My argumentation against legislating the problem of global warming has rightly left some with the impression that I’m willing to disregard global warming’s existence primarily as a means to prevent legislation attempting to regulate it.

If I had to fully articulate the argument it would go something like this:

Satellite measurements of temperate increase on the globe is almost certainly true.

Its likely but much less convincing that this increase is attributable to mankind.

Computer models that predict extremely modest outcomes within the next two decades might be convincing. It depends on the motive of the investigator.

Computer models that predict further than two decades are not convincing no matter who makes the argument.

Computer models that ‘predict’ catastrophic events by mid century are laughably unconvincing.

The problem is that most of the rhetoric used to drum up political support uses points 4 and 5 (An inconvenient truth). Now I know that you all will have an aneurysm when I say this, but if we define global warming as more about points 4 and 5 then I have good reason to deny its existence. Since much of my talk about global warming comes up in the context of politics it seems acceptable to criticize global warming on points 4 and 5.

Furthermore, like it or not, this issue has been adopted by a group of people that have a noble tradition of denying the gains of capitalism because of their perceived injustice towards the environment. Their world view favors more strongly the idea that one should ‘live in harmony’ with the environment while I favor more strongly the capitalist perspective that the environment should be exploited.

These people’s wacky value system does not find mass appeal primarily because it would result in reduced standard of living for all. To get around this problem they have adopted global warming. Global warming makes their perspective more palatable because it gives credence to the idea that ‘living in harmony’ with nature is the only way mankind can survive. We must reduce our standard of living to avoid doing irreparable harm to the environment.

Capturing more political will with global warming these people aim to implement legislation more interested in punishing highly developed capitalism than actually affecting global warming. Kyoto protocol was a de facto attack on America’s economic dominance. Its impact on carbon output was negligible, but inimical to US industry. Furthermore, the treaty was not binding on two of the largest carbon produces and strong US economic rivals: China and India. You might disagree about Kyoto protocol but the democrats didn’t. It’s first failure for ratification came under Clinton’s term.

When this group of people, which to be fair consists mostly of non-scientists, uses the term global warming they mean it a sense that I would happily deny. But you see this is where the term ‘consensus’ comes into play. There are scientists who want it both ways. They want to be the arbiters of truth and also force their sentiment of environmental harmony on others. They happily sign off on dubious environmental catastrophe to drum up the political support needed to reign in ‘destructive industry’ and return the earth to a more ‘natural state’.

These scientists are problematic for science in general because they are marrying the reputation of science as a fair broker of truth to a hyper partisan group that has unhealthy view of mans relationship to the world. The only way this relationship works out is if environmental catastrophe obtains. In the almost certain outcome that environmental catastrophe or nothing even close to it occurs, these scientists will harm science’s reputation as an arbiter of truth. This will be particularly true when science uses ‘consensus’ to make other dubious claims with an obvious political agenda.

Liberal or Conservative Hypocrisy to Get Around the Libertarian Argument

One final note, I find it hypocritical for liberals to use dubious environmental catastrophe to drum up political support while they criticize conservatives for using dubious Islamic terrorism to drum up political support. A cooked earth in which millions die to flooding and starvation is just as likely as an earth where millions perished by an Al Qaeda backed caliphate. Both scenarios are used by their respective parties to gag the libertarian argument.

The liberal supports constraining free markets to protect the environment. The conservative supports constraining citizen right to protect the country. Both of them cook up preposterous future outcomes to censor the basic libertarian argument that one person should not be able to tell another person how to live their life. The liberal tells the citizen he must pay for costly reforms in production to reduce CO2 emissions. The conservative tells the citizen that he must allow the state to listen into a certain subset of phone calls to catch potential Al Qaeda machinations. Failure to obey will lead to catastrophe.

