Climategate & the “need” to blame Western man for all manner of social and environmental ills
It seems every now and again this idea for (what seems to be) a brilliant post on Climategate flashes across my mind and then fades before I have a chance to write it down or otherwise record it.
When I try to recall those thoughts or call them up by reading other thoughtful posts on this scandal of considerable consequence (and apparent media ignorance), all that comes up are two notions, both which may perhaps be a brilliant insights, but the first is definitely not my own. It is something I have read on a number of conservative blogs and heard from other thoughtful conservative individuals–and may even have read in an intelligent conservative column or two (or three).
Basically, it boils down to this: they’ve been doctoring the data on global warming because they need it to be so. First, if private industry has created this problem, then it becomes to easier for them to demand increased government control over our society, giving greater power to a certain “anointed” class (which must needs include them). And second, it makes it easier to be critical of our species, particularly that part of our species which resides in the industrialized West or otherwise contributes to the civilization of the West.
If I do have anything original to offer, it might be about that second point, though I’m pretty sure I’m not the first to raise it.
There is a fascinating irony to the attitude under consideration in that second point. The very notion of self-criticism is a a key aspect of Western civilization. And yet, some have taken it to an extreme. It’s not just some problems that can be attributed to our society, our culture, our civilization, our species, but every major problem must needs be one of human design. Some have taken a key aspect of Western civilization to indict that very civilization (and, in other fields of endeavor, to blame the West while excusing the rest even when their crimes are far worse).
Thus, if the temperatures of the earth are increasing, it must be due to carbon emissions, and that any evidence of a Medieval Warm Period must be discredited.
The long and the short of it that there is more to climategate than meets the eye. It’s not just about doctoring the data. It’s why certain scientists thought it necessary to do so. And that may be fodder for much discussion and future posts, but now I’m a little tipsy and sated from a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at my sister’s, so will leave this now for your commentary and criticism.
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There’s nothing wrong with soul-searching, self-analysis and thinking ‘outside the square’, but these idiots are taking it to the point of self-destruction, if not outright disconnection from reality.
See here for an example of the first:
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/how_you_should_think/
and here for the second:
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/feetal_position/
Note that Blair merely presents these views – he certainly does not endorse them!
The issue is a polarising one – to listen to the Australian Prime Minister (or to the increasingly doomed Leader of the Opposition) is to believe that you must be in one of two camps – Climate Change Believer and Cap And Trade disciple, or Denier and Wrecker Of Our Children’s Future. The man is, of course, a politician – but that he cannot publicly concede the existence of a middle ground is bizarre for a man who so consistently quotes “science” in his defence. Ergo the whole thing is fishy; ergo, Climate Change is a lie and the ETS has another agenda.
Comment by perturbed — November 27, 2009 @ 6:10 am - November 27, 2009
We have a long, long history of toying with socialism and socialism is at its core a force for remolding the individual to participate is the utopian goal of everything for the greater good. Socialism on the grand scale demands the force of government to catch and corral the mavericks.
When you set out to build the greater good, you must eliminate the common bad. Edward Bellamy wrote Looking Backward and “Bellamy clubs” immediately sprung up all across America. Some people, apparently, have an inner drive to organize the tribe and lay down rules to their liking. Socialists seem to drawn strength from observing the structure of the ant colony.
So this man-made global warming hoax is just socialism writ large and if they have to fudge the data in order to reach the greater utopian good, so be it.
Comment by heliotrope — November 27, 2009 @ 9:08 am - November 27, 2009
Hatred of Western civilization? No Way! Not the people who wants us to all grow gardens and stop killing animals and be ruled by feudal lords of the Democratic party while they keep us safe from the evil global warming!
Comment by Tim — November 27, 2009 @ 12:17 pm - November 27, 2009
Daniel,
I realize that you are beyond reason, at least in the short and medium term. And that your status as a rightwing blogger would make it near impossible for you to deviate from conservative orthodoxy on all this – so yeah, I am wasting my time. But you do need to have reality calmly laid out for you every once in a while, if for no other reason than prevent you from losing every last shred of your mind.
The data are not doctored.
Your brilliant insight is an absurd extension of your incessant victim-mongering – here trying to pretend that all of Western civilization – nay, make that the entire human species – is being victimized by a group of evil scientists.
You do correctly point out that self-criticism is a key aspect of Western civilization. As is science – that core expression of a liberal mindset. It is you and the revolting ideologues you identify with, who are the enemies of science, of innovation.
