Mike Adams
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Dear Dr. Adams:
I just wanted to thank you for making this semester the best I've had yet at UNCW. I loved not only the content of the class but also your teaching style, which is the most effective that I have sat under as a student. But most importantly to me, I didn't find myself squirming in my seat, as I have in other classes when certain political comments are made attacking the minority conservative Christian population on our campus. You are truly the best professor I have had to date, and likely the best I will ever have. And for that, I wanted to extend my sincere thanks, and ask you to keep doing what you are doing. I only wish that everyone could have a class with you.
Thank you so much, for everything,
(Name Withheld)
Dear (Name Withheld):
Thank you very much for your kind remarks. I also want to thank you for sending some of your favorite quotes preserved last semester in the notes from your Introduction to Sociology course. I have cut and pasted (below) some of the angry remarks. They are followed by my own (hopefully) humorous rebuttals. As conservatives, we must always respond to liberal anger with humor. I would suggest posting these remarks on http://www.campusreform.org/ to warn other conservatives about what they will encounter in SOC 105:
“Everybody else (other countries) looks at us (USA) like we all own guns and still live like ‘the wild west’ with people just always walking around with holsters. I guess so with all those concealed carry permits you can just go get.”
It is extremely important for you to understand why your sociology professor does not support laws allowing for the issuance of concealed weapons permits. These laws have been shown to lower violent crime rates including rape. Sociology professors are aware that there have been many – the exact number is fifteen – refereed studies showing that concealed weapons permits reduce violence towards both men and women. However, feminists (like your sociology professor) committed themselves to a radical Marxist ideology long before these studies were ever published. They did so because Marxism cannot succeed in an armed society.
When the data began to show that concealed weapons permits protect both men and women from violence she (your professor) had a decision to make: 1) Would she commit herself to protecting women from rape, or 2) Would she commit herself to protecting her ideology from criticism.
She chose the latter. This shows what sociology is and is not. It is a morally bankrupt discipline. It is not a science.
“I've been trying to get the term "freshman" changed to "first-year". ‘freshman’ is such a gendered term.”
I believe there should be a new course called SOC 123 “The Sociology of Irrelevance.” This would be followed by an advanced course called SOC 456 “The Irrelevance of Sociology.” That feminist sociologists actually spend class time fighting against the use of terms such as “freshman,” “mankind,” and “manhole” mandates (woman-dates?) only one conclusion: There is nothing of real importance left for the feminist movement to accomplish in this country.
That conclusion is warranted because America is the best place in the world for a woman to live and work. If feminist sociologists wish to become relevant again they should turn their attention to important issues such as the abuse of women in the name of Islam. Unfortunately, most (nearly all) feminists lack the moral courage to do so.
“The really right-wingers are afraid of ‘losing their country.’ What does that mean? It means they're afraid of losing the white, Christian, conservative dominance.”
The bigotry of such a statement is very easy to dissect. In the 1960s, Christianity – the religion that was the basis for the abolition of slavery – was, once again, at the forefront of the civil rights movement. The idea that Christianity is somehow intertwined with white dominance can be rebutted effectively with the following observation: Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Christian.
Martin was not Jewish. He was not an atheist. He was not an agnostic. He was a member of the most liberating religion in our world’s history.
”It is sad that we subject little boys to running around playing with toy AK- 47's.”
Here, your professor shows her ignorance of firearms. Little boys in America generally run around playing with toy M-16s – the weapon used to combat Marxist regimes. AK-47s are the weapons used to advance her ideology of Marxism. They can be found on Russian playgrounds. They can also be found in the hands of little Muslims all across the world. But those aren’t toys in the hands of Muslim children. They are real. And they are meant to be used to kill Jews. A Jewish professor needs to be aware of these crucial distinctions.
“Nowhere in the constitution does it say we're capitalist, just democratic.”
Nowhere in the constitution does it say “partial birth abortion” or “homosexual sodomy.” I would urge you to give her a copy of that important document as a “holiday” gift.
“(Regarding a picture of her standing in front of the Marx Memorial) - I was going to send it out as Christmas cards, but I thought it was a bit much.”
I disagree with your professor. I’m giving out NRA memberships this year as Christmas gifts. I want to know who all of my communist friends are. A picture of someone standing in front of a Marx Memorial lets me know she’s a communist and should be given a life membership in the NRA. I can think of no better way to fight communism this Christmas than signing Marxists up for the NRA against their will. After all, they have been trying all year to give us national health care memberships against our will.
“Women should have to pay less tuition since their education pays out less in the end.”
Actually, the statistic saying women earn only 77% of what a man makes is misleading – oops!, I mean, MS-leading. That pay differential is accounted for by women who choose to stay out of the workforce to have children. Your professor is not angry about persistent sex discrimination in the workplace. That would be the same as hating unicorns. The object of her hatred simply does not exist. She is angry at women who choose to stay at home and have children.
If anything, white, Christian conservatives should have to pay less in tuition when they take classes from angry sociologists. Based upon your experience, you deserve a full refund.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Obamacare Hazardous to America's Health
David Limbaugh
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
At least common thieves don't destroy an entire health care system and socialize the American economy when they commit their felonies. Too bad we can't say the same for our illustrious Democratic senators who sold out the nation.
