American voters were faced with Hobsons’ choice in this election as far as global warming was concerned. McCain the loser was on board for many years with the false notion that humans can affect climate change. The country elected as the next president someone who harbors the same or more extreme views on the subject. Since Democrats envision an all powerful government with greater control, it is not surprising that President Barack Obama will carry the torch for this phony ideology to new heights.
So there is no doubt where the incoming president will lead us, this is what Obama has said:
"Few challenges facing America -- and the world -- are more urgent than combating climate change."
Apparently Obama fears global warming more than other conditions facing the United States.
How about collapsing domestic and international markets and their very real potential to spark a worldwide depression? Or assuring the denial of weapons of mass destruction to terrorists and rogue nations? Or evading the strangle hold our dependency on oil from the Middle East allows enemies of our country to leverage over us? Or our deteriorating confidence in the safe containment of a nuclear weapons arsenal already in the hands of an Islamic State with a dedicated intent on the destruction of Israel? Or achieving a successful outcome of the wars currently waging in Iraq and Afghanistan? Or resolving our increasingly tenuous relationship with Russia? Or the "poorly secured nuclear material in the former Soviet Union or secrets from a scientist in Pakistan that could help build a bomb that detonates in Paris", which Obama himself spoke of in his July "fellow citizen of the world" speech in Berlin?
Obama says "The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear." Global warming by man cannot be debated.”
The truth is very little science is beyond dispute, especially Climatology. Many scientists have come forward at a risk to their careers to point out the obvious with actual scientific data; humans cannot cause climate change. And considering the thousands of media-ignored-or-demeaned scientists disputing the conventional dogma each and every day, Obama diminishes any credibility he might have on the subject by echoing Al Gore.
Nonetheless, though this is not what Obama means, he is quite correct in stating that the facts are clear. Although, not as he sees them. Here are just a few facts to be considered:
Warming stopped in 1998 and the planet has been cooling for over a year now while atmospheric CO2 levels continue to rise. In fact, the 2009 Old Farmer's Almanac includes an article by IceCap editor Joe D'Aleo making the case in its subtitle that "Some scientists believe that an extreme cooling episode, potentially a mini-ice age, is imminent. Others think that it may already be under way."
Over long time periods, global temperature anomalies appear to correlate not to CO2 levels, but rather a combination of natural forces, particularly solar activity and sea surface temperatures. The erroneous Supreme Court decision notwithstanding, CO2 is not a pollutant but a gas as essential to plant life as O2 is to us. Global climate has always and will always change independent of the actions of man. Policy makers should realize that entities such as the IPCC - from which their "scientific" beliefs are taken - are directed by their paymasters, government and non governmental organizations, to deal exclusively with human influence on the climate and have no motivation to find any natural explanations.
Meanwhile, as falling temperatures continue to dispute public acceptance what has become conventional wisdom, the dogma furthers existing economic problems by adding useless green-burdens; it is the alarmists and congress that deny the facts. Recently IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri told a large group at NSW University that "we're at a stage where warming is taking place at a much faster rate [than before]". And at a Brussels Climate Conference just last week, Johan Rockström, executive director of the Stockholm Environment Institute, took it a step further, warning that "the world is in even ‘more dire straits' than the worst predictions set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC)." Imagine the audacity of such baseless nonsense.
Higher sea levels are said to be an example of the newly discovered global warming however sea levels have been rising at varying rates since the end of the last ice age over 10,000 years ago. Obama spoke of shrinking coastlines during his introductory speech to the world in Berlin while ignoring the planet’s history.
Obama also said "We've seen record drought, spreading famine" but the June 2008 U.S. Climate Change Science Program assessment report disagreed.
"Averaged over the continental U.S. and southern Canada the most severe droughts occurred in the 1930s and there is no indication of an overall trend in the observational record, which dates back to 1895."
Another claim by Obama is that "Storms are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season."
If Obama is referring to North Atlantic hurricanes, he's wrong again. A chart from the Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies shows 2008 to be above average but only the 10th highest since 1978, not the 2nd. And between it and the worst year ever, 2005, which included Katrina and six other major hurricanes, there were two years with very few such storms.
In his Berlin speech Obama used only fifty words to announce eight material untruths and misrepresentations.
But that’s not all; Obama has promised that his presidency “will mark a new chapter in America's leadership on climate change.” “Starting with a federal cap and trade system we will establish strong annual targets that set us on a course to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an additional 80 percent by 2050.”
In short, Obama promised the country he would use the leverage of the Democrats' majority in both houses to inflict policies on us which the facts show to be disastrously ineffectual on every level in every country affecting both our economy which conventional wisdom says it is in the most precarious state of our lifetime and our way of life.
"Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all. Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response" says our president-elect but he is wrong again. "The stakes are too high. The consequences are too serious", says Obama.
Sorry, Mr. President-elect, but the science actually disputes your premises and you and your side are perpetrating a hoax on the American public by ignoring and covering up the facts.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
When a hockey stick is not a hockey stick
To many of us a hockey stick is just a hockey stick; not so to the religious fanatics of global warming. So good has been the global warming propaganda invented by Al Gore and dutifully repeated by the environmental lobby and leftist press that it is heresy to challenge the accepted dogma that human activity is warming the planet and will cause the planet’s destruction if left uncontrolled.
The so—called "hockey stick" graph appears in the 2001 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations organization that dominates climate change discussion. The graph purported to show that world temperatures had remained stable for almost a thousand years, but took a sudden turn upward in the last century (the blade of the hockey stick). It was the product of research into "proxy" temperature records, such as tree rings, ice cores, and coral reefs, by Michael Mann, the Joe Wilson of climate change. It can be seen here. Charles Martin took a critical look at it last March for The American Thinker.
Christopher Chantrill and Willis Eschenbach did some analysis of the so-called evidence supporting the hockey stick theory and totally destroyed this bible-like basis of the global warming theory. They found out of the 95 data series in the latest Mann (hockey stick) paper that covered the entire last 1,000 years; only 25 carried the "hockey stick" signal. Three of these series are lake sediments in Finland which are corrupted by recent urban development and the rest are from bristle-cone pine trees in the US Southwest that have been challenged by other researchers.
Take the "hockey stick" proxies out and you get a signal that shows a Medieval Warming Period a thousand years ago and Little Ice Age 300 years ago, much to the chagrin of the global warmers. The result is that such blasphemy must be suppressed at all costs else the paper wall come tumbling down and government control by the environmental left be seen for the sham it is.
As Jonathan David Carson wrote in "Fake But Accurate" Science:
“The problem is that the world was almost certainly warmer than it is today during the ‘Medieval Warm Period’ or ‘Medieval Climate Optimum’ of the 9th through 14th Centuries, which was followed by the ‘Little Ice Age’ of the 15th through 19th Centuries, whose end is the occasion for today's global warming hysteria.
But Science magazine stuck to its argument. ‘Politicians Attack, But Evidence for Global Warming Doesn't Wilt’ in the July 28 issue of Science not only employs the typical deceitful rhetoric of the scientific establishment, here presenting an argument among scientists as an argument between scientists and politicians, but also uses the fake—but—accurate excuse for the corrupt activities of its favorite scientists.”
After Mann's statistical methodology was exposed as flawed, if not downright fraudulent, by Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, and he responded by refusing to make public the details of his analysis. This in turn angered Joe Barton and other members of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who objected to this arrogant refusal to allow oversight of federally financed research—either by the responsible congressional committees or by the scientific community.
“Hence the recent hearings and the dishonest report of them in Science.”
Since Mann's work—and the IPCC's inclusion of it in its report—are indefensible, Science resorted to the fake—but—accurate defense. Gerald North of Texas A&M, testifying on behalf of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences,
"concluded that the hockey stick was flawed but the sort of data on which it was based is still evidence of unprecedented warming."
In a classical example of Orwell’ “double speak “The graph shows unprecedented warming; the graph is flawed in such a way as to produce a false appearance of unprecedented warming; nevertheless, there is unprecedented warming.” Finding flaws 'doesn't mean Mann et al.'s claims are wrong,' he told Barton."
How about this for another example of Orwell’s language: “I must admit that it is possible for science to be fake but accurate, just as it is possible for Israel to have committed war crimes despite the fact that the evidence for them is faked. It is indeed possible that, as the New York Times famously proclaimed, "Memos on Bush Are Fake But Accurate, Typist Says."
The question, however, is not whether it is possible that Israel committed war crimes or that George W. Bush did not complete his National Guard service, but whether we have any reason to believe the reporting of Reuters or CBS News. It is possible that the hockey stick is accurate, but why should we take the word of Michael Mann, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or the United Nations for it?
Michael Mann faked his statistics, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published his fakery, the American Association for the Advancement of Science suggested that the fakery is beside the point, and the United Nations, well, we know how fraudulent they are.
Again, according to Jonathan David Carson – “The article in Science would do Dan Rather proud. It says the North investigation found that the ‘only supportable conclusion from climate proxies" was that "the last few decades were likely the warmest of the millennium’."
However, here is what Gerald North of Texas A&M, testifying on behalf of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, actually testified:
"I concluded that the hockey stick was flawed but the sort of data on which it was based are still evidence of unprecedented warming. It can be said with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries."
Four centuries, not the millennium! North testified that recent decades were warmer than the Little Ice Age, not that they were warmer than the Global Warm Period!
North also testified that he
"finds it plausible that the Northern Hemisphere was warmer during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period over the preceding millennium."
North first said that in recent decades the world was likely warmer than in any other time in the last four hundred years. Then he said that in recent decades the Northern Hemisphere was likely warmer than in any other time in the last millennium. Science has converted these statements into the claim that in recent decades the world was likely warmer than in any time in the last millennium. So much for the Scientific Method.
But even the statement that the Northern Hemisphere was likely warmer than in any other time in the last millennium is subject to uncertainty according to North:
“However, the substantial uncertainties currently present in the quantitative assessment of large—scale surface temperature changes prior to about A.D. 1600 lower our confidence in this conclusion compared to the high level of confidence we place in the Little Ice Age cooling and 20th century warming. Even less confidence can be placed in the original conclusions by Mann et al. (1999) that 'the 1990s are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium' because the uncertainties inherent in temperature reconstructions for individual years and decades are larger than those for longer time periods, and because not all of the available proxies record temperature information on such short timescales.”
As to Mann's scandalous statistical manipulations, North says gently,
"We also question some of the statistical choices made in the original papers by Dr. Mann and his colleagues."
Ah, the “statistical choices"; is this a euphemism for plain BS?
A perfectly reasonable letter to Michael Mann from Representative Barton, who is derisively characterized by Science as a politician, makes clear that in the morally inverted universe of the liberal scientific establishment, it is the scientists who play politics, forcing the politicians to uphold the ideals of science.
Sharing data and research results is a basic tenet of open scientific inquiry, providing a means to judge the reliability of scientific claims. The ability to replicate a study, as the National Research Council has noted, is typically the gold standard by which the reliability of claims is judged. Given Mann’s refusal to share his data and the questions reported about data access surrounding these studies, obligations concerning the sharing of information developed or disseminated with federal support have not been appropriately met....According to The Wall Street Journal, “you (Mann) have declined to release the exact computer code you used to generate your results. (a) Is this correct? (b) What policy on sharing research and methods do you follow? (c) What is the source of that policy? (d) Provide this exact computer code used to generate your results.”
The subcommittee commissioned a study of the hockey stick headed by Edward Wegman of George Mason University, Chairman of the Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics of the National Academy of Sciences, referred to dismissively as "Barton's choice" by the article in Science. The study reached the following conclusions:
“In general, we found MBH98 and MBH99 [papers by Mann] to be somewhat obscure and incomplete and the criticisms of MM03/05a/05b [papers by McIntyre and McKitrick] to be valid and compelling.
In our further exploration of the social network of authorships in temperature reconstruction, we found that at least 43 authors have direct ties to Dr. Mann by virtue of coauthored papers with him. Our findings from this analysis suggest that authors in the area of paleoclimate studies are closely connected and thus 'independent studies' may not be as independent as they might appear on the surface.
It is important to note the isolation of the paleoclimate community; even though they rely heavily on statistical methods they do not seem to be interacting with the statistical community. Additionally, we judge that the sharing of research materials, data and results was haphazardly and grudgingly done. In this case we judge that there was too much reliance on peer review, which was not necessarily independent.
