makes “being paid less” pale by comparison.
Not that blacks or women actually are paid less.
Well that depends on who’s paying them:
“Glass ceiling at the Obama White House? Female staffers earn $8,270 (and 10.75%) less than their male counterparts”
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/glass-ceiling-at-the-obama-white-house-female-staffers-earn-8270-and-10-75-less-than-their-male-counterparts/
Her: “A woman’s work is never done!”
Him: “Which is why they get paid less…”
Mah!
Well heck Photios, I blew it. Here’s what I meant to post (were I not a moron):
sycomputing
One sees such claims all the time. However, they are based on gender (I’d rather not use “sex” because that might imply time spent on the casting couch.) alone rather than other important things like education and experience. While it might be true that women with identical experience are paid less than men, the fact is that the gender pay difference normalized to experience rarely gets mentioned. A man and a woman of the same age might be paid differently, but it might be because the woman took time out to have children and therefore has less experience. It also might be because women tend to get degrees in areas that are different from what men pursue. So, any such claims about pay differences are suspect unless and until all factors are considered, not just gender.
Clyde:
All interesting points, however, what I hear from philosophical progressives is that none of them should matter. Pay differences are the result of (mostly) white male oppression/discrimination in the workplace and thus unfair:
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/issues/equal-pay
Why do you suppose then the Obama administration contradicted itself? Does it seem hypocritical to you to proclaim women should be paid equally, except of course when it comes to we progressives in the Obama administration?
“(I’d rather not use “sex” because that might imply time spent on the casting couch.)”
Well, sex would have been the correct word.
sycomputing
It is interesting that you used data about WH staff. In most federal government positions they have gone to great lengths to make hiring and promotion blind to gender and race. There are educational requirements and often tests required for promotion to a higher GS level. Veterans receive a few bonus points for hiring. So, if there are pay differences in government positions for equal work, it is probably because the women do not have as much experience/education, or did not perform as well as men on tests. Also, there are far fewer woman veterans, dragging down average pay levels. I suspect that most complaints can be relegated to whining from those think that they should be paid more. They then look for cherry-picked data to support their complaints.
During my career there were at least 5 instances (that I know of) where women were given offers for jobs, which I had applied for in the private sector, when they were demonstrably less qualified. In one instance, HR was so anxious to hire a minority female that they made her an offer before someone realized she didn’t have the advertised requisite master’s degree, and had they to rescind the offer.
Thanks for the insights, anecdotes, etc., Clyde.
Given who’s WH it was at the time, it seems even more interesting that I was able.
GAH! Kurt Vonnegut was NOT imprisoned for publishing “Slaughterhouse 5”!
He WROTE “Slaughterhouse 5” TWENTY-FIVE YEARS after he was imprisoned – basing it partly on his experiences as a POW in World War II, imprisoned, yes, IN Slaughterhouse Number 5 in Dresden.
BEFORE you start in on Senator McCarthy (or, for that matter, Paul McCartney) – GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT! (As a personal favor, please also use a spell checker…)
Also, it was the House Un-American Activities Committee that was out of control investigating citizens in the US, not Senator McCarthy. McCarthy has been blamed for everything bad that happened because he was politically astute and got his name in the press.
The problem is that the internet is actively “burning” books. Not in and of itself of course, but effectively it is having the same effect.
Consider the Australian bush fires: if you only looked at the internet you’d think the fires were new and novel. They are nothing of the sort and the written/printed record is clear and resounding proof of that. But can you easily find those references/records on the internet using a Google or even a Duck Duck Go search? Not really.
So the Googles of the world really are trying to erase history. We see this with Wikipedia and their crazed ‘volunteer’ editors. Information is lost on a daily basis and the rate at which this is happening is only increasing.
You CAN unmake an idea that has been published. You just have to bide your time until all the original print versions are gone, recycled most likely. At that point you simply use the electronic record and proclaim that anyone remembering something different is crazy and needs to be locked away to protect themselves. It’ll only take a generation or so to achieve this.
“We’ve gotta protect our phony-baloney jobs”
One of the great moments in cinema. 🙂
I’m pretty sure any mob attempting to “frogmarch” Anthony anywhere will encounter resistance, some of it very effective resistance. The socialist left is reaching a howling crescendo and won’t stop until after the November US president election. How crazy is it? The couple that painted over “Black Lives Matter” in the street were just arrested for a hate crime. Wow! Lunacy writ large. Stay sane and safe and stick together.
Minor correction Ron. The howling crescendo won’t stop until after the election IF TRUMP LOSES. If he wins, I expect that we ain’t heard nothing yet.
It won’t stop in either case, unless and until it is stopped HARD by someone. They will either be screaming about the further loss of control, or screaming to make sure that their control is never again threatened.
That reminds me of another Exeter……….
Dr. Cal Meacham:
Relocation? To where?
The Monitor:
To your Earth.
Exeter:
A peaceful relocation. We hope to live in harmony with the citizens of your Earth.
Dr. Ruth Adams:
In harmony!
The Monitor:
Our knowledge and weapons would make us your superiors, naturally.
Dr. Cal Meacham:
Then why haven’t your “superior” brains solved the problem of synthesizing uranium?
“That reminds me of another Exeter……….”
He of the mighty forehead.
In a sense, this is actually very good news as it means the Alarmists now KNOW they have lost the battle for public opinion. I don’t think ordinary voters are going to like the idea of prison sentences for Climate sceptics.
Roughly a decade ago a documentary film examined the adverse impacts of extreme environmentalism. It was called “Not Evil Just Wrong.” That title needs an update.
“Fortunately, we live in a country where free speech is guaranteed by the Constitution.”
Ultimately, it’s the 2nd amendment that protects the first and any others. The boxes of liberty are:
The soap box
The ballot box
The cartridge box.
The final one to be used when the others are corrupted or abolished.
I’ve been seeing articles like this more frequently recently.
https://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/is-america-heading-for-civil-war-of-course-it-is_07072020
They are just a noisy minority they don’t have enough numbers to be anything but nuisance value.
Don’t underestimate the power of the media to amplify. I can’t give attribution to the following but I heard it somewhere last week and it rings true: “The passionate 2% will govern the indifferent 98%, 100% of the time.”
They are now. However if Biden starts to implement half the stuff he has been running on, opinions may change.
I saw a T-shirt the other day that said, “Make Orwell fiction again!”
Wow
I just ordered one for me and one for my wife. Had to do it. I hope it irritates the liberals; at least those that are literate.
“But, should the time ever come when I’m going to be imprisoned for my viewpoints,”
Anthony if you are ever jailed I’ll send you a cake with a hacksaw inside.
Seriously though thank you for having the guts to stand up for truth. It’s what we will all have to do as the loony left goes completely off the rails and starts jailing people who have different opinions.
The concentration camp museums in Europe show that the first uses of the camps were for Germans who refused to sign the pledge of allegiance to the cause. Ethnic cleansing and others came later.
The first concentration camp was Dachau. It was originally intended to be a kind of reeducation facility where political opponents of the National Socialists were kept until it was believed they had reformed. That changed even before the “final solution” was implemented.
“fines and imprisonment for people publishing climate misinformation”. Good idea. When the Climate Cabal finally crumbles and collapses, as it appears about to, there should be a sort of Climate Nuremberg to hold those responsible for the massively damaging Climate Lies. Yes, they should all be frogmarched to the Hague for their crimes against humanity.