If there is any attack on Western civilization at work here, it is coming from your side – as y’all systematically use the tools of paranoid conspiracy thinking, character assassination, willful distortion, outright lying, populist baiting, and generalized attacks on anyone who knows anything as devious elitists – for the purposes of preventing our civilization from dealing with its most serious long-term challenge. Some of the motivations at play are, of course, short-term commercial interests, and those are providing most of the funding for the efforts. Other principal motivators seem to be purely ideological, mixed with a proud and defiant ignorance. But whatever the motivation, y’all are doing evil in this world.
The inherint contradiction in your argument seems to utterly escape you – not surprising given how little serious thought you actually give this subject. If the supposed victim of all these evil scientists is “western man” and his track record of designing and building civilization, then how do you account for the fact that it is those in the broader global warming community who are, in fact, the innovative designers trying to build our future – the builders of the green economy, the designers of mitigation strategies, the core scientists who are seeking to fully understand the complex science of climate?
That inquisitive and innovative spirit pervades the “warming community” – they are the proud standard bearers of Western civilization – firm believers in the value and power of science and technology- unafraid to confront our ignorance of the real world, confident in our ability to acheive understanding, and driven to use that understanding to construct a better world for ourselves and for the planet as a whole. You represent the enemies of all that – the latest manifestation of a force that has plagued human progress every step of the way – the forces of reaction, inertia, indeed backwardness. The tools being used are the same as well – those I listed above. Your fate will also be the same as always.
Comment by Tano — November 27, 2009 @ 12:32 pm - November 27, 2009
Really, Tano?
Let’s see what “rational” people like yourself have been saying, shall we — say for example about Sarah Palin?
As for Jesus and the dinosaurs, she does believe that – or something equivalent. Its in her book.
As was pointed out to you at the time — which you ignored — that was days BEFORE her book even came out. In the time since then, you have been given ample opportunities to provide your data and proof with a direct quotation from her book, and each time, you have utterly FAILED.
And you then come here and try to lecture us about “paranoid conspiracy thinking, character assassination, willful distortion, outright lying, populist baiting, and generalized attacks”?
What you have demonstrated is that you have no concern whatsoever for the facts and will do anything, including lying, to carry out your agenda. You cannot be trusted not to “doctor data” because it has already been shown that you do.
If the facts bear you out, why do you avoid them? If the facts prove your point, why do you not cite them?
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — November 27, 2009 @ 12:46 pm - November 27, 2009
If the supposed victim of all these evil scientists is “western man” and his track record of designing and building civilization, then how do you account for the fact that it is those in the broader global warming community who are, in fact, the innovative designers trying to build our future – the builders of the green economy, the designers of mitigation strategies, the core scientists who are seeking to fully understand the complex science of climate?
Easy.
The fact that they ignore and allow two massive sources — India and China — to do as they wish and solely attack developed Western economies.
If “global warming” is truly the problem, why would you not attack two of the largest contributors? But instead, Tano, you and your fellow data-fakers focus your ire solely on Western civilization. You are liars and hypocrites who use “global warming” as a means to force through your leftist anti-business and anti-American agendas.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — November 27, 2009 @ 12:53 pm - November 27, 2009
Glad to see, Tano, you acknowledge you’re wasting your time. I do have to say, as a student of psychology, I’m fascinated by the amount of time you spend reading the posts of a man you find beyond reason. And then, take more time to comment on them.
Please, please, please identify where I am victim-mongering, you know, chapter and verse as they say. Brilliant insight? Thank you for calling it that. I just speculated that it might be, but noted as well that it was not original.
You make a long string of accusations in your third paragraph, so please defend them. But, at the close of that paragraph, turning the story not against those who have been found to be misrepresenting the data, but against those accusing them of such. What a perfect Clintonian, reverse defense offense.
In the end of that paragraph, though, you do reveal exactly where you stand, telling us that we are doing evil in the world. Yup, you’re the one to make that accusation. You’re the one to avoid the facts. You’re the one not to shift your views in the wake of a scandal showing the dishonesty of many advocates of the anthropogenic view of global warming.
Contradiction in my argument? Huh? I’m just putting something out there for discussion. Perhaps, it’s a contradiction, but there’s something else at work there. It’s not just that they’re seeking innovative strategies to develop environmentally friendly technologies, it’s that they’re demanding they we all use them before they’re invented. I grant, here you do raise a good point. And I would buy into it, if those people were merely putting their technologies on the market, rather than demanding that we all use them.