Overall, our committee believes that Mann's assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by his analysis.”
The response of the prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science and its prestigious journal? It refers to the hockey stick as a "now—superseded curve."
"An ill—advised step in Mann's statistical analysis may have created the hockey stick, Wegman said."
Statistical choices, ill—advised steps, fake but accurate, what difference would it make, flawed doesn't mean wrong. The betrayal—of—science establishment has adopted the standards of Dan Rather and Reuters and should be equally trusted.
If all this is not enough to show the fraud of “acceptable” theories of global warming, consider what Gregory Young wrote in Global Warming? Bring it On!
“The argument propounded by the dubious United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on Anthropogenic (human-induced) Global Warming (AGW) is willfully fraudulent. The report has been vigorously and critically undermined, scientifically denounced and found wanting from both notable scientists here and abroad."
In spite of this fact, it is likely that the new U.S. Democratic Congress and Administration will once again proclaim that they know better than we do about such things. Get ready for them to move surreptitiously under the guise of Global Climate Control in an effort to enhance their own legacies and the government coffers. “To be sure, the Left hears nothing but their own incestuous voices, despite the voices of clarity and reason that abound around them. And there are many, many distinguished dissenters against the charade of AGW.” Take for instance the Founder of the Weather Channel and eminent Meteorologist John Coleman who has stated:
‘There is no significant man made global warming. There has not been any in the past, there is none now and there is no reason to fear any in the future. The climate of Earth is changing. It has always changed. But mankind's activities have not overwhelmed or significantly modified the natural forces."
Again, according to Gregory Mann,
“Through all history, Earth has shifted between two basic climate regimes: ice ages and what paleoclimatologists call ‘Interglacial periods.’ For the past 10 thousand years the Earth has been in an interglacial period.... [where] the Earth warms up, the glaciers melt and life flourishes. Clearly from our point of view, an interglacial period is greatly preferred to the deadly rigors of an ice age. Mr. Gore and his crowd would have us believe that the activities of man have overwhelmed nature during this interglacial period and are producing an unprecedented, out of control warming."
Well, it is simply not happening. Worldwide there was a significant natural warming trend in the 1980's and 1990's as a Solar cycle peaked with lots of sunspots and solar flares. That ended in 1998 and now the Sun has gone quiet with fewer and fewer Sun spots, and the global temperatures have gone into decline. Earth has cooled for almost ten straight years. So, I ask Al Gore, where's the global warming?”
I personally have seen and read an abundance of solid data to back these conclusions up. For example, new measurements from the NASA/ESA spacecraft Ulysses show that the sun's current period of low activity goes beyond an extended dearth of sunspots. Solar activity has dropped to the lowest levels since recording began some 50 years ago. Current experts, such as Veizer, Shaviv, and most recently Svensmark et al., and Patterson, suggest that changes in the output of the sun caused the most recent climate change. They convincingly argue that increased cosmic radiation acts as a catalyst for cloud formation in earth's atmosphere. This, in turn, leads to a general cooling of the world's climate if the pattern persists. (This information is all part of my presentation about False Global Warming Theories.)
Ironically, during the 1970s while some (including NASA's James Hansen) were hysterically promoting the schizoid fears of a new ice age hitting the world in a few decades, a new frenzy over Global Warming and Climate Change was just beginning at Scripps Oceanographic Institute in San Diego, CA. It was started by one of their most esteemed scientists Roger Revelle, the father of Oceanography. His work correlated the increases in carbon dioxide, CO2 (a laboratory defined greenhouse gas) to atmospheric warming. Revelle later moved to Harvard and encouraged his students, including Al Gore, to rehash the data.
Since then the research methods have clearly gotten out of hand. Many avenues of research have proven repeatedly useless. Even Roger Revelle understood that there were greater variables at play than the trace gas of CO2.
Before he died, Revelle gave interviews and wrote letters stating that CO2 and its greenhouse effect did not warrant extreme countermeasures. He told Omni Magazine, in March 1984, that "CO2 increase is predicted to temper weather extremes" -- not cause them. One cannot argue that CO2 was a causative factor -- especially since CO2 was apparently following temperature trend -- not moderating it. It seems none of his followers; Gore in particular, paid any attention to what he said.
“There is a huge problem with the idea that Carbon Dioxide, or CO2, is a globally polluting gas, much less one that causes climate change and global warming. Even though some data seemed to initially substantiate the AGW thesis, these ideas were later proven to be wrong." (Those derived from ice core data were especially damning.) Australian Climatologist Dr. David Evans has done a great deal of work on this issue.
Often forgotten in the argument is the fact that CO2 is only a trace component of the atmosphere. For every million molecules of other gases in the atmosphere (such as nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen), there are only 385 molecules of CO2.
It is a fact that atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have varied widely over geological time. The peak was estimated to be some 20-fold higher than at present (+6,000 ppm) -- and the low about 200 ppm below today's. (Everyday office air concentrations often exceed 1,000 ppm CO2.) “
Meteorologist John Coleman asked”:
“How can this tiny trace upset the entire balance of the climate of Earth? How can a trace element possibly be the cause of systemic Global Warming? It can't. That's all there is to it; it can't.... Carbon dioxide does not cause significant global warming.”
Actually increased levels of CO2 has more likely benefited all life forms on the planet, summarizes Coleman. Many other scientists have come to the same conclusion.
Robinson, Robinson & Soon, in their 2007 published research paper provided empirical evidence that invalidates AGW alarmists' hypotheses. They also found overwhelming support for the general benefits that are derived from natural global warming.
Here is the summary of their findings:
“1- A review of the research literature concerning the environmental consequences of increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to the conclusion that increases during the 20th and early 21st centuries have produced no deleterious effects upon Earth's weather and climate. There are no experimental data to support the hypothesis that increases in human hydrocarbon use or in atmospheric carbon dioxide and other green house gases are causing or can be expected to cause unfavorable changes in global temperatures, weather, or landscape. There is no reason to limit human production of CO2, CH4, and other minor green house gases as has been proposed.
2- Predictions of catastrophic global warming are based on computer climate modeling, a branch of science still in its infancy. The empirical evidence - actual measurements of Earth's temperature and climate - shows no man-made warming trend. Indeed, during four of the seven decades since 1940 when average CO2 levels steadily increased, U.S. average temperatures were actually decreasing.
3- Increased carbon dioxide has, however, markedly increased plant growth. Predictions of harmful climatic effects due to future increases in hydrocarbon use and minor greenhouse gases like CO2 do not conform to current experimental knowledge.
4- While major green house gas H2O substantially warms the Earth, minor green house gases such as CO2 have little effect.... The 6-fold increase in hydrocarbon use since 1940 has had no noticeable effect on atmospheric temperature or on the trend in glacier length.
5- Solar activity and U.S. surface temperature are closely correlated...., but U.S. surface temperature and world hydrocarbon use are not correlated.
6- We also need not worry about environmental calamities even if the current natural warming trend continues. The Earth has been much warmer during the past 3,000 years without catastrophic effects. Warmer weather extends growing seasons and generally improves the habitability of colder regions.
7- Human use of coal, oil, and natural gas has not harmfully warmed the Earth, and the extrapolation of current trends shows that it will not do so in the foreseeable future. The CO2 produced does, however, accelerate the growth rates of plants and also permits plants to grow in drier regions. Animal life, which depends upon plants, also flourishes, and the diversity of plant and animal life is increased.”
Dr. Michael Griffin, the new NASA Administrator, also looks at climate change in a contrarian fashion. He has stated:
“To assume that [climate change] is a problem is to assume that the state of earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change.”
According to Gregory Young “There are other fundamental objections to the AGW theory:
(1) The infamous "Hockey Stick" statistical debacle nicely summarized here, effectively cherry-picked data from tree rings to estimate temperature change over the past 1000 years. The report erroneously declared that the largest increases in world temperature occurred in the 20th century. These results could not be reproduced by anyone. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) later found the statistical methods first employed inappropriate and the findings bogus.
(2) The reported NASA temperature data glitch discovered by Canadian Computer Analyst Steve McIntyre that wrongly kicked all temperature records up several tenths of a degree was a severe setback for AGW modelers. This software "failure" was overseen by one of AGW's fiercest proponents, the notorious Dr. James Hanson. NASA's GISS and Hanson have recently come under fire again for poor data collection methods and questionable accuracy.
(3) As recently presented in American Thinker, Lord Monckton competently summarizes for us that many of the highly publicized AGW "facts" are simple documented anomalies of natural climate cycling -- designedly misrepresented for the cause of AGW.
To wit: The Oceans are not catastrophically rising nor are they warming. In fact, the oceans have been cooling since 2003. The Snows of Kilimanjaro are not melting but ablating because of friction due to a cooling atmosphere and natural cooling trends. The world's 160,000 glaciers are not suddenly receding, but appear to be re-advancing, including those ice shelves in Antarctic and the polar ice sheets, all of which cycle regularly in ice mass. Lord Monckton, a science-journalist, provides even more evidence here.
(4) Finally let us not forget the astute investigation of automated weather stations by US Meteorologist Anthony Watts. Watts painstakingly discovered that a large fraction of the nation's 1,200 stations have been wrongly sited in man-made heat-absorbing centers. (Examples include locations on rooftops, on slabs of heat absorbing concrete, next to air conditioners, diesel generators and asphalt parking lots, even at sewage treatment plants. Some are located in areas experiencing excessive nighttime humidity, and at non-standard observing heights, including one actually sinking into a swamp.) Watts' discovery profoundly undermined the veracity of historical temperature data documented in the United States -- data that had been used by AGW proponents.”
There are three indisputable and fundamental facts that were deliberately ignored in the UN's IPCC sham report. The UN insidiously "forgot" to include the specifics that:
(1) The Earth has largely benefited by past warming cycles and that these previous "warmings" had nothing to do with man's activities. These earlier natural cycles were not catastrophic events; they were, in fact, beneficial to all life forms. They provided warmer and longer growing seasons, more areas available for crops, etc. We know, for instance, that Greenland was once green, that Eric the Red planted and grew grapes in what is now Nova Scotia, Canada, that the Romans planted grapes in England, etc.
(2) Solar/Sun Spot activity is the originator of most climatic change and most weather patterns on Earth. It is king. There is no larger factor of influence. CO2 influence is negligible and pales in comparison. CO2 follows the trend of temperature; it does not cause it.
(3) Subordinate to solar activity alone, atmospheric water vapor/cloud formation and movement is the largest known variable that influences temperature changes in the atmosphere of the earth, and the earth's oceans. Water vapor in the atmosphere is around 1000-10,000 times as important as atmospheric CO2.
These three quintessential and pivotal factors are not even discussed in the UN's IPCC report. This exclusion should raise a red flag in any intelligent mind. That's why so many of us are yelling from the rooftops about the absurdity of the report itself!
Gregory Young:
“There are a plethora of scientists and scientific data arrayed against the minions of the IPCC with its politically selected 2500 Scientists, of which a core group of 600 exists, and a relatively small number of mediocre ‘scientists’ here and there across the American landscape who have suddenly found notoriety or grant money in the global warming cause, are 31,072+ legitimate and viable scientists (of which I am one) who signed the American Petition Project declaring the Global Warming Hypothesis bogus found here, here and here. We openly refute the UN's conclusions.”
“Here's the Petition Statement we dissenters signed in opposition:
"We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.”
"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."
“Let me assure you that we're not in good humor, nor take it kindly to be slurred and ridiculed by taking the other side in this debate. And our numbers are still growing. Indeed, we're angry that the vast majority of American Scientists will not be heard by the media. We're dismayed over the fact that the Global Warming fiasco has become politically popular and expedient to those left-wing politicians and power-brokers whose sole aim is to literally tax everything with a carbon footprint and give them control over all life, hidden within their PC guileful pretence to save the planet. They wish to save no one but themselves.”