This all seems vaguely familiar to me. Where have I heard this before? Oh I remember now. As a boy sitting in church the priest would tell me how to live my life or suffer a catastrophic future. This future consisted of both extremely hot temperatures and evil entities forcing me do their will. Not only does the priest’s catastrophic future include both global warming and an Islamic caliphate he promised it will last for all of eternity! In the market place of catastrophic futures, the priest proves the most capable merchant by offering the best wares. The prudent shopper would follow Catholic commandants over liberal or conservative commandments.

Fortunately our forefathers had the presence of mind to separate the church from the state. I only wish the scientist had the presence of mind to separate science from politics before he consent.

Several years ago, while driving home from my then girlfriends house late at night I would occasionally see another driver on the street. Often times seeing this person would make me think about how there are people in this city awake late at night driving home. The thought occurred to me that I would never know this person’s name. I would never know why they were up so late. I would never know their home. I would never know there family or friends. In short I would never know this person.

There in the car next to me waiting for the green light I would think about the absolute certainty in never knowing anything about this person. But then a more powerful thought would come over me. In Omaha there are at least 400,000 people of which practically all of them I would never know. Taking the realization that I would never know anything of this human next to me and to think there are 400,000 more would cause me to reflect on how many people there are.

Of course at this point my chain of thought would lead me to population of the planet. There are over 6 billion people that I will never ever know. Six billion people with names, families, things, and aspirations and I will never know on any kind of personal level. Six billion people all sitting in cars right next to me, driving home waiting for a green light at some random intersection, in a random city, in a random state, in a random country. It really is a powerful thought.

Six billion

Roger Simon makes an interesting point in comparing antiwar moves about Vietnam and Iraq.

Normally this would instill passion, or at least passionate ambition, but there is a subtler and more treacherous roadblock to authenticity in all this that is not frequently acknowledged. While the Vietnam and Iraq Wars are often equated by the liberal-left, the differences between the two are greater than the similarities, especially in the critical area of who is the adversary. For Vietnam: The evils of communism could be and were rationalized by the left as a plea for social equality in an economically unjust world. For Iraq: The evils of Islamofascism and just plain fascism are considerably harder, indeed almost impossible, to rationalize.

This problem is particularly true for Hollywood because the evils of Islamofascism – notably extreme misogyny and homophobia – are justifiably big no-nos to people in the Industry. In fact, they are close to the biggest no-nos of all for them in their daily lives. Who is worse than a sexist pig? Only a violent, murderous sexist pig who wants to take over the world. It then becomes a complex balancing act indeed to make a movie that ignores or downplays this in order to criticize the US as the larger villain. No one has been able to come close to pulling off this balancing act in a film. In fact, it may well be impossible because it is fundamentally dishonest.

Communism putatively was about the people. What is Islamic Fundamentalism about?

Over at Instapunk the blogger makes this argument in regards to some comments made by Stephen King.

Sound a bit like waterboarding? Unspeakable. Where’s Amnesty International? Where’s the New York Times? Somebody should do something. Somebody did. Her guards.

“Two guards from Benxi, holding electric batons, shouted, “We will see who is tougher!” The two men tore Ms. Wang’s shirt open and shocked her breasts with two electric batons for 30 minutes.

“Afterwards, they made her stand still for the entire night. The next morning, guard Guo Tieying asked Ms. Wang nastily whom she would follow. Ms. Wang replied, “I will follow the teachings of Falun Gong.”

“Guo Tieying immediately brought in two guards and several collaborators to torture her. They tore a bed sheet into strips and tied her legs in a cross-legged position (with legs double-crossed, as in the ‘full lotus’ position). Next they handcuffed her arms behind her back and tied her upper body to her legs, making Ms. Wang look like a ball. Then they suspended her in the air by the handcuffs, with her hands still behind her back.

“She suffered excruciating pain from this torture for seven hours.

“Afterwards, Ms. Wang could no longer walk with her back straight, but was bent over, nor could she sit straight. Her breasts were disfigured by the intense shocks, and eventually developed serious infections.”