Wow, and your last paragraph, well, Tano, it just makes my, something to be thankful for on a wonderful weekend with my sister and my nephew. You call us all enemies of the innovative spirit without one scrap of evidence, while the very e-mails included in the scandal “Climategate” show that the very scientists advocating AGW (your side of the debate) are those who refuse to confront criticism of their ideas. Go read the e-mails and see exactly how such folk react to those at odds with their point of view. See how some are at pains to hide the data, disguising a decline inconvenient to their “truth.”
And then look to your own rhetoric, how you borrow left-wing talking points (calling us whiny victims) to describe bloggers to whose writings you devote a major portion of your day. You call us enemies of Western civilization, forces of reaction and backwardness. Amazing and amusing. You delight me with your prejudice, your animosity.
What is it about folk like you that you have to smear us so much? What it is about folk like you that you refuse to acknowledge data inconvenient to your conclusions?
If you guys are so confident in your ability to achieve understanding, why must you guys (just as you do) so smear your ideological adversaries? If you wanted to achieve understanding, wouldn’t you take issue with our arguments rather than attack us on a personal level, questioning our motives?
Your comment is a real piece of a work and a window in your worldview.
Comment by B. Daniel Blatt — November 27, 2009 @ 12:54 pm - November 27, 2009
Tano, since my comment was so long (I did enjoy writing it), let me offer this brief thought: if your the pro-AGW side is, as you put it, “unafraid to confront our ignorance of the real world, confident in our ability to acheive understanding,” how then to you explain their attitude (made ever more manifest in those e-mails) toward their critics, particularly the scientists who raise objections to the notion of AGW based upon scientific research?
Comment by B. Daniel Blatt — November 27, 2009 @ 1:09 pm - November 27, 2009
I wouldn’t be surprised, if more information leaks out down the road and snares them deeper in their webs of deceit. Just like ACORN, every time Bertha and gang open their mouths out pops more videos and data that refutes their claims and totally makes them look foolish.
Comment by Steven E. Kalbach — November 27, 2009 @ 1:14 pm - November 27, 2009
Humm…Information comes out that “debunks” the speculation about Global Warming – Tano and Company start dancing around like they had collectively stubbed their toes. They dont actually acknowledge the facts of the discovered information – they start complaining about who “made them” stub their collectively toes. I believe that is called redirection. The same redirection that Tano and Company use when they talk about all the “Crises” of the world that need fixing. This is a crock!!!
Comment by Duffy - Native Intelligence — November 27, 2009 @ 1:16 pm - November 27, 2009
Tano, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but it appears that the “firm believers in the value and power of science and technology- who are unafraid to confront their ignorance of the real world, confident in their ability to acheive understanding, and driven to use that understanding to construct a better world for themselves and for the planet as a whole” have been caught faking climate data in New Zealand.
http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2009/11/breaking-nzs-niwa-accused-of-cru-style-temperature-faking.html
Comment by Sean A — November 27, 2009 @ 1:50 pm - November 27, 2009
Getting back to perturbed
, there is a whole angle which most of you might not realize that is happening here in Australia.
We have a narcissist who is the equal of “the One” with regard to his stupidity. He is clinging to this notion of man made global warming in the face of these leaks. I am not going to say “hacked information” because I now believe that it was a whistleblower, and I think that Phil Jones made the claim about the computer being hacked to deflect “blame”, and in some quarters that has been working.
Yesterday I viewed “the Insider” which had a segment with Andrew Bolt and David Mann (I have the name wrong I am sure), anyway, the lefty, this David, when Andrew Bolt mentioned the emails did the unthinkable and shut him out by putting his feet on the table and then opening up a newspaper. This is the kind of ignorance that we are encountering from the mainstream media.
The most truthful person is the extreme lefty, George Monbiot, who has acknowledge that the material is very damaging, but who still believes in global warming. I wonder what it would take to have him see that any global warming is not man made.
Anyway, back to the Ruddster or rather KRudd, and his mate Turnbull. The Liberal Party leader, Malcolm Turnbull is all but finished because he is pushing the same line. The Australian people are speaking up about the same kind of legislation. We are getting the same accusations from little know-it-alls, the ones who are calling us “luddites”, as if we were hand-weavers against industrialization…. er, I do not think so…. (even though I am a lace-maker ROFL)…. What happened here is that a number of the front bench members of the Opposition resigned rather than be forced to vote for the ETS legislation. What they want is that it is postponed in the Senate until February, after Copenhagen, but it seems the Ruddster is in a hurry for some reason. If passed, it will cost us at least $1100 per household per year. It is another tax.