"And the revulsion of the elite scientific community grows fiercer: “Of the 2500 originally aligned scientists and putative authors of the UN's IPCC report some 500 are no longer faithful to Big Al's bogus message. Many of these scientists discovered that their individual findings and comments were willfully misrepresented. All participant conclusions were unilaterally changed to adhere strictly to the United Nations objective of building support for world taxation and rationing of industrially useful energy. Since the original IPCC report (and there have been some 4 others now formally issued), the defecting 500 scientists have issued public statements challenging global warming. Approximately 100 of these scientists are now open defectors. Others are currently suing the UN for the misuse of their good names and research. It is difficult to see why a thinking person would even consider the IPCC report as legitimate.”
"The entire IPCC process is shear obfuscation by the environmental, secular and socialist/marxist left. The left caters to the vanity of secular opinion with scientific and/or moral truth. There is an easy and immediate remedy for their debacle. Will Rogers stated it simply: "When you are in a hole ... stop digging.... Please!"
Despite the wealth of contrary evidence the congress goes blithely along with passing laws that will reduce freedom and increase government intrusion in our lives. Can this be stopped? I don’t think so.
Tomorrow we will consider what President-Elect Obama has to say about global warming.
*Dr. Gregory Young is a neuroscientist and physicist, a doctoral graduate of the University of Oxford, Oxford, England. He is currently involved with a privately funded think-tank engaged in experimental biophysical research.
The so—called "hockey stick" graph appears in the 2001 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations organization that dominates climate change discussion. The graph purported to show that world temperatures had remained stable for almost a thousand years, but took a sudden turn upward in the last century (the blade of the hockey stick). It was the product of research into "proxy" temperature records, such as tree rings, ice cores, and coral reefs, by Michael Mann, the Joe Wilson of climate change. It can be seen here. Charles Martin took a critical look at it last March for The American Thinker.
Christopher Chantrill and Willis Eschenbach did some analysis of the so-called evidence supporting the hockey stick theory and totally destroyed this bible-like basis of the global warming theory. They found out of the 95 data series in the latest Mann (hockey stick) paper that covered the entire last 1,000 years; only 25 carried the "hockey stick" signal. Three of these series are lake sediments in Finland which are corrupted by recent urban development and the rest are from bristle-cone pine trees in the US Southwest that have been challenged by other researchers.
Take the "hockey stick" proxies out and you get a signal that shows a Medieval Warming Period a thousand years ago and Little Ice Age 300 years ago, much to the chagrin of the global warmers. The result is that such blasphemy must be suppressed at all costs else the paper wall come tumbling down and government control by the environmental left be seen for the sham it is.
As Jonathan David Carson wrote in "Fake But Accurate" Science:
“The problem is that the world was almost certainly warmer than it is today during the ‘Medieval Warm Period’ or ‘Medieval Climate Optimum’ of the 9th through 14th Centuries, which was followed by the ‘Little Ice Age’ of the 15th through 19th Centuries, whose end is the occasion for today's global warming hysteria.
But Science magazine stuck to its argument. ‘Politicians Attack, But Evidence for Global Warming Doesn't Wilt’ in the July 28 issue of Science not only employs the typical deceitful rhetoric of the scientific establishment, here presenting an argument among scientists as an argument between scientists and politicians, but also uses the fake—but—accurate excuse for the corrupt activities of its favorite scientists.”
After Mann's statistical methodology was exposed as flawed, if not downright fraudulent, by Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, and he responded by refusing to make public the details of his analysis. This in turn angered Joe Barton and other members of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who objected to this arrogant refusal to allow oversight of federally financed research—either by the responsible congressional committees or by the scientific community.
“Hence the recent hearings and the dishonest report of them in Science.”
Since Mann's work—and the IPCC's inclusion of it in its report—are indefensible, Science resorted to the fake—but—accurate defense. Gerald North of Texas A&M, testifying on behalf of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences,
"concluded that the hockey stick was flawed but the sort of data on which it was based is still evidence of unprecedented warming."
In a classical example of Orwell’ “double speak “The graph shows unprecedented warming; the graph is flawed in such a way as to produce a false appearance of unprecedented warming; nevertheless, there is unprecedented warming.” Finding flaws 'doesn't mean Mann et al.'s claims are wrong,' he told Barton."
How about this for another example of Orwell’s language: “I must admit that it is possible for science to be fake but accurate, just as it is possible for Israel to have committed war crimes despite the fact that the evidence for them is faked. It is indeed possible that, as the New York Times famously proclaimed, "Memos on Bush Are Fake But Accurate, Typist Says."
The question, however, is not whether it is possible that Israel committed war crimes or that George W. Bush did not complete his National Guard service, but whether we have any reason to believe the reporting of Reuters or CBS News. It is possible that the hockey stick is accurate, but why should we take the word of Michael Mann, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or the United Nations for it?
Michael Mann faked his statistics, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published his fakery, the American Association for the Advancement of Science suggested that the fakery is beside the point, and the United Nations, well, we know how fraudulent they are.
Again, according to Jonathan David Carson – “The article in Science would do Dan Rather proud. It says the North investigation found that the ‘only supportable conclusion from climate proxies" was that "the last few decades were likely the warmest of the millennium’."
However, here is what Gerald North of Texas A&M, testifying on behalf of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, actually testified:
"I concluded that the hockey stick was flawed but the sort of data on which it was based are still evidence of unprecedented warming. It can be said with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries."
Four centuries, not the millennium! North testified that recent decades were warmer than the Little Ice Age, not that they were warmer than the Global Warm Period!
North also testified that he
"finds it plausible that the Northern Hemisphere was warmer during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period over the preceding millennium."
North first said that in recent decades the world was likely warmer than in any other time in the last four hundred years. Then he said that in recent decades the Northern Hemisphere was likely warmer than in any other time in the last millennium. Science has converted these statements into the claim that in recent decades the world was likely warmer than in any time in the last millennium. So much for the Scientific Method.
But even the statement that the Northern Hemisphere was likely warmer than in any other time in the last millennium is subject to uncertainty according to North:
“However, the substantial uncertainties currently present in the quantitative assessment of large—scale surface temperature changes prior to about A.D. 1600 lower our confidence in this conclusion compared to the high level of confidence we place in the Little Ice Age cooling and 20th century warming. Even less confidence can be placed in the original conclusions by Mann et al. (1999) that 'the 1990s are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium' because the uncertainties inherent in temperature reconstructions for individual years and decades are larger than those for longer time periods, and because not all of the available proxies record temperature information on such short timescales.”
As to Mann's scandalous statistical manipulations, North says gently,
"We also question some of the statistical choices made in the original papers by Dr. Mann and his colleagues."
Ah, the “statistical choices"; is this a euphemism for plain BS?
A perfectly reasonable letter to Michael Mann from Representative Barton, who is derisively characterized by Science as a politician, makes clear that in the morally inverted universe of the liberal scientific establishment, it is the scientists who play politics, forcing the politicians to uphold the ideals of science.
Sharing data and research results is a basic tenet of open scientific inquiry, providing a means to judge the reliability of scientific claims. The ability to replicate a study, as the National Research Council has noted, is typically the gold standard by which the reliability of claims is judged. Given Mann’s refusal to share his data and the questions reported about data access surrounding these studies, obligations concerning the sharing of information developed or disseminated with federal support have not been appropriately met....According to The Wall Street Journal, “you (Mann) have declined to release the exact computer code you used to generate your results. (a) Is this correct? (b) What policy on sharing research and methods do you follow? (c) What is the source of that policy? (d) Provide this exact computer code used to generate your results.”
The subcommittee commissioned a study of the hockey stick headed by Edward Wegman of George Mason University, Chairman of the Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics of the National Academy of Sciences, referred to dismissively as "Barton's choice" by the article in Science. The study reached the following conclusions:
“In general, we found MBH98 and MBH99 [papers by Mann] to be somewhat obscure and incomplete and the criticisms of MM03/05a/05b [papers by McIntyre and McKitrick] to be valid and compelling.
In our further exploration of the social network of authorships in temperature reconstruction, we found that at least 43 authors have direct ties to Dr. Mann by virtue of coauthored papers with him. Our findings from this analysis suggest that authors in the area of paleoclimate studies are closely connected and thus 'independent studies' may not be as independent as they might appear on the surface.
It is important to note the isolation of the paleoclimate community; even though they rely heavily on statistical methods they do not seem to be interacting with the statistical community. Additionally, we judge that the sharing of research materials, data and results was haphazardly and grudgingly done. In this case we judge that there was too much reliance on peer review, which was not necessarily independent.
Overall, our committee believes that Mann's assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by his analysis.”
The response of the prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science and its prestigious journal? It refers to the hockey stick as a "now—superseded curve."
"An ill—advised step in Mann's statistical analysis may have created the hockey stick, Wegman said."
Statistical choices, ill—advised steps, fake but accurate, what difference would it make, flawed doesn't mean wrong. The betrayal—of—science establishment has adopted the standards of Dan Rather and Reuters and should be equally trusted.
If all this is not enough to show the fraud of “acceptable” theories of global warming, consider what Gregory Young wrote in Global Warming? Bring it On!
“The argument propounded by the dubious United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on Anthropogenic (human-induced) Global Warming (AGW) is willfully fraudulent. The report has been vigorously and critically undermined, scientifically denounced and found wanting from both notable scientists here and abroad."
In spite of this fact, it is likely that the new U.S. Democratic Congress and Administration will once again proclaim that they know better than we do about such things. Get ready for them to move surreptitiously under the guise of Global Climate Control in an effort to enhance their own legacies and the government coffers. “To be sure, the Left hears nothing but their own incestuous voices, despite the voices of clarity and reason that abound around them. And there are many, many distinguished dissenters against the charade of AGW.” Take for instance the Founder of the Weather Channel and eminent Meteorologist John Coleman who has stated:
‘There is no significant man made global warming. There has not been any in the past, there is none now and there is no reason to fear any in the future. The climate of Earth is changing. It has always changed. But mankind's activities have not overwhelmed or significantly modified the natural forces."
Again, according to Gregory Mann,
“Through all history, Earth has shifted between two basic climate regimes: ice ages and what paleoclimatologists call ‘Interglacial periods.’ For the past 10 thousand years the Earth has been in an interglacial period.... [where] the Earth warms up, the glaciers melt and life flourishes. Clearly from our point of view, an interglacial period is greatly preferred to the deadly rigors of an ice age. Mr. Gore and his crowd would have us believe that the activities of man have overwhelmed nature during this interglacial period and are producing an unprecedented, out of control warming."
Well, it is simply not happening. Worldwide there was a significant natural warming trend in the 1980's and 1990's as a Solar cycle peaked with lots of sunspots and solar flares. That ended in 1998 and now the Sun has gone quiet with fewer and fewer Sun spots, and the global temperatures have gone into decline. Earth has cooled for almost ten straight years. So, I ask Al Gore, where's the global warming?”
I personally have seen and read an abundance of solid data to back these conclusions up. For example, new measurements from the NASA/ESA spacecraft Ulysses show that the sun's current period of low activity goes beyond an extended dearth of sunspots. Solar activity has dropped to the lowest levels since recording began some 50 years ago. Current experts, such as Veizer, Shaviv, and most recently Svensmark et al., and Patterson, suggest that changes in the output of the sun caused the most recent climate change. They convincingly argue that increased cosmic radiation acts as a catalyst for cloud formation in earth's atmosphere. This, in turn, leads to a general cooling of the world's climate if the pattern persists. (This information is all part of my presentation about False Global Warming Theories.)
Ironically, during the 1970s while some (including NASA's James Hansen) were hysterically promoting the schizoid fears of a new ice age hitting the world in a few decades, a new frenzy over Global Warming and Climate Change was just beginning at Scripps Oceanographic Institute in San Diego, CA. It was started by one of their most esteemed scientists Roger Revelle, the father of Oceanography. His work correlated the increases in carbon dioxide, CO2 (a laboratory defined greenhouse gas) to atmospheric warming. Revelle later moved to Harvard and encouraged his students, including Al Gore, to rehash the data.
Since then the research methods have clearly gotten out of hand. Many avenues of research have proven repeatedly useless. Even Roger Revelle understood that there were greater variables at play than the trace gas of CO2.
Before he died, Revelle gave interviews and wrote letters stating that CO2 and its greenhouse effect did not warrant extreme countermeasures. He told Omni Magazine, in March 1984, that "CO2 increase is predicted to temper weather extremes" -- not cause them. One cannot argue that CO2 was a causative factor -- especially since CO2 was apparently following temperature trend -- not moderating it. It seems none of his followers; Gore in particular, paid any attention to what he said.