So, all you hyper-moral pacifist purists, if you could learn Ms. Wang’s location and save her by waterboarding a captured guard, would you do it? Or is her permanent crippling and disfigurement a satisfactory consequence of your own personal interpretation of right and wrong? That’s what you seem to be saying by your absolute opposition to any form of physical coercion, even if it doesn’t maim or kill.

Some have suggested that I favor banning same sex marriage. To clarify my position, unlike many of my readers, I emphatically agree with this statement:

On the whole, banning same sex marriage is bad.

As such I would oppose any kind of constitutional amendment that bans same sex marriage. (Please note the word ‘oppose’ which is in bold so as to insure the word is actually read.)

Given most of my readers do not like to make summary judgments I eagerly await their equivocations on banning same sex marriage. Or wait, maybe they can eagerly aver politically liberal summary judgments but demand nuance when it comes to politically conservative summary judgments. Oh man, I can’t wait to see how this one plays out.

What say you readers? Do you think on the whole banning same sex marriage is bad?

I should also note that as a libertarian, opposing this blatant discrimination is a no brainer. The only way you could possibly think I would support banning same sex marriage is if I’m a republican which I clearly am not. I have stated on countless occasions I’m a libertarian one that takes serious the need to defend liberal values. Banning same sex marriage is clearly a violation of the liberal value that people should be allowed to do as they please provided they do not explicitly harm others in the process.

Christian Charity Raising Money To Feed Non-Gay Famine Victims

A nice post on the influence of libertarians in American politics.

Card-carrying Libertarians are few and far between. Yet, seen as the guiding philosophy of a bloc of dissatisfied, independent-minded voters whose views align with Republicans on economics and Democrats on social issues, libertarianism is palpably gathering steam.

As Reason magazine Editor in Chief Nick Gillespie explains, the term “libertarian” is more useful as an adjective than a noun. “It’s an impulse; it’s pre-political or at least pre-partisan,” he says. “In any given situation, it asks, ‘Do you favor giving people more freedom or less?’

I think this is a pretty solid way to think about libertarians. Libertarianism can be best understood as a sentiment that is the disinclination to support legislation that expands the state’s ability to control the citizenry. Since its more of a sentiment, it lacks the full articulation of a platform found in other political parties, however, this also means that people of those other political parties will indulge in a libertarian sentiment when it suits their needs.

Say you oppose banning same sex marriage. The libertarian sentiment will be in full effect here. Why should the state forbid it’s citizens from being able to marry.

Say you oppose redistributing wealth to the poor. The libertarian sentiment will respond by questioning why the state should be able to forcibly take wealth from its citizens.

What I have always found amusing is that Republicans will use libertarian arguments to defend economic policy while ignore it in social policy while liberals will use libertarian arguments against social policy and ignore those arguments when proposing economic policy.

This is pretty cool.

This is in reference to the laughable discrimination suit brought by the Imams that were kicked off a plane after acting suspicious.

According to a police report, the men were arrested because three had one-way tickets and no checked baggage; most had requested seat belt extensions; a passenger reported that they had prayed “very loudly” before the flight and criticized U.S. involvement with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and they were seated widely throughout the aircraft.

Montgomery said it is “dubious” that a reasonable person would conclude from those facts that the imams were about to interfere with the crew or aircraft. She said the plaintiffs had stated a plausible claim that MAC officers violated their constitutional rights.

One can’t help think before she got her law degree Judge Montgomery did stand up comedy.

LOL. Dubious. LOL

I wonder if she meant it. If she did its even funnier.

Its official. Boston Legal is the best television program in the history of television programing. The second season was really quite good but suffered significantly from all the anti-war rhetoric. The third season was better than the second season because the anti-bush/conservative rhetoric was much more muted. Apparently David Kelley was not as mad at the Bush administration allowing him to focus more on the characters. If he took a little effort to write up the conservative side of arguments Boston Legal would be even better than it currently is.