The science is settled: We are ruled by those who think us idiots.
Without doubt you are all aware of the huge international meeting underway in Paris at which some 150 heads-of-state and government and their staffs have gathered to declare war on, nay, to defeat the "greatest threat" to man's existence since the Flood. No, not nuclear war. No, not Islamic terrorism. No, not hunger or poverty. Yes, I refer to man-made, oops, human-made global climate warming, er, uh, change, er, disruption. You know that stuff on which there is a broad scientific consensus, well, except for all the scientists who don't buy it, or better said, haven't got bought by it and its well-heeled money backers.These thousands of delegates, by the way, have not walked to the conference or ridden their bicycles or their electric cars to get there. No they have come in large fossil fuel gulping aircraft and limousines, belching out huge quantities of "green house gases," you know, that evil CO2. They are also heavily protected by lots of gun-toting men and women; yes, guns, the things they want to take away from us but which they rely upon to protect them.
Yes, it is in Paris. The same Paris that just suffered a grotesque event in which 130 persons were killed, not by melting ice, or hungry polar bears, but by suicidal assassins of the death cult known as Islam. But then those dead, well, they were a "setback" but, of course, progressivism must march on in its ceaseless quest to save the planet from real threats, e.g., Rebel flags, "offensive" speech, and my four SUVs. It must seek to protect children not from the mosquitos that give them malaria and dengue but from the DDT that will kill those mosquitos. It must protect children not by ensuring they don't go hungry, but by protecting them from the horrid industrialized agriculture that could feed them. It protects us from terrorism not by killing the terrorists and waging war on their bankrupt ideology of Islam, but by claiming that global climate whatever has caused terrorism and that holding this massive gab-fest is the strongest rebuke imaginable to the terrorists . . . right. ISIS is just shaking in their sandals, fearful of having their HUMVEES taken away.
So progressivism has seized on one of the greatest scientific-social-economic-political scams to come down the pike since, oh, I don't know, since Karl Marx took pen to paper, perhaps. It has all the hallmarks of a progressive cause: demands for an end to prosperity; an end to free markets and individual choices; a demand for ever greater resources and power going to governments and the bureaucrats who run them; a demand to shut down opponents as kooks or "deniers." And as we see the "science" behind the whole mishmash of stuff that is supposedly The Theory of Global Warming Climate Change Disruption fall apart almost daily, the advocates of "doing something" about Global Whatever get more and more desperate and turn away from science and turn to the brute power of government. Their "theory" can predict nothing and explain nothing except for how to increase their power over all of us.
The science is settled: We are ruled by those who hate us.
The thing I just cannot fathom is what the progressives think will come next after they have succeeded in bring down the West and its way of life. What do they see that is supposedly better than what we have? I really need someone to explain it for me because I just don't understand.
ReplyDeleteBrett, the Progs expect we'll all hold hands in a circle and sing "Kumbaya" after eating peaches and cream.
DeleteUnfortunately, I suspect that what we'll ultimately have is a sadder but wiser guy sitting in the rubble crying, "Alas for the city that was once full of people."
Brett, the progressive lives to destroy. If he is successful as you describe, he will turn on his own factions and continue on in the name of "ideological purity".
DeleteAh, that's the fun part--Progs don't expect to have to abide by any of this themselves--they will live in segregated, high-end communities like in that horrible Elysium movie--or like the "leadership" of the Peoples' Republic of Haven in the Honor Harrington Sci-Fi series. They are intellectually and morally bankrupt.
DeleteBecause 'Progressive' are the new(ish) euphemism for 'Socialist', because of the (deserved) baggage that Socialism had. And many Communists call themselves Socialists, because of the filthy reputation that Communism deserves for its history of repression, poverty and death that it brought to millions since the parasite Karl Marx put pen to paper to codify Communism. The premise of Communism is that there is an inevitable Progress from Serfdom to Capitalism to Communism. If you are a Progressive, you believe in an inevitable societal progress to Socialism/Communism - thus the choice of name. A progressive sees our current Capitalism/Corporatism culture as lying on the path to an enlightened future of society - but also viewing our current system as a major stumbling block preventing further progress down that path.