“There is a huge problem with the idea that Carbon Dioxide, or CO2, is a globally polluting gas, much less one that causes climate change and global warming. Even though some data seemed to initially substantiate the AGW thesis, these ideas were later proven to be wrong." (Those derived from ice core data were especially damning.) Australian Climatologist Dr. David Evans has done a great deal of work on this issue.
Often forgotten in the argument is the fact that CO2 is only a trace component of the atmosphere. For every million molecules of other gases in the atmosphere (such as nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen), there are only 385 molecules of CO2.
It is a fact that atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have varied widely over geological time. The peak was estimated to be some 20-fold higher than at present (+6,000 ppm) -- and the low about 200 ppm below today's. (Everyday office air concentrations often exceed 1,000 ppm CO2.) “
Meteorologist John Coleman asked”:
“How can this tiny trace upset the entire balance of the climate of Earth? How can a trace element possibly be the cause of systemic Global Warming? It can't. That's all there is to it; it can't.... Carbon dioxide does not cause significant global warming.”
Actually increased levels of CO2 has more likely benefited all life forms on the planet, summarizes Coleman. Many other scientists have come to the same conclusion.
Robinson, Robinson & Soon, in their 2007 published research paper provided empirical evidence that invalidates AGW alarmists' hypotheses. They also found overwhelming support for the general benefits that are derived from natural global warming.
Here is the summary of their findings:
“1- A review of the research literature concerning the environmental consequences of increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to the conclusion that increases during the 20th and early 21st centuries have produced no deleterious effects upon Earth's weather and climate. There are no experimental data to support the hypothesis that increases in human hydrocarbon use or in atmospheric carbon dioxide and other green house gases are causing or can be expected to cause unfavorable changes in global temperatures, weather, or landscape. There is no reason to limit human production of CO2, CH4, and other minor green house gases as has been proposed.
2- Predictions of catastrophic global warming are based on computer climate modeling, a branch of science still in its infancy. The empirical evidence - actual measurements of Earth's temperature and climate - shows no man-made warming trend. Indeed, during four of the seven decades since 1940 when average CO2 levels steadily increased, U.S. average temperatures were actually decreasing.
3- Increased carbon dioxide has, however, markedly increased plant growth. Predictions of harmful climatic effects due to future increases in hydrocarbon use and minor greenhouse gases like CO2 do not conform to current experimental knowledge.
4- While major green house gas H2O substantially warms the Earth, minor green house gases such as CO2 have little effect.... The 6-fold increase in hydrocarbon use since 1940 has had no noticeable effect on atmospheric temperature or on the trend in glacier length.
5- Solar activity and U.S. surface temperature are closely correlated...., but U.S. surface temperature and world hydrocarbon use are not correlated.
6- We also need not worry about environmental calamities even if the current natural warming trend continues. The Earth has been much warmer during the past 3,000 years without catastrophic effects. Warmer weather extends growing seasons and generally improves the habitability of colder regions.
7- Human use of coal, oil, and natural gas has not harmfully warmed the Earth, and the extrapolation of current trends shows that it will not do so in the foreseeable future. The CO2 produced does, however, accelerate the growth rates of plants and also permits plants to grow in drier regions. Animal life, which depends upon plants, also flourishes, and the diversity of plant and animal life is increased.”
Dr. Michael Griffin, the new NASA Administrator, also looks at climate change in a contrarian fashion. He has stated:
“To assume that [climate change] is a problem is to assume that the state of earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change.”
According to Gregory Young “There are other fundamental objections to the AGW theory:
(1) The infamous "Hockey Stick" statistical debacle nicely summarized here, effectively cherry-picked data from tree rings to estimate temperature change over the past 1000 years. The report erroneously declared that the largest increases in world temperature occurred in the 20th century. These results could not be reproduced by anyone. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) later found the statistical methods first employed inappropriate and the findings bogus.
(2) The reported NASA temperature data glitch discovered by Canadian Computer Analyst Steve McIntyre that wrongly kicked all temperature records up several tenths of a degree was a severe setback for AGW modelers. This software "failure" was overseen by one of AGW's fiercest proponents, the notorious Dr. James Hanson. NASA's GISS and Hanson have recently come under fire again for poor data collection methods and questionable accuracy.
(3) As recently presented in American Thinker, Lord Monckton competently summarizes for us that many of the highly publicized AGW "facts" are simple documented anomalies of natural climate cycling -- designedly misrepresented for the cause of AGW.
To wit: The Oceans are not catastrophically rising nor are they warming. In fact, the oceans have been cooling since 2003. The Snows of Kilimanjaro are not melting but ablating because of friction due to a cooling atmosphere and natural cooling trends. The world's 160,000 glaciers are not suddenly receding, but appear to be re-advancing, including those ice shelves in Antarctic and the polar ice sheets, all of which cycle regularly in ice mass. Lord Monckton, a science-journalist, provides even more evidence here.
(4) Finally let us not forget the astute investigation of automated weather stations by US Meteorologist Anthony Watts. Watts painstakingly discovered that a large fraction of the nation's 1,200 stations have been wrongly sited in man-made heat-absorbing centers. (Examples include locations on rooftops, on slabs of heat absorbing concrete, next to air conditioners, diesel generators and asphalt parking lots, even at sewage treatment plants. Some are located in areas experiencing excessive nighttime humidity, and at non-standard observing heights, including one actually sinking into a swamp.) Watts' discovery profoundly undermined the veracity of historical temperature data documented in the United States -- data that had been used by AGW proponents.”
There are three indisputable and fundamental facts that were deliberately ignored in the UN's IPCC sham report. The UN insidiously "forgot" to include the specifics that:
(1) The Earth has largely benefited by past warming cycles and that these previous "warmings" had nothing to do with man's activities. These earlier natural cycles were not catastrophic events; they were, in fact, beneficial to all life forms. They provided warmer and longer growing seasons, more areas available for crops, etc. We know, for instance, that Greenland was once green, that Eric the Red planted and grew grapes in what is now Nova Scotia, Canada, that the Romans planted grapes in England, etc.
(2) Solar/Sun Spot activity is the originator of most climatic change and most weather patterns on Earth. It is king. There is no larger factor of influence. CO2 influence is negligible and pales in comparison. CO2 follows the trend of temperature; it does not cause it.
(3) Subordinate to solar activity alone, atmospheric water vapor/cloud formation and movement is the largest known variable that influences temperature changes in the atmosphere of the earth, and the earth's oceans. Water vapor in the atmosphere is around 1000-10,000 times as important as atmospheric CO2.
These three quintessential and pivotal factors are not even discussed in the UN's IPCC report. This exclusion should raise a red flag in any intelligent mind. That's why so many of us are yelling from the rooftops about the absurdity of the report itself!
Gregory Young:
“There are a plethora of scientists and scientific data arrayed against the minions of the IPCC with its politically selected 2500 Scientists, of which a core group of 600 exists, and a relatively small number of mediocre ‘scientists’ here and there across the American landscape who have suddenly found notoriety or grant money in the global warming cause, are 31,072+ legitimate and viable scientists (of which I am one) who signed the American Petition Project declaring the Global Warming Hypothesis bogus found here, here and here. We openly refute the UN's conclusions.”
“Here's the Petition Statement we dissenters signed in opposition:
"We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.”
"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."
“Let me assure you that we're not in good humor, nor take it kindly to be slurred and ridiculed by taking the other side in this debate. And our numbers are still growing. Indeed, we're angry that the vast majority of American Scientists will not be heard by the media. We're dismayed over the fact that the Global Warming fiasco has become politically popular and expedient to those left-wing politicians and power-brokers whose sole aim is to literally tax everything with a carbon footprint and give them control over all life, hidden within their PC guileful pretence to save the planet. They wish to save no one but themselves.”
"And the revulsion of the elite scientific community grows fiercer: “Of the 2500 originally aligned scientists and putative authors of the UN's IPCC report some 500 are no longer faithful to Big Al's bogus message. Many of these scientists discovered that their individual findings and comments were willfully misrepresented. All participant conclusions were unilaterally changed to adhere strictly to the United Nations objective of building support for world taxation and rationing of industrially useful energy. Since the original IPCC report (and there have been some 4 others now formally issued), the defecting 500 scientists have issued public statements challenging global warming. Approximately 100 of these scientists are now open defectors. Others are currently suing the UN for the misuse of their good names and research. It is difficult to see why a thinking person would even consider the IPCC report as legitimate.”
"The entire IPCC process is shear obfuscation by the environmental, secular and socialist/marxist left. The left caters to the vanity of secular opinion with scientific and/or moral truth. There is an easy and immediate remedy for their debacle. Will Rogers stated it simply: "When you are in a hole ... stop digging.... Please!"
Despite the wealth of contrary evidence the congress goes blithely along with passing laws that will reduce freedom and increase government intrusion in our lives. Can this be stopped? I don’t think so.
Tomorrow we will consider what President-Elect Obama has to say about global warming.
*Dr. Gregory Young is a neuroscientist and physicist, a doctoral graduate of the University of Oxford, Oxford, England. He is currently involved with a privately funded think-tank engaged in experimental biophysical research.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Another United Nations intrusion on our sovereignty if Barack Obama has his way
Recently I pointed out the danger looming ahead for the United States as the White House and congress are controlled by Democrats that will result from reconsideration of previously rejected treaties. It is startling how little attention is paid by the public to what will happen to our freedom if these treaties are signed by President Obama and ratified by the Senate. Even the few responsible media ignore this danger and fail to inform Americans.
For decades Republican presidents or Republican-controlled congress were steadfast in refusing to take up these treaties even those signed by a sitting Democrat president. Perhaps the most important of these were the Kyoto Treaty signed by President Clinton and the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) refused to be considered by President Reagan. Had the Kyoto Treaty been ratified our total society and economy would be subject to draconian United Nations regulations that would be devastating. Unfortunately it is a great likelihood that the newest version will probably be accepted now. LOST is also likely to become the law of our land and American independence on the high seas will be also “lost” as will our independent ability to explore and benefit from under sea deposits. The United Nations will be in control and American sovereignty will be diminished.
Although each of the international treaties avoided until now are important, few will have the far reaching affect on Americans as the “U.N. Treaty on Children’s Rights.” Behind this fine-sounding treaty lurks the most intrusive penetration of American ideals and lives and recasting the relationships between parents and their children. This is no exaggeration.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is an international convention committing signatories to civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of children. All countries that ratify this international convention are bound by it by international law. Compliance is monitored by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child which is composed of members from countries around the world. Once a year, the Committee submits a report to the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, which also hears a statement from the CRC Chair, and the Assembly adopts a Resolution on the Rights of the Child. Governments of countries that have ratified the Convention are required to report to, and appear before, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child periodically to be examined on their progress with regards to the advancement of the implementation of the Convention and the status of child rights in their country.
The treaty obliges states to allow parents to exercise their parental responsibilities but acknowledges that children have the right to express their opinions and to have those opinions heard and acted upon when appropriate and to have their privacy protected and requires that their lives not be subject to excessive interference.
Under the treaty the United States would be obligated to provide separate legal representation for a child in any judicial dispute concerning their care and requires that the child's viewpoint be heard in such cases. The treaty also forbids capital punishment for children.
Article 29 of the treaty limits the fundamental right of parents and others to educate children in private schools by requiring that all such schools support the principles contained in the United Nations Charter, including a list of specific values and ideals. This is in conflict with U.S Supreme Court decisions that a combination of parental rights and religious liberties provide a broader right of parents and private schools to control the values and curriculum of private education free from state or federal government interference.
Article 37 prohibits sentencing of juveniles to life imprisonment with no opportunity for parole. Laws in approximately 20 states conflict with this article. The 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision Roper v. Simmons found juvenile execution unconstitutional as cruel and unusual punishment, but does not cover the question of life without possibility of parole.
Ratification of the UNCRC by the United States would require the U.S. government to appear before the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, a panel of child rights experts from around the world, every 5 years to explain their implementation of such issues as universal health insurance for all American children.
Among other provisions contrary to U.S. law are the participatory rights granted to children.
Article 12 states:
"Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child ... the child shall in particular be provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child."