Comment by straightAussie — November 27, 2009 @ 3:06 pm - November 27, 2009
I should point out that leftards like Tano are occupying a lot of blogs at the moment and presenting their non-arguments that the emails mean nothing. At the same time I am hearing more and more scientists coming out, after analyzing the emails and the data provided who have stated that this is all very damaging.
One thing I want to address is the fact that the pair who wrote the paper on the warming of the medieval period have been grossly mistreated by this same cabal. They consider what they have done to be peer review. They think that they managed to discredit the work of this pair, but in reality it looks like these two have been vindicated as Mann, Jones, Briffa, Holdren et al, have been discredited in their efforts to prove something that is just not true.
It is the scenarios that are so unbelievable in my view, and that is right down to the “students” or whatever they were from Harvard who wrote a letter to the White House making wild claims concerning the “likelihood” of an increase of certain diseases including: malaria, Lyme disease and of all things kidney stones. In each case I think that it is easily refuted, for example, mosquitoes are the cause of malaria in tropical areas. An eradication program gets rid of the mosquitoes, yet there was an outcry over the use of Monsanto’s DDT and it can no longer be used to do the eradication work. In other words, malaria will increase again for two reasons (1) resistance to the drugs that treat the disease and (2) a decrease in eradication efforts…. keeping the waterways clean might even help a bit… As for kidney stones, I guess these med students have not heard about the role of diet… and as for Lyme Disease rising, that might be a function of better diagnostic tools… because Lyme Disease is caused by being bitten by tics that are found on wild deer.
Comment by straightAussie — November 27, 2009 @ 3:15 pm - November 27, 2009
‘they’re demanding they we all use them before they’re invented.”
This statement makes no sense on its surface, and the more I try to unpack it, the less sense it makes.
“I would buy into it, if those people were merely putting their technologies on the market, rather than demanding that we all use them.’
So you find my argument convincing, or at least interesting, except for the “fact” that someone is demanding you use a technology that doesn’t exist?????? And you wonder why i consider you beyond reason?
“scientists advocating AGW…are those who refuse to confront criticism of their ideas…”
They have spent an extraordinary amount of time dealing with the often lunatic, and politically motivated criticism of the deniers. I am no at all surprised that many of them are totally exasperated. I have seen and participated to some extent in a similar situation in the creationist wars. You realize after a while that nothing you can ever say or do will cause the reactionaries to change their view – their position is, or has become, their core identity. Sure, it would be great if we all could have infinite patience.
“some are at pains to hide the data, disguising a decline inconvenient to their “truth.””
That is a lie. I realize you think you have pure gold in this one little quote, but there was no hiding of anything. The problematical proxy data was well known – they even wrote papers about the problem. And the solution they used – the trick – was to use ACTUAL TEMPERATURE DATA, instead of proxy data. I told you this already – it is widely being discussed in the debate (although obviously not on the rightwing sites) – somehow I suspect it will never make any difference, because you have no intention of not milking this for all you can, irrespective of the truth.
“What is it about folk like you that you have to smear us so much? ”
Are you trying to murder me by having me roll on the floor, convulsed in spastic fits of laughter with tears pouring from my eyes such that I bump my head against some furniture, or something? You run a world-class smear site here, and cultivate a peanut gallery of folks who daily try to dredge the depths of the smear bucket for stuff to throw against all that deviate from the approved line. I mean, look at this very post!
You are not just “smearing” people like I do to you – by calling out your opinions and thier intellectual framework, as being part of that long tradition of political reaction and backwardness (which is, of course, the unflattering way to characterize conservatism). You have joined in the paranoid theory that thousands of scientists are engaged in a massive conspiracy to purposely rig scientific data because of some supposed instinct to tear down everything about western civilization. Thats lunatic smearing on an epic scale! I don’t hold a candle to you in that department, Dan.
Comment by Tano — November 27, 2009 @ 4:13 pm - November 27, 2009
“have been caught faking climate data in New Zealand. ”
An even weaker story than CRU. Totally phony “questioning’. The adjustments to the raw data are perfectly standard, are well known – in fact even the people who “broke’ this story have had the explanation for months, because they were freely given them when they asked. Once again, more thoroughly dishonest mudslinging, that amounts to nothing.