In exchange for criminally unconstitutional favors for their respective states, they voted to pass the Senate health care bill just 38 hours after it had been made available to the public for review.
Everyone knows about Sen. Mary Landrieu's negotiating $300 million for her state in non-guaranteed Medicaid payouts. She was even cocky about her institutionalized larceny.
"But another ... holdout, Sen. Bernie Sanders," Politico reports, "took credit for $10 billion in new funding for community health centers." Millions of those earmarked greenbacks will go to his home state, Vermont, if the president signs the bill. Sanders denies it was a "sweetheart deal," but he threw his support behind a bill he had opposed vehemently just three days earlier.
Sanders and Sen. Patrick Leahy secured additional Medicaid funding for Vermont, while senators from Pennsylvania, New York and Florida achieved Medicare Advantage protections for their constituents even as benefits from this program are being cut nationwide.
And why not? The end always justifies the means for these liberals. And the end, in this case, is their long-held Utopian Marxist dream of socialized health care. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was not only unapologetic but also defiant about these bribes. "You'll find a number of states that are treated differently than other states. That's what legislating is all about. It's compromise," said Reid.
But this wasn't compromise. It was blackmail. And the payoff was at the expense of our bankrupt heirs.
Liberal politicians rationalize judicial rewriting of the Constitution on the basis that great things are accomplished that might not otherwise be possible through legitimate democratic processes. But what we're seeing now is the logical result of this callous disregard for our government charter.
If the Constitution had been treated with respect, this legislative monstrosity passed in the dead of night with the discriminatory application of federal monies would have been invalid on its face. But these days, adhering to constitutional principles designed to separate government powers among the three branches has become arcane -- and almost a lost cause.
You have to wonder, though, when residents of our individual states who were recipients of these pernicious deals will rise up and reject this blood money flowing from the mortal wounds to the nation their senators have inflicted. After all, the bribe money their states are receiving won't do them much good if the nation further disintegrates into bankruptcy.
What's worse is that the foregoing outrages don't begin to address the disturbing provisions, such as the following, in this shameful Senate bill.
Obama brags that the Congressional Budget Office scores the bill as reducing the federal deficit over the next decade. But even if you accept this static analysis, you should be aware that according to The Heritage Foundation, the CBO bases its calculations only on the data the Senate provides. The Senate bill provides that Medicare fees for doctors would be cut by 20 percent beginning in 2011, but "nobody believes these cuts will be allowed to happen." If they don't, just this one change would result in Obamacare's adding $196 billion to the deficit in the first 10 years and $765 billion in the following one.
Obamacare would fare even worse, accountingwise, if it didn't force states to increase Medicaid obligations -- another unfunded mandate that would bankrupt states further.
Health care costs, say Heritage experts, would rise by $234 billion. They also tell us that though Obama promised that no one would be forced to change his health care plan, the CBO confirmed that 10 million Americans would be forced out of their current plans under Obamacare. And the $493 billion in Medicare cuts would force up to 20 percent of health care providers into insolvency.
Finally, Heritage informs us that "Obamacare is funded with over $400 billion in new taxes at a time of double digit unemployment."
National Center for Policy Analysis health care expert John C. Goodman says: "This bill does not curb health care expenses, but it will increase taxes and cost jobs. The end result of this bill: most Americans will wait longer for poorer quality care."
Adding insult to injury, most pro-life groups believe the bill does not ensure that federal funding would not be available for abortions.
After all the dust settles, millions will remain uninsured, which makes this entire bill a grotesque mockery of the American people.
The clock is ticking toward 2010.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
At least common thieves don't destroy an entire health care system and socialize the American economy when they commit their felonies. Too bad we can't say the same for our illustrious Democratic senators who sold out the nation.
In exchange for criminally unconstitutional favors for their respective states, they voted to pass the Senate health care bill just 38 hours after it had been made available to the public for review.
Everyone knows about Sen. Mary Landrieu's negotiating $300 million for her state in non-guaranteed Medicaid payouts. She was even cocky about her institutionalized larceny.
"But another ... holdout, Sen. Bernie Sanders," Politico reports, "took credit for $10 billion in new funding for community health centers." Millions of those earmarked greenbacks will go to his home state, Vermont, if the president signs the bill. Sanders denies it was a "sweetheart deal," but he threw his support behind a bill he had opposed vehemently just three days earlier.
Sanders and Sen. Patrick Leahy secured additional Medicaid funding for Vermont, while senators from Pennsylvania, New York and Florida achieved Medicare Advantage protections for their constituents even as benefits from this program are being cut nationwide.
And why not? The end always justifies the means for these liberals. And the end, in this case, is their long-held Utopian Marxist dream of socialized health care. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was not only unapologetic but also defiant about these bribes. "You'll find a number of states that are treated differently than other states. That's what legislating is all about. It's compromise," said Reid.
But this wasn't compromise. It was blackmail. And the payoff was at the expense of our bankrupt heirs.
Liberal politicians rationalize judicial rewriting of the Constitution on the basis that great things are accomplished that might not otherwise be possible through legitimate democratic processes. But what we're seeing now is the logical result of this callous disregard for our government charter.