The treaty, adopted by the United Nations on Nov. 20, 1989, has been ratified by 193 countries. The United States and Somalia are the two countries that have not ratified it. Critics have declared national self-determination (national sovereignty) is at the heart of why the treaty should not be ratified.
As CNSNews.com reported, “This would be one of the most invasive things we could do as far as the sovereignty of our nation,” - Michael Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association.
Smith said that if Congress ratifies the treaty, it would give the United Nations authority to object to federal and state laws that it thinks violate the treaty and mandates Congress have the power to pass laws to make the country comply with its provisions – a fact even advocates of the treaty do not deny. Smith said further: "This would be one of the most invasive things we could do as far as the sovereignty of our nation".
Howard Davidson, Director of the American Bar Association Center for Children and the Law said “Every national government in the world, except the United States, has developed in response to the Convention of the Rights of the Child official detailed national reports on how children are fairing in their country.” This is supposed to make the country feel guilty if it does not do the same.
Austin Ruse is president of the conservative United Nations watchdog group Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. He has said that the treaty reflects a worldview that rejects the idea of sovereign nations. Ruse said “They no longer want independent nations deciding what to do, but good citizens in a new international order.”
The treaty contemplates that children have rights apart from their parents. It separates parents from their children because the rights of children are created that encroach upon the rights and responsibilities of the parents.
The United States has the best laws protecting children in the world. We do not need the radical members of the United Nations to decide for us how to protect children. By any account this is a power grab by globalists who want to exert global rule over national sovereignty. The most dangerous thing about the Treaty is that rather than building stronger families, it will damage relationships by giving children “rights” to question their parents’ decisions on a range of issues, including discipline, religious training and education.
President-elect Barack Obama expressed a willingness to consider sending the treaty to Congress for ratification during his campaign. “It is embarrassing to find ourselves in the company of Somalia, a lawless land,” Obama said. “I will review this.”
True to their plans for United Nations domination, Meg Gardinier, acting chairwoman of the Campaign for the U.S. Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child said:
“We are very excited to think we are finally in a moment in time when the U.S. might very well join that ratification process and we can join the other 193 countries who are currently using this important rights treaty as a pivotal guide to improve the child’s survival, protection and development.”
Is this what you want for our country? If not, Americans need to be fully aware of the possibility the treaty will be ratified by the United States and mount a substantial effort to see that our country does not lose still more sovereignty by accepting United Nations’ dictate of the parent-child relationship.
For decades Republican presidents or Republican-controlled congress were steadfast in refusing to take up these treaties even those signed by a sitting Democrat president. Perhaps the most important of these were the Kyoto Treaty signed by President Clinton and the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) refused to be considered by President Reagan. Had the Kyoto Treaty been ratified our total society and economy would be subject to draconian United Nations regulations that would be devastating. Unfortunately it is a great likelihood that the newest version will probably be accepted now. LOST is also likely to become the law of our land and American independence on the high seas will be also “lost” as will our independent ability to explore and benefit from under sea deposits. The United Nations will be in control and American sovereignty will be diminished.
Although each of the international treaties avoided until now are important, few will have the far reaching affect on Americans as the “U.N. Treaty on Children’s Rights.” Behind this fine-sounding treaty lurks the most intrusive penetration of American ideals and lives and recasting the relationships between parents and their children. This is no exaggeration.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is an international convention committing signatories to civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of children. All countries that ratify this international convention are bound by it by international law. Compliance is monitored by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child which is composed of members from countries around the world. Once a year, the Committee submits a report to the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, which also hears a statement from the CRC Chair, and the Assembly adopts a Resolution on the Rights of the Child. Governments of countries that have ratified the Convention are required to report to, and appear before, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child periodically to be examined on their progress with regards to the advancement of the implementation of the Convention and the status of child rights in their country.
The treaty obliges states to allow parents to exercise their parental responsibilities but acknowledges that children have the right to express their opinions and to have those opinions heard and acted upon when appropriate and to have their privacy protected and requires that their lives not be subject to excessive interference.
Under the treaty the United States would be obligated to provide separate legal representation for a child in any judicial dispute concerning their care and requires that the child's viewpoint be heard in such cases. The treaty also forbids capital punishment for children.
Article 29 of the treaty limits the fundamental right of parents and others to educate children in private schools by requiring that all such schools support the principles contained in the United Nations Charter, including a list of specific values and ideals. This is in conflict with U.S Supreme Court decisions that a combination of parental rights and religious liberties provide a broader right of parents and private schools to control the values and curriculum of private education free from state or federal government interference.
Article 37 prohibits sentencing of juveniles to life imprisonment with no opportunity for parole. Laws in approximately 20 states conflict with this article. The 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision Roper v. Simmons found juvenile execution unconstitutional as cruel and unusual punishment, but does not cover the question of life without possibility of parole.
Ratification of the UNCRC by the United States would require the U.S. government to appear before the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, a panel of child rights experts from around the world, every 5 years to explain their implementation of such issues as universal health insurance for all American children.
Among other provisions contrary to U.S. law are the participatory rights granted to children.
Article 12 states:
"Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child ... the child shall in particular be provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child."
The treaty, adopted by the United Nations on Nov. 20, 1989, has been ratified by 193 countries. The United States and Somalia are the two countries that have not ratified it. Critics have declared national self-determination (national sovereignty) is at the heart of why the treaty should not be ratified.
As CNSNews.com reported, “This would be one of the most invasive things we could do as far as the sovereignty of our nation,” - Michael Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association.
Smith said that if Congress ratifies the treaty, it would give the United Nations authority to object to federal and state laws that it thinks violate the treaty and mandates Congress have the power to pass laws to make the country comply with its provisions – a fact even advocates of the treaty do not deny. Smith said further: "This would be one of the most invasive things we could do as far as the sovereignty of our nation".
Howard Davidson, Director of the American Bar Association Center for Children and the Law said “Every national government in the world, except the United States, has developed in response to the Convention of the Rights of the Child official detailed national reports on how children are fairing in their country.” This is supposed to make the country feel guilty if it does not do the same.
Austin Ruse is president of the conservative United Nations watchdog group Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. He has said that the treaty reflects a worldview that rejects the idea of sovereign nations. Ruse said “They no longer want independent nations deciding what to do, but good citizens in a new international order.”
The treaty contemplates that children have rights apart from their parents. It separates parents from their children because the rights of children are created that encroach upon the rights and responsibilities of the parents.
The United States has the best laws protecting children in the world. We do not need the radical members of the United Nations to decide for us how to protect children. By any account this is a power grab by globalists who want to exert global rule over national sovereignty. The most dangerous thing about the Treaty is that rather than building stronger families, it will damage relationships by giving children “rights” to question their parents’ decisions on a range of issues, including discipline, religious training and education.
President-elect Barack Obama expressed a willingness to consider sending the treaty to Congress for ratification during his campaign. “It is embarrassing to find ourselves in the company of Somalia, a lawless land,” Obama said. “I will review this.”
True to their plans for United Nations domination, Meg Gardinier, acting chairwoman of the Campaign for the U.S. Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child said:
“We are very excited to think we are finally in a moment in time when the U.S. might very well join that ratification process and we can join the other 193 countries who are currently using this important rights treaty as a pivotal guide to improve the child’s survival, protection and development.”
Is this what you want for our country? If not, Americans need to be fully aware of the possibility the treaty will be ratified by the United States and mount a substantial effort to see that our country does not lose still more sovereignty by accepting United Nations’ dictate of the parent-child relationship.
Please, look at the facts before it’s too late – we are not causing the planet to warm
In my local newspaper there was an article recently entitled “Reduce warming while kick-starting the U. S. economy.” One author was an unimpressive councilman and now shows he is an unimpressive critic of the laws of physics. The coauthor is a Greenpeace field organizer, what more need be said; Greenpeace would have the world shut down for the good of humanity and for the planet.
Alarmist articles of this type are long on “concern” about planet warming and inevitably short on reason why we should believe global destruction is just round the corner unless we all accept draconian changes to our life style and put our faith and future in government’s hands. Does anyone other than these illogical alarmists believe that replacing our incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps will actually affect global temperature?
For many years after Al Gore came on the seen with his movie and he and government-supported “researchers” made the Olympian proclamation that the world is warming due to the life style of Americans and others similarly situated, the issue was driven by the faithful “big-government is best” media to assure the world there was no doubt and any deniers were either religious heretics or loony. Despite everything stacked against them, thousands of scientists around the world came forward with real scientific evidence and studies to prove the Olympian proclamation was not only wrong but issued by self-serving academicians feeding from the public trough.
There are good reasons why the global warming advocates scream the verdict of man’s indifference to the environment. After the defeat of communism on the world stage (except for a few tyrants still using the Marxist ideology to maintain power), those who were left found a home in environmental politics and under cover of this new ideology they continued their efforts toward globalism and near total governmental control over the lives of everyone, especially those in the world producing wealth.
The scientific reality is that throughout its history planet earth has undergone numerous climatic changes and upheavals of enormous proportions. On each occasion the planet survived and emerged with a new and generally different totality and life forms. Even tracing planet history to comparatively recent time, it can and has been shown that variation in world temperature has been a regular phenomenon. We have had relatively recent ice ages followed periods of warming and then additional cooling periods. There is evidence that we are actually in a cooling trend related to a considerable reduction in sun spots. The sun is really the dictator of what happens to temperature on earth, not whether we drive SUVs or keep our homes cool in summer and warm in winter. If anyone doubts this, a simple Google search will reveal a plethora of scientific studies to this effect. I have collected literally hundreds of reports about climate change; all proving beyond a doubt that human activity is not responsible for climate change on earth.
The fiction that greenhouse gases are the driving force behind global warming fits in nicely with the plans of big government dreamers in America and around the world. What better way is there to assure people follow the script than alleging the sky is falling and we can only stop it by doing things that will increase everyone’s cost of living and fill government coffers with endless streams of money to use to develop still more schemes to control the poor hapless masses.
I have a presentation that shows every bit of what I say is true. All the data shown is from credible sources and scientists and some even from the global warmer’s handbook. I even have results of studies that show that carbon dioxide, the global warming demon, is not to blame for change in climate temperature. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does vary as does the temperature but changes in carbon dioxide levels actually lag changes in temperature, up and down, by hundreds of years.
Congress is being hoodwinked and we are and will be the losers. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is leading the charge for global warming destructive “remedial” efforts. I would like to know on what basis he comes to believe we are in an emergency of inaction. Governor, tell the people what scientific evidence, specifically, are you relying on? For that matter, Councilman and Greenpeace coordinator - what scientific evidence have you that contradicts the hard evidence produced by the brave men and women who have come forward to discredit global warming alarmists at the risk of their jobs and standing in the elite academic community?
Alarmist articles of this type are long on “concern” about planet warming and inevitably short on reason why we should believe global destruction is just round the corner unless we all accept draconian changes to our life style and put our faith and future in government’s hands. Does anyone other than these illogical alarmists believe that replacing our incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps will actually affect global temperature?
For many years after Al Gore came on the seen with his movie and he and government-supported “researchers” made the Olympian proclamation that the world is warming due to the life style of Americans and others similarly situated, the issue was driven by the faithful “big-government is best” media to assure the world there was no doubt and any deniers were either religious heretics or loony. Despite everything stacked against them, thousands of scientists around the world came forward with real scientific evidence and studies to prove the Olympian proclamation was not only wrong but issued by self-serving academicians feeding from the public trough.
There are good reasons why the global warming advocates scream the verdict of man’s indifference to the environment. After the defeat of communism on the world stage (except for a few tyrants still using the Marxist ideology to maintain power), those who were left found a home in environmental politics and under cover of this new ideology they continued their efforts toward globalism and near total governmental control over the lives of everyone, especially those in the world producing wealth.
The scientific reality is that throughout its history planet earth has undergone numerous climatic changes and upheavals of enormous proportions. On each occasion the planet survived and emerged with a new and generally different totality and life forms. Even tracing planet history to comparatively recent time, it can and has been shown that variation in world temperature has been a regular phenomenon. We have had relatively recent ice ages followed periods of warming and then additional cooling periods. There is evidence that we are actually in a cooling trend related to a considerable reduction in sun spots. The sun is really the dictator of what happens to temperature on earth, not whether we drive SUVs or keep our homes cool in summer and warm in winter. If anyone doubts this, a simple Google search will reveal a plethora of scientific studies to this effect. I have collected literally hundreds of reports about climate change; all proving beyond a doubt that human activity is not responsible for climate change on earth.