Comment by Tano — November 27, 2009 @ 4:17 pm - November 27, 2009
Tano, it does seem you exist for my entertainment.
No, I don’t find your argument convincing, but would (please consider that “would” signals the use of the conditional tense) “buy into it,” in the sense that I’d lend it more credence if it would not part of a strategy to mandate the use of such technology.
Wow, you do have this need to besmirch your critics. To be sure, some of what you call “deniers” do have political motives, but so do the folks are your side of this debate. Others are dispassionate scientists. That you call them lunatic says a lot about you.
Oh, um, now, who’s the reactionary unwilling to change their views, Tano? We’ve just seen a whole batch of e-mails released which show how advocates of AGW have been playing fast and loose with the data. And you’re the one arguing as if nothing has changed. You can dress up the actual language of the e-mails, however, you want, but it doesn’t make it any less dishonest. Dispassionate scientists don’t attempt to hide inconvenient data or trends; they address them and adapt their theories accordingly.
Can’t you just admit these folks made a mistake? And you relied on dispassionate scientist, who prefer to smear those who offer conflicting theories than address their arguments?
Tano, once again, why do you spend so much time here if we run such a smear site. And please, please, as I’ve requested before on other matters (but then you never respond to the challenges I make to you), identify those smears, chapter and verse. If you’re calling us out, well, then call out specific smears we’ve made.
Meanwhile, you’re suggesting scientists with whom you disagree are lunatics. And that’s not a smear? Hmmm. . . . Then you go on to accuse me of lunatic smearing . . . So, instead of avoiding the question and rolling on the floor in your maniacal laughter, you might want to consider your own bile. ‘Cause the very tone of your comment doesn’t suggest someone laughing at us, but venting his spleen at a convenient target.
And you do so my misrepresenting the very tone of this post. It’s speculative, wondering. I don’t say all those scientists have rigged the data. I do look into why they’re so beholden to a theory.
As to smearing, well, just look at how you describe conservatism: “long tradition of political reaction and backwardness.” Have you ever studied (outside left-wing blogs and in liberal treatises) the origins of the modern American conservative movement. To even suggest it has a tradition of reaction and backwardness is to focus on the extreme right-wing movements in America and ignore the rise of the Goldwater-Reagan right.
You spend so much time on a conservative site, yet remain blind to what conservatives stand for.
Thoroughly dishonest mudslinging, Tano? That sounds about right for what you do everyday when you comment to this blog.
Comment by B. Daniel Blatt — November 27, 2009 @ 5:18 pm - November 27, 2009
oh, and one more thing–please note that I don’t call those scientists supporting AGW as lunatics, but you tell us we traffic in smears, yet reduce very serious scientists to lunatics.
Guess it can only be a smear when those who disagree with you do it.
Comment by B. Daniel Blatt — November 27, 2009 @ 5:20 pm - November 27, 2009
Can Tano say nothing beyond “Pay no attention to the man behind the mirror”?
Comment by The_Livewire — November 27, 2009 @ 5:20 pm - November 27, 2009
While Tano is trying to spin the latest new about the climate change hoax; news of the smoking gun regarding this con is spreading throughout the US in spite of the MSM blackout!
No matter how you spin it, the sky is not falling and a already angry populist is getting even more angry. The sleeping giant has not just awaken; it is rising!!!
Comment by Dave_62 — November 27, 2009 @ 5:31 pm - November 27, 2009
Calling Dan Rather……. Tano needs you to explain the flawed, but accurate hockey stick graphs and how mechanically fiddling the scheme is science as usual.
Comment by heliotrope — November 27, 2009 @ 5:35 pm - November 27, 2009
“To even suggest it has a tradition of reaction and backwardness is to focus on the extreme right-wing movements in America and ignore the rise of the Goldwater-Reagan right.”
Huh? Goldwater and Reagan were extemist right-wingers. At least in my calculations. I grew up in the sixties with a worldview shaped by the civil-rights movement (both of these conservatives were opposed), the woman’s rights movement (ditto), the gay rights movement (ditto), the consumer rights movement (ditto), the environmental movement (yet again), and the realization of the tragic mistake of Vietnam (dtto again).