If the Constitution had been treated with respect, this legislative monstrosity passed in the dead of night with the discriminatory application of federal monies would have been invalid on its face. But these days, adhering to constitutional principles designed to separate government powers among the three branches has become arcane -- and almost a lost cause.
You have to wonder, though, when residents of our individual states who were recipients of these pernicious deals will rise up and reject this blood money flowing from the mortal wounds to the nation their senators have inflicted. After all, the bribe money their states are receiving won't do them much good if the nation further disintegrates into bankruptcy.
What's worse is that the foregoing outrages don't begin to address the disturbing provisions, such as the following, in this shameful Senate bill.
Obama brags that the Congressional Budget Office scores the bill as reducing the federal deficit over the next decade. But even if you accept this static analysis, you should be aware that according to The Heritage Foundation, the CBO bases its calculations only on the data the Senate provides. The Senate bill provides that Medicare fees for doctors would be cut by 20 percent beginning in 2011, but "nobody believes these cuts will be allowed to happen." If they don't, just this one change would result in Obamacare's adding $196 billion to the deficit in the first 10 years and $765 billion in the following one.
Obamacare would fare even worse, accountingwise, if it didn't force states to increase Medicaid obligations -- another unfunded mandate that would bankrupt states further.
Health care costs, say Heritage experts, would rise by $234 billion. They also tell us that though Obama promised that no one would be forced to change his health care plan, the CBO confirmed that 10 million Americans would be forced out of their current plans under Obamacare. And the $493 billion in Medicare cuts would force up to 20 percent of health care providers into insolvency.
Finally, Heritage informs us that "Obamacare is funded with over $400 billion in new taxes at a time of double digit unemployment."
National Center for Policy Analysis health care expert John C. Goodman says: "This bill does not curb health care expenses, but it will increase taxes and cost jobs. The end result of this bill: most Americans will wait longer for poorer quality care."
Adding insult to injury, most pro-life groups believe the bill does not ensure that federal funding would not be available for abortions.
After all the dust settles, millions will remain uninsured, which makes this entire bill a grotesque mockery of the American people.
The clock is ticking toward 2010.
Monday, December 21, 2009
When Liberal Dreams Collide With Public Opinion
Michael Barone
Monday, December 21, 2009
In the Bella Center on the south side of Copenhagen and in the Senate chamber on the north side of the Capitol, we're seeing what happens when liberal dreams collide with American public opinion. It's like what happens when a butterfly collides with the windshield of a speeding SUV. Splat.
The liberal dreams may have seemed, on those nights in Invesco Field and Grant Park, as beautiful as a butterfly. But they are still subject to the merciless laws of political physics.
Eleven months ago, this did not seem inevitable. It was widely supposed that economic distress would increase America's appetite for big government measures to restrict carbon dioxide emissions and control the provision of health care. Especially when a young dynamic president employed his oratorical gifts to transcend, as he put it, old ideological and partisan divisions.
Barack Obama, who seemed so confident of his powers as he prepared for his inauguration, evidently believed that he could persuade Americans to support left-of-center policies that they had never favored before.
A Democratic Congress rejected Hillary Clinton's health care plan in 1994, and a unanimous Senate rejected the central provision of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. But this time, with a steep recession and a new leader, things would be different.
As snow fell on the global warming alarmists in Copenhagen and a winter storm made a beeline for the Capitol as the Senate was set to begin its round-the-clock weekend session, things don't seem that different at all.
The Copenhagen conclave seems to be unable to produce the promised binding treaty committing 100-plus nations to reduce carbon emissions. It seems likely to kick the can down the road to 2012.
One reason is that the leaders of China and India are unwilling to slow down the economic growth that has been lifting millions out of poverty in order to avert a disaster predicted by climate scientists who, we now know from the Climategate e-mails, have been busy manipulating data, suppressing evidence and silencing anyone who disagrees.
Another is that American voters have shown a growing skepticism of such predictions. The cap-and-trade bill that Obama hoped to brag about in Copenhagen now clearly has no chance of passage in the Senate. Obama talks of giving developing countries $100 billion to pay for emissions reductions. But the ABC/Washington Post poll reports that by a 57 percent to 39 percent margin Americans oppose donating even $10 billion.
Similarly, pollster Scott Rasmussen reports that only 34 percent of Americans say passing a Democratic health care bill is better than passing nothing, while 57 percent say it's better to pass no health care bill at all. That's also the opinion of Dr. Howard Dean, former Democratic national chairman, and the left-wing MSNBC pundit Keith Olbermann.
There is still some chance that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can corral 60 Democratic votes for whatever health care bill he unveils. But it's looking increasingly unlikely -- and increasingly politically suicidal for some of those 60 Senate Democrats.
Bill Clinton has told those Democrats that they'd be better off politically passing something rather than nothing. But his own job rating swelled only after his health care proposals failed to pass.
"What's really exceptional at this stage of Obama's presidency," writes Andrew Kohut, the Pew Research Center's respected pollster, "is the extent to which the public has moved in a conservative direction on a range of issues. These trends have emanated as much from the middle of the electorate as from the highly energized conservative right. Even more notable, however, is the extent to which liberals appear to be dozing as the country has shifted on both economic and social issues."