The fiction that greenhouse gases are the driving force behind global warming fits in nicely with the plans of big government dreamers in America and around the world. What better way is there to assure people follow the script than alleging the sky is falling and we can only stop it by doing things that will increase everyone’s cost of living and fill government coffers with endless streams of money to use to develop still more schemes to control the poor hapless masses.
I have a presentation that shows every bit of what I say is true. All the data shown is from credible sources and scientists and some even from the global warmer’s handbook. I even have results of studies that show that carbon dioxide, the global warming demon, is not to blame for change in climate temperature. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere does vary as does the temperature but changes in carbon dioxide levels actually lag changes in temperature, up and down, by hundreds of years.
Congress is being hoodwinked and we are and will be the losers. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is leading the charge for global warming destructive “remedial” efforts. I would like to know on what basis he comes to believe we are in an emergency of inaction. Governor, tell the people what scientific evidence, specifically, are you relying on? For that matter, Councilman and Greenpeace coordinator - what scientific evidence have you that contradicts the hard evidence produced by the brave men and women who have come forward to discredit global warming alarmists at the risk of their jobs and standing in the elite academic community?
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Tearing down crosses and making threats does not change minds
Every generation or so complains about how the next generation is changing our lives, the country, etc. but sometimes the changes are not just in how long we let our hair grow or what the music fad is, sometimes the changes are tragic to the fabric of society and our liberty and freedom – bought and paid for by blood and heartache of our founders. We are experiencing such an era of change now.
I’m not referring to the political changes we may expect under President Obama and the elected Democrat majorities in Congress, I believe we need to also focus on the changes in personal behavior and hate as we witnessed in Palm Springs when a mob of homosexuals and their supporters overcame an old woman carrying a cross because in their view religion, especially Christianity, cannot be tolerated if it interferes with their agenda. The homosexual agenda is to force their way into every aspect of human life to the end that homosexualism is synonymous with mankind. This goal requires providing homosexuals the status of “married people” not only with respect to legal rights, but in how non homosexuals perceive them regardless of their personal beliefs or religion.
Militant homosexuals have planned their next steps to achieve their goal. They are going back to the California Supreme Court that gave homosexual marriage its imprimatur to once again reverse the majority in the state. The practice of this court in the past as overruling the voting majority in the state is ample to justify the expense and effort in support of the homosexual theology. Who must the public rely on to support the Proposition 8 constitutional amendment in the court – Attorney General Gerry Brown – (do you feel comfortable with this advocate for you?)
Also on the homosexual agenda is the “boycott.” Their representatives say if we can’t beat them in the ballot box (yet), we will make the pay in other ways for failing to kneel at the homosexual altar.
Yes militancy, but not violence, has successfully transformed our society to a fairer one. Our founders were only “mostly” perfect but they accepted some prejudices in their way of life we have found to be wrong over the years. Thus was born voting rights for women and those other than whites, denial of slavery or servitude and overcoming racial disparity.
Euphemisms are used to convey what some regard as a more acceptable description of the thing; this has gone on for decades. For example, to make those practicing homosexuality seem to be less different from others the word “gay” has been descriptive of homosexuals and their life styles (curiously, the word does not seem to apply to female homosexuals or lesbians). As a result, a perfectly good word – gay – cannot be used as it had for centuries to describe a happy condition, not limited one particular group.
Objecting to the will of the majority is a fundamental freedom under our constitution and laws. The constitution is silent with respect to homosexuals so it is a subject (one of the few these days) that has been left to states to deal with. States frequently enact laws than many disagree with and those unsatisfied seek reversal generally by persuading others of their view. Such efforts cost a lot of money but are nevertheless permissible within our legal structure. What differentiates some groups with strongly held views from others is the way they go about seeking to achieve the result they desire. PETA seems to want us all to forego using animals in any form so they disrupt meetings, cause vandalism and worse. Does PETA really believe people will be drawn to their philosophy by such acts?
Militant homosexuals attack little old ladies with crosses and march and march; protest and protest that voters who approved Proposition 8 or the like (for the second time) are homophobes who wish to deny them their constitutional right to marry; but the U.S. Constitution does not address homosexuals at all. It was only the California Supreme Court stretching the state constitution language to suit their social preferences did they manage to overturn all previous efforts to define marriage as between one man and one woman – as it has for thousands of years.
Like many of us, I have changed my mind about things many times; but never under any kind of threat. I suggest homosexuals put away their hardware and mobs, stop threatening those who disagree with you and join the dialog. You may not persuade many who disagree with you for what they regard as responsible reasons; but if you don’t and continue as you are, it is only you will look foolish in the end.
I’m not referring to the political changes we may expect under President Obama and the elected Democrat majorities in Congress, I believe we need to also focus on the changes in personal behavior and hate as we witnessed in Palm Springs when a mob of homosexuals and their supporters overcame an old woman carrying a cross because in their view religion, especially Christianity, cannot be tolerated if it interferes with their agenda. The homosexual agenda is to force their way into every aspect of human life to the end that homosexualism is synonymous with mankind. This goal requires providing homosexuals the status of “married people” not only with respect to legal rights, but in how non homosexuals perceive them regardless of their personal beliefs or religion.
Militant homosexuals have planned their next steps to achieve their goal. They are going back to the California Supreme Court that gave homosexual marriage its imprimatur to once again reverse the majority in the state. The practice of this court in the past as overruling the voting majority in the state is ample to justify the expense and effort in support of the homosexual theology. Who must the public rely on to support the Proposition 8 constitutional amendment in the court – Attorney General Gerry Brown – (do you feel comfortable with this advocate for you?)
Also on the homosexual agenda is the “boycott.” Their representatives say if we can’t beat them in the ballot box (yet), we will make the pay in other ways for failing to kneel at the homosexual altar.
Yes militancy, but not violence, has successfully transformed our society to a fairer one. Our founders were only “mostly” perfect but they accepted some prejudices in their way of life we have found to be wrong over the years. Thus was born voting rights for women and those other than whites, denial of slavery or servitude and overcoming racial disparity.
Euphemisms are used to convey what some regard as a more acceptable description of the thing; this has gone on for decades. For example, to make those practicing homosexuality seem to be less different from others the word “gay” has been descriptive of homosexuals and their life styles (curiously, the word does not seem to apply to female homosexuals or lesbians). As a result, a perfectly good word – gay – cannot be used as it had for centuries to describe a happy condition, not limited one particular group.
Objecting to the will of the majority is a fundamental freedom under our constitution and laws. The constitution is silent with respect to homosexuals so it is a subject (one of the few these days) that has been left to states to deal with. States frequently enact laws than many disagree with and those unsatisfied seek reversal generally by persuading others of their view. Such efforts cost a lot of money but are nevertheless permissible within our legal structure. What differentiates some groups with strongly held views from others is the way they go about seeking to achieve the result they desire. PETA seems to want us all to forego using animals in any form so they disrupt meetings, cause vandalism and worse. Does PETA really believe people will be drawn to their philosophy by such acts?
Militant homosexuals attack little old ladies with crosses and march and march; protest and protest that voters who approved Proposition 8 or the like (for the second time) are homophobes who wish to deny them their constitutional right to marry; but the U.S. Constitution does not address homosexuals at all. It was only the California Supreme Court stretching the state constitution language to suit their social preferences did they manage to overturn all previous efforts to define marriage as between one man and one woman – as it has for thousands of years.
Like many of us, I have changed my mind about things many times; but never under any kind of threat. I suggest homosexuals put away their hardware and mobs, stop threatening those who disagree with you and join the dialog. You may not persuade many who disagree with you for what they regard as responsible reasons; but if you don’t and continue as you are, it is only you will look foolish in the end.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Will we continue to be able to say “being born an American is to win first prize in the lottery of life?”
At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, when “the sun never set on the British Empire”, Rudyard Kipling noted that "to be born an Englishman is to win first prize in the lottery of life." Americans could say the same thing for centuries but will that continue to be true in the future?
Everyone can decide for themselves what will be the cause of Americans inability to consider having won the first prize in the lottery of life but for me it will be the growing demand for social justice.
Gary Demar wrote that the concept “social justice” means different things to different people. Justice is often equated with social equality, a mistaken notion if there ever was one”. The reason the idea of social justice is fallacious is that it does not fit in with the human condition and merely provides a false sense of fairness. Demar cites sporting contests as examples.
“Rarely are teams equal in ability. This is especially true with the younger age groups. What if umpires had the jurisdictional authority to level inequities at the request of a manager who believes that the opposing team has better players? Both teams know the rules going into the game. Umpires are present to ensure that the rule book is followed to the letter. As long as the players and coaches follow the rules and umpires enforce the rules, justice prevails even if there are inequities. It is not the job of an umpire to eliminate disparities. Who would ever want to play the game if the rules always change at the discretion of an umpire?”
In our country the demand for “social justice” is really a plea for the government to do something to fix perceived inequities be they economic or relational without any regard to the principle of justice. If justice is described in social rather than legal terms we are persuaded that national problems can only be fixed by a government with enough power to enforce its policies. The result is that advocates of “social justice” believe that the government plays the major role in rectifying so-called social problems because they are national in scope. Author Antonio Martino has pointed out however, that “the expression social justice . . . owes its immense popularity precisely to its ambiguity and meaninglessness. It can be used by different people, holding quite different views, to designate a wide variety of different things. Its obvious appeal stems from its persuasive strength, from its positive connotations, which allows the user to praise his own ideas and simultaneously express contempt for the ideas of those who don’t agree with him.”
“Anyone who criticizes policies that carry the label ‘social justice’ is immediately considered to be callous, insensitive, uncaring, and lacking in compassion.”
However those who oppose this definition of “social justice” policies are not against treating people in a just way; they just believe that most if not all social justice policies that involve the government are wrong and do more harm than good in the long run. Attaching the “social justice” label to a program does not make it a just program any more than attaching a label of a higher priced product to an inferior one makes it better.
As Demar also notes “Confiscating trillions of dollars in taxes from one segment of society and redistributing the collected revenue to another segment of society and calling it “social justice” does not mean that it is in fact the just thing to do. “Social justice” is not in operation when the State takes upon itself the right to confiscate so-called excess capital from the rich to care for the poor … confiscatory taxation and such policies do not work.”
In the 1960’s President Lyndon Johnson declared “war on poverty.” In the end poverty grew in numbers and trillions of dollars spent did nothing more than enlarge government. As has been reported: “Overall, civilian social welfare costs increased by twenty times from 1950 to 1980, in constant dollars and during the same period, the United States population increased by half.”
In 1965 the Food Stamp Program began with 424,000 people (statistically less than 9,000 people per state, a manageable number which private welfare agencies could have handled). At the end of Lyndon Johnson’s presidency in 1968, participation increased to 2.2 million. The number doubled during the first two years of Richard Nixon’s presidency (1969-70). By the end of Nixon’s first term in 1972, the number of food stamp recipients had increased five-fold. “By 1980, more than twenty-one million people were receiving food stamps, fifty times more people than were covered during the Johnson presidency.”
Using the government to satisfy a concept of “social justice” does more harm than good because it entices people into programs which make them dependent upon government. Of course there are people who are poor and need help but creating a government program in attempt to satisfy the need merely expands government and does not solve the problem anyway. We should keep this in mind as President Barack Obama institutes his policies to “spread the wealth.”
It is clear that America’s fight against poverty involved enormous overhead costs in the past and similar programs advertised to help the middle class will do the same. Most of the tax dollars collected in these efforts end up, as Thomas Sowell notes, “in the pockets of highly paid administrators, consultants, and staff as well as higher-income recipients of benefits from programs advertised as anti-poverty efforts.” I believe the real beneficiaries of liberal social programs are not the poor and disadvantaged but the members of the governmental bureaucracy who administer the program.
Those who administer these programs have a vested interest in their survival and expansion. Winning the war on poverty is not the goal, perpetuating the programs is. “Less than 25 percent of all the tax dollars allocated to fight poverty at every level of government reaches the poor. The other 75 percent goes to pay overhead.”