The modern conservative movement in America was founded around the wrong position on every major issue of the day. They systematically took the anti-liberty, anti-equality position, and built their political coalition around all the Southerners who fled the Democratic Party over civil-rights, and extended that coalition with appeals to the authoritarian and quasi-theocratic instincts of the modern Christian right. Reaction and backwardness are the fibers and sinew of the modern conservative movement.
Comment by Tano — November 27, 2009 @ 5:56 pm - November 27, 2009
Oh sorry – Goldwater was rather liberal on gay rights, thats true. The other dittos hold up….
Comment by Tano — November 27, 2009 @ 5:57 pm - November 27, 2009
Um, Tano, you’re fun to watch. To call Reagan and Goldwater extremist right-wingers betrays your prejudice.
So, you’re basing the entire conservative movement on what it opposed, presuming that all the various movements of the 1960s are good and progressive (in the real sense of the word) things. And I grant that some were. (Do you mean to suggest that in opposing the civil rights movement Reagan and Goldwater favored maintaining the system of segregation that existed in the South?) And here again, we see your prejudice, defining by progress by adherence to your worldview.
Why not look at what Reagan and Goldwater were for?
But, you’re not interested in that, only in repeating inaccurate left-wing talking points on American conservatism.
To say that the right took the “anti-liberty” position shows such a profound misunderstanding of conservatism that it seems impossible to rehabilitate you. The entire conservative movement was based on liberty.
You accuse us of smearing, but then your entire comment #21 is one big smear. Amazing, just amazing. You are both prejudiced and narrow-minded. You attack something you don’t even understand. And you accuse us of being reactionary. Amazing, just amazing –and entertaining too.
More so entertaining because you spend so much time on this blog reading the words of people you believe to be bigots.
Each word you post to this blog paints a picture of left-wing ignorance and intolerance.
Comment by B. Daniel Blatt — November 27, 2009 @ 6:16 pm - November 27, 2009
Ah, I see Tano is trying to tell lies about conservatives again.
But that’s typical of liberalism. No new thoughts or ideas, only smears and lies trying to claim that other people are “stupid” and that, if they were given totalitarian powers, the world would be a better place.
Anyone who’s worked with teenagers can recognize the thought processes of liberalism; again, an absence of wisdom coupled with a complete contempt and belief that anyone older than you are is stupid and wrong. This is why the Barack Obama, classic example of this childlike idiocy, believes that everything he has ever done is “unprecedented”; in the narcissistic, self-centered mind of this perpetual adolescent, truly no one else has any ideas, everyone else is an idiot, and anyone who disagrees with him is wrong.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — November 27, 2009 @ 6:16 pm - November 27, 2009
What Tano and fellow travellers either are not able or do not want to realise is that much of the opposition to the whole “climate change” business is not to “the science” (however discredited that may be), but to the solutions proposed to deal with it.
Their solution is not, never has been, and never will be the only one. To claim that anyone objecting to it is a “do-nothing denialist” is untrue. At best, it is based in ignorance. At worst, it is a slanderous lie.
A technological/engineering solution on a grand scale – properly researched, planned and constructed – is the real answer, and as this solution would have the benefit of providing employment in its construction and electrical power free of the limitations of finite coal/oil (and eventually uranium/thorium) reserves (especially if we can really make tidal and ocean-thermal power work properly), it would have been worthy of ongoing support from both sides of politics, even if (or in my opinion “when”, i.e. NOW) “climate change” WAS eventually proved to be a lie.
Instead, the powers that be proposed a money-shuffling Ponzi scheme and a hideous, octopoid bureaucracy to work it. How have we come to this, that we no longer have noble ambition or courage?
Comment by perturbed — November 27, 2009 @ 6:20 pm - November 27, 2009
Dan to a very extreme leftist, I imagine that Reagan/Goldwater would look extremely right beings the two positions are worlds apart.
Comment by Steven E. Kalbach — November 27, 2009 @ 7:04 pm - November 27, 2009
“To say that the right took the “anti-liberty” position shows such a profound misunderstanding of conservatism that it seems impossible to rehabilitate you. The entire conservative movement was based on liberty.”
No Dan. The right believes in the liberty of capital, and those who yield it, to operate with minimal constraints. The liberty that allows blacks, or women, or gays to participate in society as fully-free and equal citizens – that kind of liberty the right fought, bitterly.
You might personally have different values, as a function of your decency and more likely, your age, but you cannot refute the facts of what your heroes fought against. I lived through it and it was very real.
