Re: [asa] Why the opposition to global warming

At 10:36 PM 2/5/2007, David Opderbeck wrote:

>Maybe. ...Still, I'm uncomfortable with the comparison. It's sort
>of a rhetorical atom bomb -- "your position is just like [opposing
>the civil rights movement / denying the holocaust / what the Nazi's
>would have said.....]" So if I question the wisdom of Kyoto, it's
>the same as denying civil rights to African Americans?
>
>Monotonically -- hmm, probably misused the word, but on reflection,
>I like how it came out.

@ Me too - and I didn't need any reflection.:)

  Since Leftism has been mentioned here in the context of "human
induced" global warming, let me take this opportunity to suggest a
parallel with a serious mistake the Marcusian Marxist movement made
40 to 50 years ago. I preface it by saying that while I don't claim
to be the final authority on it, David Horowitz knows a lot about it
from the inside since his parents were both communists and he joined
"the resistance" also. http://www.discoverthenetwork.com/

& like all unrealistic idealistic movements, one of the tragic
mistakes the Marcusian Marxist movement made was failure to recognize
the fact that man isn't basically good. ("Whenever I meet someone
who claims to find faith in God impossible, but who persists in
believing in the essential goodness of humanity, I know that I have
met a person for whom evidence is irrelevant." ~ Dennis Prager (
Ultimate Issues , July- September, 1989)

& this was not to say that all the followers of Herbert Marcuse
were/are unrealistic idealists - the serious political & intellectual
leaders of the movement are central planner, Leninist mentalities
who viewed/view them as their "useful idiots".

& even though there were dubious things about the civil rights
movement (its leaders had socialist ideas & liberal theology and
Communists were in favor of it, & communism was the most serious
threat the country faced at the time - bigots don't change. They just
change their targets. For these "good" people, the end justifies
the means so they have good reason for ignoring other good bigots
like Kamau Kambon, who in a speech on C-Span, openly called for the
genocide of white people. : "White people have retina scans, racial
profiling, DNA banks, and they're monitoring our people to try to
prevent the ONE person from coming up with the ONE idea. And the one
idea is, how we are going to exterminate white people because that in
my estimation is the only conclusion I have come to. We have to
exterminate white people off the face of the planet to solve the
problem. .. I'm saying to you that we need to solve this problem
because they are going to kill us. And I will leave on that. So we
just have to set up our own system and stop playing and get very
serious and not get diverted from coming up with a solution to the
problem and the problem on the planet is white
people." http://www.johnlocke.org/lockerroom/lockerroom.html?id=5854

So Leftists make marriages of convenience with people who in fact
were/are racists. Their longest serving senator, Robert Byrd, is an ex-Grand
Kluegel of the KKK (who at least has the good sense not to wear his
klan outfit in public). But we never will know how many blacks were
lynched, crosses burned or families terrorized on his watch as Grand
Klugel in the KKK. It's not even an issue with the "good" people
since he's on "their side".

& Leftist utopian central planners think they have sound arguments
for the federal government to interfere with a state's criteria for
deciding same-sex marriage laws & for the Supreme Court to usurp the
Constitutional rights of unborn human beings, etc., etc., ad
nauseam. And since they know that the American people will vote
against their arguments if given the chance, they attempt to
unconstitutionally cram them down our throats through the bought and
paid for puppets they install on the bench.

Politically, Leftists trade pro-American for anti-American support
(broadly speaking). The support of terrorists and their
sympathizers, like Castro, Chavez, Assad, Ahmadinijad, Kim Jong-il
, et.al., will be a short term gain, though. Morally, to put it as
generously as possible, they are short sighted. (I'm talking
about the credulous, emotionally immature, but reasonably
intelligent & principled. ) The movement has always served - &
serves - as a cover for racists & various types of nuts.