Here are some statistics that prove the point.
“In 1982, the total U.S. welfare bill at all levels of government (federal, state, and local) came to 403 billion dollars. If we take figures from the Bureau of the Census (August 1984) which state that the number of people living in poverty in the U.S. was 15.2 percent of the population or 35.3 million people, an amazing fact emerges. Had we simply divided the 403 billion dollars this nation spent on poverty at every level of government among the estimated number of poor people, each poor person could have received $11,133. For a family of four, this would have totaled $44,532.” Since the official poverty level per family for that year was $9,287.”
As I said it is clear that America’s fight against poverty involves enormous overhead costs. If that same money and the revenue lost in overhead expenditures that never reach the poor were saved, invested, and spent in our free market economy instead of taxed, many more people would benefit, and we would have fewer dependent on the government. But that’s not what Democrats and liberals want; they achieve and maintain power by increasing the number of social-welfare slaves who then become the dominant voting block.
Everyone can decide for themselves what will be the cause of Americans inability to consider having won the first prize in the lottery of life but for me it will be the growing demand for social justice.
Gary Demar wrote that the concept “social justice” means different things to different people. Justice is often equated with social equality, a mistaken notion if there ever was one”. The reason the idea of social justice is fallacious is that it does not fit in with the human condition and merely provides a false sense of fairness. Demar cites sporting contests as examples.
“Rarely are teams equal in ability. This is especially true with the younger age groups. What if umpires had the jurisdictional authority to level inequities at the request of a manager who believes that the opposing team has better players? Both teams know the rules going into the game. Umpires are present to ensure that the rule book is followed to the letter. As long as the players and coaches follow the rules and umpires enforce the rules, justice prevails even if there are inequities. It is not the job of an umpire to eliminate disparities. Who would ever want to play the game if the rules always change at the discretion of an umpire?”
In our country the demand for “social justice” is really a plea for the government to do something to fix perceived inequities be they economic or relational without any regard to the principle of justice. If justice is described in social rather than legal terms we are persuaded that national problems can only be fixed by a government with enough power to enforce its policies. The result is that advocates of “social justice” believe that the government plays the major role in rectifying so-called social problems because they are national in scope. Author Antonio Martino has pointed out however, that “the expression social justice . . . owes its immense popularity precisely to its ambiguity and meaninglessness. It can be used by different people, holding quite different views, to designate a wide variety of different things. Its obvious appeal stems from its persuasive strength, from its positive connotations, which allows the user to praise his own ideas and simultaneously express contempt for the ideas of those who don’t agree with him.”
“Anyone who criticizes policies that carry the label ‘social justice’ is immediately considered to be callous, insensitive, uncaring, and lacking in compassion.”
However those who oppose this definition of “social justice” policies are not against treating people in a just way; they just believe that most if not all social justice policies that involve the government are wrong and do more harm than good in the long run. Attaching the “social justice” label to a program does not make it a just program any more than attaching a label of a higher priced product to an inferior one makes it better.
As Demar also notes “Confiscating trillions of dollars in taxes from one segment of society and redistributing the collected revenue to another segment of society and calling it “social justice” does not mean that it is in fact the just thing to do. “Social justice” is not in operation when the State takes upon itself the right to confiscate so-called excess capital from the rich to care for the poor … confiscatory taxation and such policies do not work.”
In the 1960’s President Lyndon Johnson declared “war on poverty.” In the end poverty grew in numbers and trillions of dollars spent did nothing more than enlarge government. As has been reported: “Overall, civilian social welfare costs increased by twenty times from 1950 to 1980, in constant dollars and during the same period, the United States population increased by half.”
In 1965 the Food Stamp Program began with 424,000 people (statistically less than 9,000 people per state, a manageable number which private welfare agencies could have handled). At the end of Lyndon Johnson’s presidency in 1968, participation increased to 2.2 million. The number doubled during the first two years of Richard Nixon’s presidency (1969-70). By the end of Nixon’s first term in 1972, the number of food stamp recipients had increased five-fold. “By 1980, more than twenty-one million people were receiving food stamps, fifty times more people than were covered during the Johnson presidency.”
Using the government to satisfy a concept of “social justice” does more harm than good because it entices people into programs which make them dependent upon government. Of course there are people who are poor and need help but creating a government program in attempt to satisfy the need merely expands government and does not solve the problem anyway. We should keep this in mind as President Barack Obama institutes his policies to “spread the wealth.”
It is clear that America’s fight against poverty involved enormous overhead costs in the past and similar programs advertised to help the middle class will do the same. Most of the tax dollars collected in these efforts end up, as Thomas Sowell notes, “in the pockets of highly paid administrators, consultants, and staff as well as higher-income recipients of benefits from programs advertised as anti-poverty efforts.” I believe the real beneficiaries of liberal social programs are not the poor and disadvantaged but the members of the governmental bureaucracy who administer the program.
Those who administer these programs have a vested interest in their survival and expansion. Winning the war on poverty is not the goal, perpetuating the programs is. “Less than 25 percent of all the tax dollars allocated to fight poverty at every level of government reaches the poor. The other 75 percent goes to pay overhead.”
Here are some statistics that prove the point.
“In 1982, the total U.S. welfare bill at all levels of government (federal, state, and local) came to 403 billion dollars. If we take figures from the Bureau of the Census (August 1984) which state that the number of people living in poverty in the U.S. was 15.2 percent of the population or 35.3 million people, an amazing fact emerges. Had we simply divided the 403 billion dollars this nation spent on poverty at every level of government among the estimated number of poor people, each poor person could have received $11,133. For a family of four, this would have totaled $44,532.” Since the official poverty level per family for that year was $9,287.”
As I said it is clear that America’s fight against poverty involves enormous overhead costs. If that same money and the revenue lost in overhead expenditures that never reach the poor were saved, invested, and spent in our free market economy instead of taxed, many more people would benefit, and we would have fewer dependent on the government. But that’s not what Democrats and liberals want; they achieve and maintain power by increasing the number of social-welfare slaves who then become the dominant voting block.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
The worse is yet to come under President Barack Obama
Until now most attention to a Barack Obama presidency has focused, rightfully, on the likely socialist policies to be enacted during the next four years. Opponents have unsuccessfully tried to inform Americans about changes in the tax law to “spread the wealth” from the so-called “wealthy” to lower income voters. Though under the current progressive” tax system this already occurs; President Obama will enshrine and expand the tax policy toward the Marxist ideal.
Other government policy and laws that will diminish our rights and increase government control have also been discussed by many but have fallen on deaf ears as the public focused more on rhetoric and style rather than substance. A loss of the sacred secret ballot for workers to the benefit of unions seems not to impress workers enough to affect their vote. The potential loss of private health care and the likelihood that government bureaucrats will make health care decisions did not diminish voter support for Obama. Even the appointment of liberal judges willing to ignore the constitution like Ginsberg, Breyer, Souter and Stevens did not bother voters captivated by Obama.
All of the above is sufficient to accept a non conservative of questionable judgment in place of the radical community organizer.
However not as well known are some very serious matters that will change our country forever. Under our constitution treaties take precedence over all federal and state laws and some treaties previously barred by Republican presidents will likely find smooth sailing under a Democrat-dominated congress led by President Barack Obama.
For many years we have resisted the insistence of the United Nations and socialist-led countries to sign onto the International Court where constitutional rights of Americans will be superseded by a court hostile to our institutions and individual rights and immune from US voter and congressional oversight. Our soldiers and citizens can be arrested and charged under leftist laws without protection of our constitution.
Of course a Kyoto-like treaty ignored even by President Bush will easily get ratified in the next congress and eagerly signed by President Obama. It will not be enough that our economy and individual rights will be saddled by new environmental laws but the country will be subject to international oversight to assure compliance with extreme regulations.
Rights under the Second Amendment will be jeopardized as gun control advocates will be able to accomplish what has been denied by congress and the U.S. Supreme Court as the United States signs a treaty to ban small arms and light weapons among United Nation member countries.
The Law of the Sea Treaty which has faced opposition in congress can become law as we surrender unilateral rights to foreign controlled agencies of the United Nations.
Who knows what affect on the country will be ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Woman (CEDAW).
Will a requirement to participate in world taxes be far behind? One of the United Nations goals is to collect a United Nations royalty on all fossil fuels extracted in international waters.
We must also remember that Senator Barack Obama introduced legislation, (S. 2433) called the Global Poverty Act “to promote the reduction of global poverty … and the achievement of the Millennium development goal …” by allocating $800 billion for this purpose. The laws reference to Millennium Development is short-hand for a United Nations declaration calling for the treaties and convent ions described above. Legislation like S. 2433 has already passed the House. After the 2008 election we can expect S. 2433 to move forward with lightening speed.
Those of us fearful of a Barack Obama presidency based on what is already known of his goals can only shudder at falling of the second shoe.
Other government policy and laws that will diminish our rights and increase government control have also been discussed by many but have fallen on deaf ears as the public focused more on rhetoric and style rather than substance. A loss of the sacred secret ballot for workers to the benefit of unions seems not to impress workers enough to affect their vote. The potential loss of private health care and the likelihood that government bureaucrats will make health care decisions did not diminish voter support for Obama. Even the appointment of liberal judges willing to ignore the constitution like Ginsberg, Breyer, Souter and Stevens did not bother voters captivated by Obama.
All of the above is sufficient to accept a non conservative of questionable judgment in place of the radical community organizer.
However not as well known are some very serious matters that will change our country forever. Under our constitution treaties take precedence over all federal and state laws and some treaties previously barred by Republican presidents will likely find smooth sailing under a Democrat-dominated congress led by President Barack Obama.
For many years we have resisted the insistence of the United Nations and socialist-led countries to sign onto the International Court where constitutional rights of Americans will be superseded by a court hostile to our institutions and individual rights and immune from US voter and congressional oversight. Our soldiers and citizens can be arrested and charged under leftist laws without protection of our constitution.
Of course a Kyoto-like treaty ignored even by President Bush will easily get ratified in the next congress and eagerly signed by President Obama. It will not be enough that our economy and individual rights will be saddled by new environmental laws but the country will be subject to international oversight to assure compliance with extreme regulations.
Rights under the Second Amendment will be jeopardized as gun control advocates will be able to accomplish what has been denied by congress and the U.S. Supreme Court as the United States signs a treaty to ban small arms and light weapons among United Nation member countries.
The Law of the Sea Treaty which has faced opposition in congress can become law as we surrender unilateral rights to foreign controlled agencies of the United Nations.
Who knows what affect on the country will be ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Woman (CEDAW).
Will a requirement to participate in world taxes be far behind? One of the United Nations goals is to collect a United Nations royalty on all fossil fuels extracted in international waters.
We must also remember that Senator Barack Obama introduced legislation, (S. 2433) called the Global Poverty Act “to promote the reduction of global poverty … and the achievement of the Millennium development goal …” by allocating $800 billion for this purpose. The laws reference to Millennium Development is short-hand for a United Nations declaration calling for the treaties and convent ions described above. Legislation like S. 2433 has already passed the House. After the 2008 election we can expect S. 2433 to move forward with lightening speed.
Those of us fearful of a Barack Obama presidency based on what is already known of his goals can only shudder at falling of the second shoe.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
I am proud to be a conservative
When Barak Obama and his people take over the White House all the “B”, “H” and “O” s will still remain on the key boards; this is both a strength and weakness of conservatives. Unlike the Clinton team, those in the Bush Administration will not trash the White house before leaving nor will they take everything not nailed down.
With few exceptions conservatives are people who play by the rules, respect property and rights of others and do not resort to tricks and fraud to succeed. This is because conservatives believe that their views will prevail if people can be properly informed and because they believe that Americans will do the right thing for the country even if other policies will enable them to unfairly receive more than they deserve.
There is no equivalent of ACORN on the right, nor is there any counterpart of the black caucus, the NAACP, the ACLU, or the multitude of other groups designed to exert inordinate influence on government. Conservatives believe the Constitution means what it says and respect the founders and their incredible achievement in producing a document for the ages; not a “living document” to be changed and rewritten according to the wishes of judges or other branches of government, but one that can and should be the law of the land regardless of the vagaries of public opinion.