In the end, conservatism always opposes every issue that ends up defining human progress, and on those issues it always loses. And then the next generation of conservatives, if they are smart, simply accept the progress as a given, and even incorporate it into the tradition that they try to uphold. You don’t realize how ironic, yet satisfying it was to see Reagan appoint the first woman SC justice. When the reactionary bastards fully accept the progress, then you know the victory is complete.
Don’t get me wrong here – I do appreciate an important and valuable role for conservatism in society. Liberal innovators have tons of new ideas to make things better, and most of them are bad ideas. The same is true of all creative pursuits. Scientists – most of their hypotheses dont work out. Artists – most works are simply not compelling. Business innovators – most new businesses go out of business in the first year. So a philosophy that opposes innovation probably saves us all from lots of mistakes. But it also gets in the way of the good ideas.
In the end it comes down to personality types, I imagine. Those who are curious about the world, who are unafraid of identifying problems, who thrive on trying to solve problems – they are the liberals who come up with all these ideas. Those who cling to tradition, who seek safe harbors, who just want to fit in, they will oppose innovation. In the end a healthy society needs a proper balance of the two.
For a generation now, a particularly noxious brand of conservatism has burdened this country – coming to power in direct reaction to one of the greatest decades in our nations history – the sixties, when more people broke through into the sunlight of equal citizenry than at any time in our history. Perhaps this retrenchment was inevitable – I can’t really see that it accomplished much good, but its time is over, thank goodness.
Comment by Tano — November 27, 2009 @ 9:13 pm - November 27, 2009
Wow, Tano, as I’ve said, with each word of commentary you add to this blog, you provide more and more evidence of your own prejudice, a narrow-mindedness representative of so many on the right.
You’re calling us reactionary bastards who oppose progress, wow! Wow, just wow.
And then you assume we’re afraid of identifying problems. How does one argue with such nonsense? One just shakes one’s head and smiles.
We conservatives believe in smaller government in large measure because we believe a vibrant private sector is the greatest source of innovation, that private institutions cans better identify problems and create solutions.
To see the 1960s as the greatest generation of our nation’s history is to mistake rhetoric for progress (no wonder you like Barack Obama!). The 1960s were an era of social unrest, with the social contract fraying and crime rates beginning to increase while government grew. Go look at the 1980s, as the economy expanded, opportunities increase, minorities thrived, with many moving out of the inner cities and into homes in the suburbs. Not just that, it was an era of innovation, with home computers becoming commonplace and the fax machine helped spread ideas across boundaries and the iron curtain corroding, then collapsing, with new democracies emerging across Europe.
How many new democracies emerged in the 1960s and remained vibrant in the following years.
Well, Tano, thanks once again for a window into your prejudiced world view. You are clueless about conservatism. And you’ve just called the most successful political movement, the ideas of which led to the greatest increase in human wealth (and thus a concomitant decline in poverty), an increase in freedom as a particularly noxious philosophy.
We’ve known for some time that you do hate conservatives. Now, we have a better idea why. You think our ideas our noxious, while you misrepresent the meaning of our movement, seeing it as retrenchment.
Perhaps, to a certain extent it was. You may celebrate the 1960s, but that as an era of social unrest, following by one of economic malaise. The 1980s were an era of social consensus, with gays becoming increasingly open, followed by a decade of continued prosperity (after his initial efforts, Clinton used the better part of his Administration to build on, rather than to destroy the work of the Gipper) and increasing social acceptance of gay people.
I could on and on and on. But, you make so clear how jaundiced a view you have of conservatives. And if you were not representative of a whole spectrum of prejudiced opinion, I might just laugh and move on.
I look at your comment again and see that you’ve written, “conservatism always opposes every issue that ends up defining human progress.” Again, wow, just wow. What a narrow-minded person you are. What an ignorant man you are. To define conservatism as opposed to progress. I guess for you progress is synonymous with leftism.
What my heroes fought against? What my heroes fought against? Do you even know what they fought for?
Please show me where Reagan fought against the civil rights movement and to maintain the status quo of segregation? Where he opposed the advancement of women.
Like I said, I could go on and on and on. So, let me conclude with a bit of rhetorical repetition. You’re so certain why conservatives fought against, but do you have any idea what they fought for?
To borrow an expression from the great Albert Camus (perhaps the first neo-conservative), do you know what values they affirmed when they said, “No,” to liberalism?