  In terms of actual results so far, conservative opposition
hasn't stopped the racial injustices put in place by affirmative
action proponents, etc., and the failure of conservatives to stop
these bigoted, racist programs mean that unfortunate social features
continue unabated.

Leftists like to recall Santayana's statement, "Those who cannot
remember the past are doomed to repeat it." Those who have ears to
hear, let them hear.

~ Janice :)

>On 2/5/07, George Murphy <<mailto:gmurphy@raex.com>gmurphy@raex.com> wrote:
>I think you are reading a 2007 understanding of the racial situation
>back into the 50s. Even many whites who in general terms were
>sympathetic with the situation of southern blacks didn't seen it as
>"monotonically evil." (I'm not sure what you mean by that
>anyway. A function that changes "monotonically" is one which is
>always getting either greater or smaller - i.e., whose derivative
>doesn't change sign. Before the civil rights movement started most
>northern whites didn't see the racial situation as getting
>progressively worse.)
>
>Shalom
>George
><http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/>http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <mailto:dopderbeck@gmail.com>David Opderbeck
>To: <mailto:williamehamiltonjr@yahoo.com>Bill Hamilton
>Cc: <mailto:gmurphy@raex.com>George Murphy ;
><mailto:wdwllace@sympatico.ca>wdwllace@sympatico.ca ;
><mailto:randyisaac@comcast.net>Randy Isaac ;
><mailto:asa@calvin.edu>asa@calvin.edu
>Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 7:38 PM
>Subject: Re: [asa] Why the opposition to global warming
>
>
> I think what George was driving at was the consequences
>of being on the wrong side. I take that seriously,
>
>Right... me too.... but, I still think the comparison doesn't
>work. With the civil rights movement, there were immediate evils
>visible to everyone -- lynchings, church burnings, people being
>turned away at the university gate, segregated lunch counters,
>etc. In that context, it's very, very hard to make a plausible
>non-racially motivated argument that local governance, markets
>operating over time, etc. are enough. With global warming, we have
>clear indications of a trend that could be very dangerous over the
>next 100 years -- or that could be mostly mitigated by new
>technology -- or that could be mostly adapted to -- or any wide
>variety of other plausible scenarios. It's difficult to see the
>moral commensurability with the immediate, monotonically evil
>threats confronted by the civil rights movement.
>
>
>
>On 2/5/07, Bill Hamilton
><<mailto:williamehamiltonjr@yahoo.com>williamehamiltonjr@yahoo.com > wrote:
>
>--- David Opderbeck <<mailto:dopderbeck@gmail.com>
>dopderbeck@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > *I was a YAF belonging - National Review subscribing - Goldwater applauding
> > -conservative candidate door knocking - card carrying conservative. So I
> > know a bit about it from the inside.*
> >
> > Really! I knew there was a spark of something in there somewhere...
> > Remember, even Darth Vader eventually came back from the Dark Side :-)
> >
>Ditto
>[big snip]
> > At the end of the day, then, I think the comparison between the
> civil rights
> > movement and global warming is superficial at best.
> >
>This may be true, but I think what George was driving at was the consequences
>of being on the wrong side. I take that seriously, while agreeing
>with you that
>the case for environmental action -- on the scale the
>environmentalists seem to
>be calling for -- is less clear than it was in the case of civil rights.
>
>Bill Hamilton
>William E. Hamilton, Jr., Ph.D.
>248.652.4148 (home) 248.821.8156 (mobile)
>"...If God is for us, who is against us?" Rom 8:31
>
>
>
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>
>
>
>--
>David W. Opderbeck
>Web: <http://www.davidopderbeck.com/>http://www.davidopderbeck.com
>Blog:
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>
>
>
>
>--
>David W. Opderbeck
>Web: <http://www.davidopderbeck.com>http://www.davidopderbeck.com
>Blog:
><http://www.davidopderbeck.com/throughaglass.html>http://www.davidopderbeck.com/throughaglass.html
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Received on Mon Feb 5 22:46:22 2007