For two hundred years the constitution was a bulwark against other philosophies that would destroy our free enterprise capitalist system which encourages individual responsibilities and individual achievement based on one’s willingness to exceed expectations through hard work and personal effort.
It is a fragility of the human condition that many would just assume that those with more should share their success with those unwilling to make the effort to achieve equivalent success on their own. Politics favor those in the latter category because their numbers far exceed the former. In a democratic society where each citizen has the same one vote it is axiomatic that politicians favoring wealth distribution will prevail. For this reason communist and socialist societies come to power when people put self interest ahead of their country. It is also axiomatic that all such systems ultimately fail, something recognized by our county’s founders but ignored by politicians seeking power for power’s sake.
When Pilgrims first arrived on our shores, their leader implemented a communal system whereby all produce was put in a common pot and distributed to each according to their needs. It didn’t take long for them to realize this system did not work because there was no incentive for anyone to work harder than others. The Pilgrim society flourished only when they allowed for free enterprise so that each would prosper according to their own effort.
When Senator Joe Biden was asked if the proposals by Barack Obama were not similar to the Marxist premise of “from each according to their means to each according to their needs.”, Biden scoffed at the question but the reality is that the United States has crept along this path for a long time and is now arriving at the logical conclusion. The fact is that the country’s founders did not even want the government to be able to tax the earnings of individuals; it took a constitutional amendment to reverse this important constitutional prohibition. As is usually the case, once a there is an opening in the dike the wall of resistance weakens and if allowed to expand ultimately leads to its destruction.
The constitutional amendment permitting individual income tax eventually gave way to the concept of “progressive taxation” which allows those with more to be taxed at a higher rate that others with less. This may sound fair to some but is not too dissimilar to the failed program initiated by the Pilgrims on their arrival. Perhaps this can be called “communism light.”
So today we have seen a further weakening of the wall of resistance with election of someone who has made no secret of his desire to “spread the wealth.” Where this will lead is really not a mystery. Take a look at the president elect’s agenda. First all of the executive orders implemented by George Bush will be rescinded and replaced with new policies demanded by Obama’s liberal supporters. Secret ballots for workers will be replace with an arrangement intended to increase union membership and power at the expense of worker freedom and our basic democratic system. Of course, this is just one example of many we will see in the at least the next four years.
We can also expect to see a reduction in personal freedom and choice as our government ignores the plethora of evidence that man does not cause climate change and imposes upon us huge changes on our way of life to conform to the liberal orthodoxy that our successful society must be curtailed to “save the planet.”
It may be that people get the government they want, but unfortunately the mistakes they make affect us all.
On a personal note; those who have been regular readers of this blog have noted that fewer articles have been posted recently. This is because I am going through a bit of a difficult patch right now; hopefully I will be able to resume regular postings sometime but it will not be for a while. I hope you will bear with me and come back from time-to-time.
Vincent
With few exceptions conservatives are people who play by the rules, respect property and rights of others and do not resort to tricks and fraud to succeed. This is because conservatives believe that their views will prevail if people can be properly informed and because they believe that Americans will do the right thing for the country even if other policies will enable them to unfairly receive more than they deserve.
There is no equivalent of ACORN on the right, nor is there any counterpart of the black caucus, the NAACP, the ACLU, or the multitude of other groups designed to exert inordinate influence on government. Conservatives believe the Constitution means what it says and respect the founders and their incredible achievement in producing a document for the ages; not a “living document” to be changed and rewritten according to the wishes of judges or other branches of government, but one that can and should be the law of the land regardless of the vagaries of public opinion.
For two hundred years the constitution was a bulwark against other philosophies that would destroy our free enterprise capitalist system which encourages individual responsibilities and individual achievement based on one’s willingness to exceed expectations through hard work and personal effort.
It is a fragility of the human condition that many would just assume that those with more should share their success with those unwilling to make the effort to achieve equivalent success on their own. Politics favor those in the latter category because their numbers far exceed the former. In a democratic society where each citizen has the same one vote it is axiomatic that politicians favoring wealth distribution will prevail. For this reason communist and socialist societies come to power when people put self interest ahead of their country. It is also axiomatic that all such systems ultimately fail, something recognized by our county’s founders but ignored by politicians seeking power for power’s sake.
When Pilgrims first arrived on our shores, their leader implemented a communal system whereby all produce was put in a common pot and distributed to each according to their needs. It didn’t take long for them to realize this system did not work because there was no incentive for anyone to work harder than others. The Pilgrim society flourished only when they allowed for free enterprise so that each would prosper according to their own effort.
When Senator Joe Biden was asked if the proposals by Barack Obama were not similar to the Marxist premise of “from each according to their means to each according to their needs.”, Biden scoffed at the question but the reality is that the United States has crept along this path for a long time and is now arriving at the logical conclusion. The fact is that the country’s founders did not even want the government to be able to tax the earnings of individuals; it took a constitutional amendment to reverse this important constitutional prohibition. As is usually the case, once a there is an opening in the dike the wall of resistance weakens and if allowed to expand ultimately leads to its destruction.
The constitutional amendment permitting individual income tax eventually gave way to the concept of “progressive taxation” which allows those with more to be taxed at a higher rate that others with less. This may sound fair to some but is not too dissimilar to the failed program initiated by the Pilgrims on their arrival. Perhaps this can be called “communism light.”
So today we have seen a further weakening of the wall of resistance with election of someone who has made no secret of his desire to “spread the wealth.” Where this will lead is really not a mystery. Take a look at the president elect’s agenda. First all of the executive orders implemented by George Bush will be rescinded and replaced with new policies demanded by Obama’s liberal supporters. Secret ballots for workers will be replace with an arrangement intended to increase union membership and power at the expense of worker freedom and our basic democratic system. Of course, this is just one example of many we will see in the at least the next four years.
We can also expect to see a reduction in personal freedom and choice as our government ignores the plethora of evidence that man does not cause climate change and imposes upon us huge changes on our way of life to conform to the liberal orthodoxy that our successful society must be curtailed to “save the planet.”
It may be that people get the government they want, but unfortunately the mistakes they make affect us all.
On a personal note; those who have been regular readers of this blog have noted that fewer articles have been posted recently. This is because I am going through a bit of a difficult patch right now; hopefully I will be able to resume regular postings sometime but it will not be for a while. I hope you will bear with me and come back from time-to-time.
Vincent
Sunday, November 2, 2008
I am sorry for what has happened to Americans
This is a very sad election; not only because the most liberal senator ever elected to office may become president, but because of what this says about Americans.
Those victimized by Nazi rule in Germany and others appalled by the horror may wonder how someone like Adolph Hitler could come to power and receive the support of so many average Germans. Documentaries frequently feature film of the Hitler days showing huge crowds yelling and waiving support for the most fiendish world leader in thousands of years; an amazing sight.
If you read this and think I am equating Adolph Hitler and Barack Obama you are completely wrong; I absolutely am not. What is equitable however is the support of huge numbers of the American people who are ready to accept a leader who is without doubt intent on changing the whole fabric of the country and values held dear since our beginning based on individual liberty, free enterprise and a capitalist system where individual effort and hard work is rewarded.
Most Obama supporters are sold on the idea that “change” is needed but ignore the reality of the kind of change Obama wants for all of us. Obama’s change drives us toward government control and intrusion into our lives beyond all comprehension of our founding fathers and of the governments we elected for the past two hundred years. Whether it’s called socialism or something else, the fact is that everywhere Obama’s ideas have been tried there was failure. What has made our country great is the recognition that we all benefit when we distinguish between those who work hard to better their lives and those who are in for a free ride. Hard work and initiative must be rewarded or people will not exert extra effort; why should they? Why would anyone settle for a piece of a common pie when he is responsible for the pie in the first place?
There are many ways to achieve a socialistic or autocratic society. Stalin and his predecessors chose force and physical intimidation. But Hitler initially came to power by convincing Germans of the need for change and that his way, though ultimately oppressive, was the way to go.
Barack Obama is more subtle. As Saul Alinski taught his disciples, of which Obama and Hillary Clinton were two, the way to achieve the ultimate society was to work through the working class. It was not sufficient to harness support of the poor people because they had no power. But if the middle class could be persuaded to accept change that causes hard working successful Americans to part with more of the reward for their labor and share it with the “less fortunate” then a sufficiently large voting mass would be assembled to bring to power someone with a true socialist agenda. Once in office and the changes are enshrined into law, it would be nearly impossible to undue the successful achievement of their goal.
Someone had the nerve to ask Obama’s running mate, Senator Joe Biden, if this approach was not in keeping with the Marxist idea of “from each according to his means, to those according to their need.” Biden sought to discredit the question, and later the questioner, with ridicule. But I defy anyone to explain why the Obama approach is not consistent with the Marxist premise.
Yes it can be said that any progressive income tax system is the same thing and Obama is merely taking the idea to another level. But the fact is we have been accepting the Marxist philosophy for as long as we have had a progressive income tax and the result is always the same; a certain degree of discouragement of success. The fact that Obama is comfortable publicly acknowledging he want to “spread the wealth” says more about Americans than it says about Obama.
Obama has openly called for a change of our capitalistic society to one where those who have not made the sacrifices of successful members of our society will share in the bounty but without making any of the effort.
Obama and those who have laid out the road to socialism for America have done well. One day we will wake up and see the logical extension of the policies Obama has convinced Americans to accept, and we won’t recognize our country.
Those victimized by Nazi rule in Germany and others appalled by the horror may wonder how someone like Adolph Hitler could come to power and receive the support of so many average Germans. Documentaries frequently feature film of the Hitler days showing huge crowds yelling and waiving support for the most fiendish world leader in thousands of years; an amazing sight.
If you read this and think I am equating Adolph Hitler and Barack Obama you are completely wrong; I absolutely am not. What is equitable however is the support of huge numbers of the American people who are ready to accept a leader who is without doubt intent on changing the whole fabric of the country and values held dear since our beginning based on individual liberty, free enterprise and a capitalist system where individual effort and hard work is rewarded.
Most Obama supporters are sold on the idea that “change” is needed but ignore the reality of the kind of change Obama wants for all of us. Obama’s change drives us toward government control and intrusion into our lives beyond all comprehension of our founding fathers and of the governments we elected for the past two hundred years. Whether it’s called socialism or something else, the fact is that everywhere Obama’s ideas have been tried there was failure. What has made our country great is the recognition that we all benefit when we distinguish between those who work hard to better their lives and those who are in for a free ride. Hard work and initiative must be rewarded or people will not exert extra effort; why should they? Why would anyone settle for a piece of a common pie when he is responsible for the pie in the first place?
There are many ways to achieve a socialistic or autocratic society. Stalin and his predecessors chose force and physical intimidation. But Hitler initially came to power by convincing Germans of the need for change and that his way, though ultimately oppressive, was the way to go.
Barack Obama is more subtle. As Saul Alinski taught his disciples, of which Obama and Hillary Clinton were two, the way to achieve the ultimate society was to work through the working class. It was not sufficient to harness support of the poor people because they had no power. But if the middle class could be persuaded to accept change that causes hard working successful Americans to part with more of the reward for their labor and share it with the “less fortunate” then a sufficiently large voting mass would be assembled to bring to power someone with a true socialist agenda. Once in office and the changes are enshrined into law, it would be nearly impossible to undue the successful achievement of their goal.
Someone had the nerve to ask Obama’s running mate, Senator Joe Biden, if this approach was not in keeping with the Marxist idea of “from each according to his means, to those according to their need.” Biden sought to discredit the question, and later the questioner, with ridicule. But I defy anyone to explain why the Obama approach is not consistent with the Marxist premise.
Yes it can be said that any progressive income tax system is the same thing and Obama is merely taking the idea to another level. But the fact is we have been accepting the Marxist philosophy for as long as we have had a progressive income tax and the result is always the same; a certain degree of discouragement of success. The fact that Obama is comfortable publicly acknowledging he want to “spread the wealth” says more about Americans than it says about Obama.
Obama has openly called for a change of our capitalistic society to one where those who have not made the sacrifices of successful members of our society will share in the bounty but without making any of the effort.
Obama and those who have laid out the road to socialism for America have done well. One day we will wake up and see the logical extension of the policies Obama has convinced Americans to accept, and we won’t recognize our country.
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