From which we can draw two conclusions. One is that economic distress does not move Americans to support more government. Rasmussen reports that 66 percent of Americans favor smaller government with fewer services and only 22 percent favor more services and higher taxes.
The second is that Barack Obama's persuasive powers are surprisingly weak. His advocacy seems to have moved Americans in the opposite of the intended direction.
Obama first came to national attention in 2004 by promising to heal partisan, ideological and racial divisions. Like the other two Democratic presidents elected in the last 40 years, he campaigned in the center and started off governing on the left. In Copenhagen and on Capitol Hill, we are seeing the results. Splat.
Monday, December 21, 2009
In the Bella Center on the south side of Copenhagen and in the Senate chamber on the north side of the Capitol, we're seeing what happens when liberal dreams collide with American public opinion. It's like what happens when a butterfly collides with the windshield of a speeding SUV. Splat.
The liberal dreams may have seemed, on those nights in Invesco Field and Grant Park, as beautiful as a butterfly. But they are still subject to the merciless laws of political physics.
Eleven months ago, this did not seem inevitable. It was widely supposed that economic distress would increase America's appetite for big government measures to restrict carbon dioxide emissions and control the provision of health care. Especially when a young dynamic president employed his oratorical gifts to transcend, as he put it, old ideological and partisan divisions.
Barack Obama, who seemed so confident of his powers as he prepared for his inauguration, evidently believed that he could persuade Americans to support left-of-center policies that they had never favored before.
A Democratic Congress rejected Hillary Clinton's health care plan in 1994, and a unanimous Senate rejected the central provision of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. But this time, with a steep recession and a new leader, things would be different.
As snow fell on the global warming alarmists in Copenhagen and a winter storm made a beeline for the Capitol as the Senate was set to begin its round-the-clock weekend session, things don't seem that different at all.
The Copenhagen conclave seems to be unable to produce the promised binding treaty committing 100-plus nations to reduce carbon emissions. It seems likely to kick the can down the road to 2012.
One reason is that the leaders of China and India are unwilling to slow down the economic growth that has been lifting millions out of poverty in order to avert a disaster predicted by climate scientists who, we now know from the Climategate e-mails, have been busy manipulating data, suppressing evidence and silencing anyone who disagrees.
Another is that American voters have shown a growing skepticism of such predictions. The cap-and-trade bill that Obama hoped to brag about in Copenhagen now clearly has no chance of passage in the Senate. Obama talks of giving developing countries $100 billion to pay for emissions reductions. But the ABC/Washington Post poll reports that by a 57 percent to 39 percent margin Americans oppose donating even $10 billion.
Similarly, pollster Scott Rasmussen reports that only 34 percent of Americans say passing a Democratic health care bill is better than passing nothing, while 57 percent say it's better to pass no health care bill at all. That's also the opinion of Dr. Howard Dean, former Democratic national chairman, and the left-wing MSNBC pundit Keith Olbermann.
There is still some chance that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid can corral 60 Democratic votes for whatever health care bill he unveils. But it's looking increasingly unlikely -- and increasingly politically suicidal for some of those 60 Senate Democrats.
Bill Clinton has told those Democrats that they'd be better off politically passing something rather than nothing. But his own job rating swelled only after his health care proposals failed to pass.
"What's really exceptional at this stage of Obama's presidency," writes Andrew Kohut, the Pew Research Center's respected pollster, "is the extent to which the public has moved in a conservative direction on a range of issues. These trends have emanated as much from the middle of the electorate as from the highly energized conservative right. Even more notable, however, is the extent to which liberals appear to be dozing as the country has shifted on both economic and social issues."
From which we can draw two conclusions. One is that economic distress does not move Americans to support more government. Rasmussen reports that 66 percent of Americans favor smaller government with fewer services and only 22 percent favor more services and higher taxes.
The second is that Barack Obama's persuasive powers are surprisingly weak. His advocacy seems to have moved Americans in the opposite of the intended direction.
Obama first came to national attention in 2004 by promising to heal partisan, ideological and racial divisions. Like the other two Democratic presidents elected in the last 40 years, he campaigned in the center and started off governing on the left. In Copenhagen and on Capitol Hill, we are seeing the results. Splat.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Capitalism Under Fire From Highly Self-Interested Dictators And Diplomats
Austin Hill
Sunday, December 20, 2009
“…our revolution seeks to help all people…socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell....let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.”
Thus was the conclusion of a roughly half-hour speech – which ran about twenty –five minutes longer than it was scheduled to – from Hugo Chavez, the once freely elected President who is rapidly evolving into the Dictator of Venezuela. The speech was delivered at the United Nation’s Global Warming assembly in Copenhagen last Thursday.
And now, thanks to Comrade Chavez himself, the veil has been completely lifted: the so-called “climate change” agenda has essentially nothing to do with trying to change the climate or “saving the planet,” and everything to do with self-interested politicians trying to control the world’s economic resources.
Last month, this movement was severely discredited by the uncovering of a thousand or so email messages sent or received by global warming authority Phil Jones, of University of East Anglia. Those emails depicted a pattern of ignoring scientific “evidence” that ran contrary to his own global warming theories, as well as a pattern of active “campaigning” for his public policy agenda, rather than a pursuit of “research.”