Comment by B. Daniel Blatt — November 27, 2009 @ 9:46 pm - November 27, 2009
It is truly amazing how, when liberals rant, they show their true face and intense bigotry.
For example:
The right believes in the liberty of capital, and those who yield it, to operate with minimal constraints. The liberty that allows blacks, or women, or gays to participate in society as fully-free and equal citizens – that kind of liberty the right fought, bitterly.
Notice how Tano believes, truly believes, that this liberty is meaningless to blacks, women and gays — which means that he truly believes blacks, women, and gays are not capable of yielding capital and are his inferiors.
Need more proof? Look how Tano treats members of minorities who do not bow and scrape before him. He tells lies, flat-out lies, about women who do not obey him. He screams and whines that black people who do not vote or think the way he does are “Sambos”, “Uncle Toms”, “house slaves”, and cannot call themself a black man”. Here, he insists that gay people who do not worship his Barack Obama are “self-loathing”, “Jewish Nazis”, “kapos”, and “beyond reason”.
Tano supports minorities all right — as long as they do exactly what he demands and think exactly the way he orders. If they don’t, he strips them of their minority status and sets out to destroy them. He cannot tolerate diversity of thought or criticism; all must obey and do exactly what Tano says. Since he views minority members as his inferiors, any criticism of him is tatamount to open rebellion — and rebellion must be crushed at any cost.
The recent “global warming” emails show Tano’s mentality perfectly. These “scientists” deliberately manipulated and falsified information. They talked about murdering those who disagreed with them. They set out to destroy the careers of anyone who dared criticize their methods. They lied to the government and then tried to destroy evidence of their lying and their methods.
That is Tano to a tee. That is Barack Obama to a tee. That is the disgusting, putrid core of liberalism, laid bare for everyone.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — November 28, 2009 @ 12:47 am - November 28, 2009
Don’t forget, he supports his ‘minorities’ to make himself feel better. Why else would he choose the black guy over equally qualified candidates?
Comment by The_Livewire — November 28, 2009 @ 5:23 pm - November 28, 2009
If the data aren’t doctored, if the models aren’t purest crap, no problem. Simply release them in their entirety for full disclosure and review and replication.
Because that’s how REAL science works. They can either stand, or not. They either be replicated … or not. Et cetera. There is simply ZERO doubt at this point that the upper crust of AGW “scientists” conspired to stifle and crush dissent, hide serious flaws with their own research, and force results to fit into pre-determined conclusions — all in pursuit of political and monetary agendas.
My sympathies go out to the many honest and dedicated scientists in the field who have busted their assess doing REAL SCIENCE, only to find out they have been building castles on low-tide sand.
Comment by Tully — November 28, 2009 @ 8:00 pm - November 28, 2009
East Anglia has now announced the CRU will make “all the data accessible as soon as possible.”
Comment by Wesley M. — November 29, 2009 @ 11:38 am - November 29, 2009
#32: “East Anglia has now announced the CRU will make ‘all the data accessible as soon as possible.’”
Of course, “all the data” will not include the raw temperature data that the CRU manipulated to achieve the desired results because that information was dumped by the organization a long time ago.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936328.ece
This means that other scientists will not be able to check the basic calculations that the CRU made to fabricate a long-term rise in temperature over the last 150 years. Consequently, this is nothing but a meaningless concession designed to deflect legitimate demands for Phil Jones to resign from his position as Director of the CRU and it will ultimately be spun by the Left as proof of the CRU’s “transparency.” The real story here is that there was a small window of opportunity for the climate change crowd to save any remaining credibility it might have by purging itself of elitist hacks like Jones, but that window is just about closed and it’s clear that the powers that be in the eco-ivory tower have decided to stick with politics over science. And that’s fine–they’ll just have to live with the fact that any work they produce in the future will be tainted by this scandal and categorically dismissed. It also means that future scientific discoveries that cast doubt on the existence of AGW will be virtually impervious to CRU’s attacks.
Comment by Sean A — November 29, 2009 @ 2:13 pm - November 29, 2009
News from Australia. The Liberal Party, that is the Opposition has taken a vote and ditched Malcolm Turnbull as leader. The new Opposition is Tony Abbott. This means that we are now fighting our version of Crap and Tax called ETS. We still have to convince 7 left wing Liberal Senators that they are wrong.
Comment by straightAussie — November 30, 2009 @ 11:04 pm - November 30, 2009