DeleteFor some, they believe that this progress, being inevitable, will come about peaceably by the natural evolution of thought and education. Others, like Marx did, think the way through the current culture is through Revolution. Those believing in Revolution need a pool of revolutionaries who are so dissatisfied with the current system they are happy to have it destroyed.
Those who will do the destroying are those who are taught by the media and in schools and universities that the current culture is so unfair, so unequal, so sexist, so racist, so heteronomative, so misogynist, so patriarchal, so polluting, so anti-Gaia, so rich-while-others-are-poor, that the current system must be changed. Add to this the prospect that non-STEM students might graduate with education debts that will never be paid off because nobody wants graduates with their 'skills' while the system remains intact, and the fires of Revolution are kindled.
If progress through revolution to Socialism/Communism is thought inevitable, then the progressives seek to enlist the anti-Westerners such as the Islamists to bring about the destruction of Western Civilization and culture, since in the long run this anti-West anger surely will subside when the causes for their dissatisfaction is removed and the inevitable natural progression of culture to socialism and beyond is allowed to continue. Progressives see themselves immune to the effects of future anarchy, as they believe that their intellect, purity and vision will be recognised by the masses as the rightful architects and implementors of a socialist Eden.
Conservatives don't believe in an inevitable natural progression towards a more enlightened state of culture, but see the efforts of the Progressives as an attempt to trigger the Decline and Fall of the Western Culture Empire, and fear the hundreds of years of chaos that will probably follow, without the certainty that this will ever improve - or even that a Communist future will be any different to the pasts or present of every Communist state.
I've heard that the movie Elysium is popular with Progressives, since it depicts the have-nots in a world of scarcity, overpopulation, lawlessness, corruption taking it to the 'Man' because one part of the population is not so burdened by these factors, and are forced to share with those who are at the end of the movie. Thus all will now share all benefits and all will be good. Roll credits.
DeleteThe only problem is, that this will not fix the problems in the world, and indeed you can imagine what the outcome in the long term will be in such a world. The resources used by the small group of elite, when distributed amongst the huge population of the others will make essentially no difference to the lives of any of the have-nots. Overpopulation will not be solved, lawlessness will not be solved, scarcity will not be solved. So now everybody is equal - equally disadvantaged instead of equally advantaged to anywhere near the previous level of the elite.
And so we see Elysium being played out for real in Europe with the have-nots of the Middle-East wanting to break into and take down the elite welfare-states of Europe. In the long term, it will make Europe into the Middle-East, instead of turning these migrants into the welfare state 'elite' populations that countries such as Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Britain and the Netherlands once had. Instead of addressing the problems of the disadvantaged cultures, the solution is seen to be taxing the successful cultures and sharing out the fruits of their work until an equality of outcome is achieved, regardless of how far impoverished that equality will require all people will have to be.
I think it's sheer narcissism.
DeleteWe were brought out of barbarism by cultures devoted to a loving god (or at least the concept thereof, to discuss objectively). Marx and his ilk utterly reject faith regardless of what it has provided. Without grinding the enlightened, loving culture that we've been granted into the ground, he can't claim victory over the god that loves people.
It's really about the victory of atheism: the reduction of humanity to a set of biological processes to be managed and manipulated by an organization that operates in praise its human founders.
It's really a timeless battle, straight from the old testament.
My kindergartener was asked what he was thankful for last week. All the kids' answers were being written down on a big piece of construction paper for posting. His answer: Jesus
We're not raising the sheep for Marx and his minions.
- reader #1482
It seems the "progressives" have run out of patience with the Fabians?
DeleteWe're ruled by those who hate us? Dip, have you ever read Naipaul's _The Suffrage of Elvira_, a novel about democracy coming to Trinidad, and the misadventures of a candidate in a rural community of the island? It ends with the candidate, now successful, saying, "Elvira, you is a bitch."
ReplyDeleteBut governments, whether designed this way or not, generally tend to represent the people on whom they rest. A nation of petty tyrants will be ruled by petty tyrants. A nation of shallow, self-centered, short-sighted people will throw up the same sort of persons to govern them. Credulous people will have credulous rulers. Most of us, at this point in time, are the O. Think I'll stop and read the book of Lamentations.