But as if the global warming movement didn’t already appear sufficiently disingenuous and “hoaxy” before the U.N. gathering, the Dictator of Venezuela showed all the cards in Copenhagen. As blizzard conditions kept people indoors in Denmark Thursday afternoon, Chavez made it very clear that the agenda is not to reverse the “warming” of the planet, but rather, it is to squash the free market economy wherever it exits, and to re-distribute the world’s wealth.
Interestingly, a Chicago Tribune report on Obama’s visit to the U.N. event last Friday was almost as blunt about the economic re-distribution agenda. Noting the lack of agreement among U.N. delegates about a “climate change treaty,” a section of the report notes:
“…Activists and diplomats in Copenhagen say Obama could nevertheless help break the negotiating impasse, particularly if he commits to a set dollar figure on a shared financial aid package from wealthy nations to developing ones, to help the poorer countries adapt to climate change. More than anything, Copenhagen participants say, Obama must tell world leaders that he will push hard for a climate bill in the spring, in time to have a law in place for a potential follow-up summit six months from now…”
So, how much more clear can the agenda be? Here is a major American newspaper acknowledging in its “news” section that so long as the President of the United States agrees to hand-over a certain minimum amount of American money to “poorer nations,” then delegates to the U.N. will be happy once again.
The agenda of alleged “global warming” is in actuality an agenda against free market economics. And the hostility towards the free market is almost universally based on a few specific assumptions: A) In as much as the free market economic system allows for some people to get “rich,” while others remain “poor,” the free market system is itself unjust; B) The wealth accumulation of the rich is necessarily accomplished by unjust means; and C) Economic justice is achieved by re-distributing wealth away from “the wealthy,” and towards those who are poor.
These assumptions are clearly alive and well at the U.N. Yet, despite however passionately people around the world may believe these assumptions to be true, the assumptions themselves lead to a slew of other questions – questions that economic re-distribution enthusiasts generally don’t ask.
If the free market economy has produced “unjust” economic outcomes, what economic system can produce better, more “just” outcomes? If re-distributing money out of the United States and other “wealthy” nations, and in to “poorer” nations is the “right thing” to do, how much money should be taken? To which nations shall it be given? What is the definition of a “wealthy” nation? How does one define a “poor” nation?
Who shall make these important determinations? Should it be the U.N? Can the world trust a “body of dilopmats” from around the world who, while in the process of gathering to set policies that restrain others’ freedom and that re-distribute others’ wealth, nonetheless themselves demand a life of luxury, flying-in to Copenhagen in private jets, utilizing limousines imported from other countries to shuffle them about the city, and so forth?
Or should one individual person be selected to establish “economic justice” throughout the world? And who is so just, so “moral,” so “fair” and so wise that they can know what is “just” for every nation of the world? Is it Hugo Chavez? Barack Obama perhaps?
The loudest opponents of capitalism are quick to decry the self-interests of others. But they are conveniently ignoring their own.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
“…our revolution seeks to help all people…socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell....let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.”
Thus was the conclusion of a roughly half-hour speech – which ran about twenty –five minutes longer than it was scheduled to – from Hugo Chavez, the once freely elected President who is rapidly evolving into the Dictator of Venezuela. The speech was delivered at the United Nation’s Global Warming assembly in Copenhagen last Thursday.
And now, thanks to Comrade Chavez himself, the veil has been completely lifted: the so-called “climate change” agenda has essentially nothing to do with trying to change the climate or “saving the planet,” and everything to do with self-interested politicians trying to control the world’s economic resources.
Last month, this movement was severely discredited by the uncovering of a thousand or so email messages sent or received by global warming authority Phil Jones, of University of East Anglia. Those emails depicted a pattern of ignoring scientific “evidence” that ran contrary to his own global warming theories, as well as a pattern of active “campaigning” for his public policy agenda, rather than a pursuit of “research.”
But as if the global warming movement didn’t already appear sufficiently disingenuous and “hoaxy” before the U.N. gathering, the Dictator of Venezuela showed all the cards in Copenhagen. As blizzard conditions kept people indoors in Denmark Thursday afternoon, Chavez made it very clear that the agenda is not to reverse the “warming” of the planet, but rather, it is to squash the free market economy wherever it exits, and to re-distribute the world’s wealth.
Interestingly, a Chicago Tribune report on Obama’s visit to the U.N. event last Friday was almost as blunt about the economic re-distribution agenda. Noting the lack of agreement among U.N. delegates about a “climate change treaty,” a section of the report notes:
“…Activists and diplomats in Copenhagen say Obama could nevertheless help break the negotiating impasse, particularly if he commits to a set dollar figure on a shared financial aid package from wealthy nations to developing ones, to help the poorer countries adapt to climate change. More than anything, Copenhagen participants say, Obama must tell world leaders that he will push hard for a climate bill in the spring, in time to have a law in place for a potential follow-up summit six months from now…”
So, how much more clear can the agenda be? Here is a major American newspaper acknowledging in its “news” section that so long as the President of the United States agrees to hand-over a certain minimum amount of American money to “poorer nations,” then delegates to the U.N. will be happy once again.
