Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 11/04/2010 9:09:52 PM PDT by ancientart
Anyone want to buy a wombat?
Every few months, one pundit or another publishes an essay trying to explain why conservatives don't believe in global warming. Generally, their explanations are well off the mark. But conservative skepticism about global warming is really not all that hard to understand: It's simply sales resistance. No matter what new miracle product the left is selling, conservatives have heard the pitch before, and they're not buying. Instead, they're asking themselves some basic questions:
# Does something smell like toasted frog?
Supposedly, a frog dropped in boiling water will do its best to escape, while a frog in a pot that's slowly brought to boil just lets itself get cooked. Conservatives know that the left often begins by tweaking things just slightly. Two plus two equals four - fine. But do we have to be so rigid? What's wrong with saying that two plus two is 4.001? Just as good for all practical purposes, yes? But concede that one little point, and, all of a sudden, we find that, through a series of seemingly innocuous incremental changes, we're asked to accept the idea that two plus two equals “wombat,”and we're derided as inflexible and intolerant if we don't.
# Should Father William really be standing on his head?
Occasionally, truth is counter-intuitive, not what one would expect. Conservatives, however, think that the left goes way overboard on this one: embracing wild ideas just because they are counter-intuitive. Marx proudly boasted that he had “stood Hegelian philosophy on its head,” and, for the left, there seems to be some special attraction in turning things upside down. Fair is foul, and foul is fair - and two plus two is all the more likely to be wombat just because the idea initially seems so strange.
# If everyone insists he heard a sound, did the tree fall in the forest?
Left-leaning philosophers claim that reality is socially constructed, that things are real only because we believe them to be real. Get enough people to believe, and you will actually change reality. Truth can be anything we want it to be - but only if everyone believes. Even if two plus two isn't wombat now, a bit of coercive group-think will make it become so.
# Would a cabbage by any other name be a rose?
We live in a society that, more and more, treats truth as relative: What's true for you is not necessarily true for me. Science, however, has a special status. It's the one realm where absolute truth claims are still regarded as credible. So if you want to claim an idea is objectively true, dress it in the garb of science or tie your unscientific idea closely to something that really is science. But this science-falsely-so-called is as dangerous as it can be.
Sixty years ago, American researchers deliberately exposed 1,500 Guatemalans to syphilis and gonorrhea, blinded to the horror of their actions by the fact that they were acting in the name of science. And it was “science” that justified the genocidal offshoots of the eugenics movement and the even greater atrocities committed in the name of Marx and Engels' “scientific” socialism.
For conservatives, ideas like global warming set off alarm bells, not in spite of the scientific evidence accompanying them, but precisely because they bear the science label - and the very real possibility that what's really going on in any of these new science projects is yet another dangerous social experiment.
The problem: Global warming
The Liberal solution: a tax
The problem: high gas prices
The Liberal solution: taxes on gasoline, high-consuming cars, trucks, and everything else associated with the production and consumption of fuel
The problem: smoking
The Liberal solution: tax on tobacco
Do we detect a trend here?
More to the point: Is there any problem, real or imaginary, that Liberals don’t think can be solved by more government, financed by higher taxes?
Funny, I thought it was my doctorate and extensive modeling and sim experience that caused me to realize that climate research was evidently a jobs program fir D students.
Silly me.
I’m glad a journalism major set me straight.
Um, it’s a LOT simpler for me. I have two degrees in engineering including a graduate degree with a strong physics component, and after much review, I have concluded that the “science” behind AGW is 100% garbage.
LOL, see my #4. You’re education is clearly more than mine, but we have a similar view.
Written by another pinheaded professor at some “University” in So Dak Don’t cha know...
Bingo!
Here’s another:
Problem: obesity
Solution: Snack tax + more government regulations on restaurants, fast food chains, ect...
So, as the left would say: While scientists aren't in complete agreement on the causes of global warming, there is broad consensus that Cap & Trade must be implemented as soon as possible.
Guys, over here! It’s the missing wombat!
Is someone disrespecting the wombat? If someone is disrespecting the wombat I get angry.
These clowns couldn't even remember their *OWN* code from the prior year; which portions of data were fudged, or why, or in which direction, or how much; their datasets were hand-massaged; they lost the raw data; and their sensor data had such bloomers as Great Lakes temperatures in the hundreds of degrees.
Pure bullsh*t.
Cheers!
It is really simple for me, I have no advanced degrees. Just jr college education.
Any time a liberal says that something is good for the children, enviroment or the planet I know it will not be good for me. I say no thanks.
L
hey where did that stray “L” come from
“Any time a liberal says that something is good for the children, enviroment or the planet I know it will not be good for me. I say no thanks.”
That’s a good way to look at it, too!!!
Yes, the wombatness is immense, it must be preserved.
I often feel pretty dumb...despite the “schooling”...but never as dumb as a lib. You and I are in the same camp.
Left-leaning philosophers claim that reality is socially constructed, that things are real only because we believe them to be real. Get enough people to believe, and you will actually change reality. Truth can be anything we want it to be -- but only if everyone believes. Even if two plus two isn't wombat now, a bit of coercive group-think will make it become so.
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