This really epitomizes out domestic problem problems today.
DeleteI think of it as "America gets the leaders it deserves."
- reader #1482
First para, change 'totting' to 'toting.' It jumps out at us grammar types.
ReplyDeleteDone! Thanks.
Delete"they have come in large fossil fuel gulping aircraft and limousines, belching out huge quantities of "green house gases," you know, that evil CO2." I am currently reading the memoirs of a former British Ambassador to the US. His embassy house was, apparently, a neighbour to your VP's house. He remarks that when that arch apostle of greenery, Al Gore, was VP he always kept helicopters waiting, belching out kerosene fumes and CO2. VP Dick Cheney, by contrast, spared his neighbours this chemical assault.
ReplyDeleteGeorge W Bush was Governor of Texas before he was President. I live in Austin, so I know several people who worked for him and Laura. They were always known as very nice people, serving on the Board of Stewards at Tarrytown Methodist Church, serving Holy Communion the Christmas between the election and the inauguration.
DeleteGeorge opened a large envelope with a framed photo in it, in which the glass was, of course, broken. My friend came in and saw the Governor cleaning up the broken glass, rather than leaving it to a housekeeper or a secretary, or an assistant, like my friend.
Likewise, Mr. Cheney is known by all around him as a kindly and considerate man. I would be terribly surprised to learn that he kept a helicopter running at Blair House, not so much because of the fuel as the noise, disturbing the neighbors. It would just not be at all like him.
Diplomad. While I appreciate your effort to correct "man-made" to the more neutral "human," I fear you may have forgotten the basic rule of the ratbags, especially in matters of climate change, is to always place the blame on those most responsible in the developed countries. Consequently, Man-made is the correct term, although, I prefer the most accurate White-man-made.
ReplyDeleteNitpickingly yours,
Davod
Diplo Dude,
ReplyDeletesarc/on
Ya got it all wrong.
"B.O. is the kindest, gentlest, most caring human who has ever graced the planet."
sarc/off
Dip, maybe OT, but...I'm curious to know, how does the State Department pose a threat to the national interests of the USA (re your brief introductory blurb)? I know that it attracts a fair number of progs; and perhaps not a few with few real principles; but I saw that a lot of its people are (or were) good learners, and can develop critical eyes for states and movements formerly idolized (I saw some who served in China lose any youthful illusions they ever held about Mao's now-mummified @rse).
ReplyDeleteNot a theory, it's 'only a hypothesis'.
ReplyDeleteIn order to convert a hypothesis into a theory, one must come up with feasible experiments which can support or invalidate that hypothesis.
Global Warming cannot be falsified (there is no empirical mechanism by which it could be proven false outside of assembling a thousand planets similar to earth and injecting them with various quantities of CO2... which is quite unfeasible).
Certainly many components of the global warming hypothesis are theories, many of which have been proven true. The greenhouse effect almost certainly exists (there's a terribly wrongheaded book to the contrary which is quite mistaken in physical concepts, but little other opposition to the simple, first-principles thermodynamic statement of the greenhouse effect). But beyond proving that the greenhouse effect does exist, all of our modeling and "committeeing" has achieved nothing of *empirical* value. And last I checked, science is based upon empirically provable results.
The hypothesis could be correct. But nobody, including the alarmists, have any reasonably 'scientific' reason to believe so.
Everybody is just jumping at shadows.
- reader #1482
One of the highest profie examples of how this type of 'science' fails, it LLNL's National Ignition Facility. Terrific amounts of very competent modeling *all* predicted NIF would achieve fusion 'ignition'. Twenty years and upwards of $10B later, it's a complete dud. Of course they try to spin it with claims of "energy parity" or "energy gain", but the level of neutron/alpha productionis *nowhere* near indicating *ignition* has been achieved.... against *all of our best modeling efforts*.
ReplyDeleteThese aren't idiots. These are among the best and brightest of our nuclear weapons complex, people with very strong scientific accomplishments (not 'just' peer reviewed work, actual discoveries that have led to applications). All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't successfully model the implosion of a pellet about the size of a grain of sand.
- reader #1482