The agenda of alleged “global warming” is in actuality an agenda against free market economics. And the hostility towards the free market is almost universally based on a few specific assumptions: A) In as much as the free market economic system allows for some people to get “rich,” while others remain “poor,” the free market system is itself unjust; B) The wealth accumulation of the rich is necessarily accomplished by unjust means; and C) Economic justice is achieved by re-distributing wealth away from “the wealthy,” and towards those who are poor.
These assumptions are clearly alive and well at the U.N. Yet, despite however passionately people around the world may believe these assumptions to be true, the assumptions themselves lead to a slew of other questions – questions that economic re-distribution enthusiasts generally don’t ask.
If the free market economy has produced “unjust” economic outcomes, what economic system can produce better, more “just” outcomes? If re-distributing money out of the United States and other “wealthy” nations, and in to “poorer” nations is the “right thing” to do, how much money should be taken? To which nations shall it be given? What is the definition of a “wealthy” nation? How does one define a “poor” nation?
Who shall make these important determinations? Should it be the U.N? Can the world trust a “body of dilopmats” from around the world who, while in the process of gathering to set policies that restrain others’ freedom and that re-distribute others’ wealth, nonetheless themselves demand a life of luxury, flying-in to Copenhagen in private jets, utilizing limousines imported from other countries to shuffle them about the city, and so forth?
Or should one individual person be selected to establish “economic justice” throughout the world? And who is so just, so “moral,” so “fair” and so wise that they can know what is “just” for every nation of the world? Is it Hugo Chavez? Barack Obama perhaps?
The loudest opponents of capitalism are quick to decry the self-interests of others. But they are conveniently ignoring their own.
How To Make Enemies on Health Care
Steve Chapman
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Barack Obama hoped to unify the nation, and he is making impressive progress toward that goal. Last week, he created common ground between Howard Dean and conservatives. They agree on one thing, which is that the health care reform package produced by the Senate and endorsed by the president richly deserves to be voted down.
Conservatives have always opposed ObamaCare because it involves too much government. Now liberals are abandoning the administration's plan because it involves too little. Dean and Co. are bitter that the bills in Congress offer neither a "public option" -- a government-run insurance program -- nor a provision letting those from age 55 to 64 buy Medicare coverage.
It's OK to alienate people at each end of the political spectrum if you please those in between. But the so-called moderates on Capitol Hill are proving no help to the president. On the contrary, they have discovered that the middle of the road is an ideal place to block traffic.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, once thought to be open to supporting the plan, now says she probably won't. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., got his way when the Senate dropped the government-run options, but even he is not a sure "yes" vote.
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, denounced attempts to use "artificially generated haste" to get the bill through, which doesn't make her sound like she's on Obama's side. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., is holding out unless he gets tighter restrictions on abortion coverage.
Even proclaimed supporters make it clear they are settling for a pale facsimile of what they really want. Obama seems to have created a split between those who are critical of his efforts and those who are ungrateful.
So he may not get an overhaul passed at all. If he does, it may cost him control of Congress in next year's elections. In the worst (or best) case, it may help unseat him in 2012. In any case, it won't make him a lot of friends anytime soon.
But Obama has no one to blame except himself. He made the mistake of thinking that because Americans elected him on a promise of overhauling health care, they agreed on what that means. If Americans were unified on a plausible change in the system, however, they probably would have gotten it long ago.
The reality is that either they don't know exactly what they want or they want things that are incompatible -- more benefits and lower costs, more regulation and less government, lower premiums and life eternal. They demand change while demanding the preservation of everything they like about the status quo.
Health care "reform" is hard because a given goal is likely to come at the expense of another. According to a recent George Washington University Battleground Poll, 41 percent of Americans think the main goal should be lowering costs. But they don't really mean it.
Lowering costs is easy: Just reduce benefits. But try that, and you'll be charged with plotting to ration treatment and set up death panels. What people generally mean when they say they want lower costs is that they want to pay less without getting less. Heck, yes.
The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 51 percent of Americans don't want Congress to pass a health care bill this year, with only 44 percent favoring legislation. The longer the debate goes on, the less support there is.
Granted, many of them may have only the vaguest idea of what the legislation would actually do. Ignorance about government programs is often bliss, but in this case, complexity and impenetrability work against change.
Major changes in our economy and social welfare system need a broad public consensus, which does not exist on health care. Given that most Americans are happy with both the quality of care they get and their own insurance coverage, they see more to lose than to gain from any alteration they don't understand. Doing nothing is the default option.
Everyone regards the bill too hot or too cold, too big or too small, too soft or too hard -- never just right. When it comes to changes in health care, Obama is discovering, the average American is not Goldilocks. More like the princess and the pea.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Barack Obama hoped to unify the nation, and he is making impressive progress toward that goal. Last week, he created common ground between Howard Dean and conservatives. They agree on one thing, which is that the health care reform package produced by the Senate and endorsed by the president richly deserves to be voted down.
Conservatives have always opposed ObamaCare because it involves too much government. Now liberals are abandoning the administration's plan because it involves too little. Dean and Co. are bitter that the bills in Congress offer neither a "public option" -- a government-run insurance program -- nor a provision letting those from age 55 to 64 buy Medicare coverage.
It's OK to alienate people at each end of the political spectrum if you please those in between. But the so-called moderates on Capitol Hill are proving no help to the president. On the contrary, they have discovered that the middle of the road is an ideal place to block traffic.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, once thought to be open to supporting the plan, now says she probably won't. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., got his way when the Senate dropped the government-run options, but even he is not a sure "yes" vote.
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, denounced attempts to use "artificially generated haste" to get the bill through, which doesn't make her sound like she's on Obama's side. Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., is holding out unless he gets tighter restrictions on abortion coverage.
Even proclaimed supporters make it clear they are settling for a pale facsimile of what they really want. Obama seems to have created a split between those who are critical of his efforts and those who are ungrateful.
So he may not get an overhaul passed at all. If he does, it may cost him control of Congress in next year's elections. In the worst (or best) case, it may help unseat him in 2012. In any case, it won't make him a lot of friends anytime soon.
But Obama has no one to blame except himself. He made the mistake of thinking that because Americans elected him on a promise of overhauling health care, they agreed on what that means. If Americans were unified on a plausible change in the system, however, they probably would have gotten it long ago.
The reality is that either they don't know exactly what they want or they want things that are incompatible -- more benefits and lower costs, more regulation and less government, lower premiums and life eternal. They demand change while demanding the preservation of everything they like about the status quo.
Health care "reform" is hard because a given goal is likely to come at the expense of another. According to a recent George Washington University Battleground Poll, 41 percent of Americans think the main goal should be lowering costs. But they don't really mean it.
Lowering costs is easy: Just reduce benefits. But try that, and you'll be charged with plotting to ration treatment and set up death panels. What people generally mean when they say they want lower costs is that they want to pay less without getting less. Heck, yes.
The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 51 percent of Americans don't want Congress to pass a health care bill this year, with only 44 percent favoring legislation. The longer the debate goes on, the less support there is.
Granted, many of them may have only the vaguest idea of what the legislation would actually do. Ignorance about government programs is often bliss, but in this case, complexity and impenetrability work against change.
Major changes in our economy and social welfare system need a broad public consensus, which does not exist on health care. Given that most Americans are happy with both the quality of care they get and their own insurance coverage, they see more to lose than to gain from any alteration they don't understand. Doing nothing is the default option.
Everyone regards the bill too hot or too cold, too big or too small, too soft or too hard -- never just right. When it comes to changes in health care, Obama is discovering, the average American is not Goldilocks. More like the princess and the pea.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Global Wealth Can Heal the Planet
Free-market nations are better at protecting their environments than statist regimes.
By Jonah Goldberg
Friday, December 18, 2009
As the Copenhagen climate summit comes to a close, it seems fair to say that rarely has a gathering of so many doing so little gotten so much attention. But Copenhagen does have its uses. For starters, it reminds us that environmentalism continues to be a cover for uglier agendas.
Bolivian president Evo Morales was interviewed by Al Jazeera television while in Copenhagen. “The principal obstacle to combating climate change is capitalism,” he explained. “Until we put an end to capitalism, it will continue to be a big obstacle for life and humanity.”
Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe proclaimed in a speech: “When these capitalist gods of carbon burp and belch their dangerous emissions, it’s we, the lesser mortals of the developing sphere, who gasp and sink and eventually die.”
Right. That is, unless Mugabe kills them first.
The big name in the anti-capitalism club was, of course, Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan national-socialist strongman. In a typical stem-winder, he belched: “Capitalism is a destructive model that is eradicating life, that threatens to put a definitive end to the human species.”
I don’t know how to say “chutzpah” in Spanish, but you’ve got to hand it to the leader of the world’s No. 5 supplier of oil for bemoaning the system that keeps his regime afloat by buying his product.
Now, I know that nice, moderate progressive types are rolling their eyes at my cynical effort to associate their noble activism with support for socialism and thugs. Fair enough. Let us concede that many, perhaps even most, proponents of draconian restrictions on carbon emissions have no sympathy for socialist dictators and do not want to chuck capitalism in the dustbin of history. But surely it should trouble these responsible greens that they’re in bed with a Star Wars cantina of villains and monsters.
Also, if environmentalists want to avoid the “watermelon” charge (“green on the outside, red on the inside”), maybe the delegates and activists in the audience shouldn’t have given Chávez such a loud and boisterous round of applause? Perhaps the folks who gave him a standing ovation didn’t help either?
The simple truth is that hostility to freedom (i.e., economic liberty and political democracy) and fondness for non-democratic statism suffuses much of the environmental movement. I will confess to having a minor obsession with the New York Times’s Thomas Friedman, who consistently writes of his confessed envy for China’s authoritarian regime. But I am trying to wean myself off Friedman-bashing lest he get a restraining order.
So consider instead Diane Francis, a ballyhooed Canadian pundit. In a recent Financial Post column, Francis wrote that the “‘inconvenient truth’ overhanging the U.N.’s Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world.” She insists that “the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate” is to implement a “planetary law, such as China’s one-child policy.”
Population control has always been at the heart of the progressive project, so it’s no surprise that it’s in fashion once again.
But Francis’s proposal is particularly disgusting, not least because Francis has two children. I think the hypocrisy charge is overused in political debate these days, but when you tout a totalitarian police state’s population policy of, among other things, forced abortions, you might try harder to practice what you preach. Think globally, act locally and all that.
But Francis’s argument is also stunningly stupid, as are virtually all of the complaints about capitalism being the root of the problem.
The historical record is clear: Democratic free-market nations are better at protecting their environments than statist regimes for the simple reason that they can afford to. West Germany’s environment was far cleaner than East Germany’s. I’d much sooner drink the tap water in South Korea than North Korea.
Mugabe rails against capitalism as if he has a better idea of how to run things. That’s almost funny given that Mugabe has destroyed what was once a great cause for hope in Africa, in large part by abandoning capitalism and democracy. Zimbabwe now has the highest inflation rate in the world and one of the lowest life expectancies. Let’s hope nobody was taking notes when he was giving out advice.
Moreover, capitalism, and the wealth it creates, is the best means of bending down the population curve. Don’t take my word for it. The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change acknowledges that “affluence is correlated with long life and small families” and that growing prosperity will cause world population to decline even further.
Want to know the best way to heal the planet? Create more rich countries. Want to know the best way to hurt the planet? Throw a wet blanket on economic growth.
By Jonah Goldberg
Friday, December 18, 2009
As the Copenhagen climate summit comes to a close, it seems fair to say that rarely has a gathering of so many doing so little gotten so much attention. But Copenhagen does have its uses. For starters, it reminds us that environmentalism continues to be a cover for uglier agendas.
Bolivian president Evo Morales was interviewed by Al Jazeera television while in Copenhagen. “The principal obstacle to combating climate change is capitalism,” he explained. “Until we put an end to capitalism, it will continue to be a big obstacle for life and humanity.”
Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe proclaimed in a speech: “When these capitalist gods of carbon burp and belch their dangerous emissions, it’s we, the lesser mortals of the developing sphere, who gasp and sink and eventually die.”
Right. That is, unless Mugabe kills them first.
The big name in the anti-capitalism club was, of course, Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan national-socialist strongman. In a typical stem-winder, he belched: “Capitalism is a destructive model that is eradicating life, that threatens to put a definitive end to the human species.”
I don’t know how to say “chutzpah” in Spanish, but you’ve got to hand it to the leader of the world’s No. 5 supplier of oil for bemoaning the system that keeps his regime afloat by buying his product.
Now, I know that nice, moderate progressive types are rolling their eyes at my cynical effort to associate their noble activism with support for socialism and thugs. Fair enough. Let us concede that many, perhaps even most, proponents of draconian restrictions on carbon emissions have no sympathy for socialist dictators and do not want to chuck capitalism in the dustbin of history. But surely it should trouble these responsible greens that they’re in bed with a Star Wars cantina of villains and monsters.
Also, if environmentalists want to avoid the “watermelon” charge (“green on the outside, red on the inside”), maybe the delegates and activists in the audience shouldn’t have given Chávez such a loud and boisterous round of applause? Perhaps the folks who gave him a standing ovation didn’t help either?
The simple truth is that hostility to freedom (i.e., economic liberty and political democracy) and fondness for non-democratic statism suffuses much of the environmental movement. I will confess to having a minor obsession with the New York Times’s Thomas Friedman, who consistently writes of his confessed envy for China’s authoritarian regime. But I am trying to wean myself off Friedman-bashing lest he get a restraining order.
So consider instead Diane Francis, a ballyhooed Canadian pundit. In a recent Financial Post column, Francis wrote that the “‘inconvenient truth’ overhanging the U.N.’s Copenhagen conference is not that the climate is warming or cooling, but that humans are overpopulating the world.” She insists that “the only way to reverse the disastrous global birthrate” is to implement a “planetary law, such as China’s one-child policy.”
Population control has always been at the heart of the progressive project, so it’s no surprise that it’s in fashion once again.
But Francis’s proposal is particularly disgusting, not least because Francis has two children. I think the hypocrisy charge is overused in political debate these days, but when you tout a totalitarian police state’s population policy of, among other things, forced abortions, you might try harder to practice what you preach. Think globally, act locally and all that.
But Francis’s argument is also stunningly stupid, as are virtually all of the complaints about capitalism being the root of the problem.
The historical record is clear: Democratic free-market nations are better at protecting their environments than statist regimes for the simple reason that they can afford to. West Germany’s environment was far cleaner than East Germany’s. I’d much sooner drink the tap water in South Korea than North Korea.
Mugabe rails against capitalism as if he has a better idea of how to run things. That’s almost funny given that Mugabe has destroyed what was once a great cause for hope in Africa, in large part by abandoning capitalism and democracy. Zimbabwe now has the highest inflation rate in the world and one of the lowest life expectancies. Let’s hope nobody was taking notes when he was giving out advice.
Moreover, capitalism, and the wealth it creates, is the best means of bending down the population curve. Don’t take my word for it. The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change acknowledges that “affluence is correlated with long life and small families” and that growing prosperity will cause world population to decline even further.
Want to know the best way to heal the planet? Create more rich countries. Want to know the best way to hurt the planet? Throw a wet blanket on economic growth.
Climate Hypocrites
Island nations underwater, and offsetting princes.
By Mark Steyn
Saturday, December 19, 2009
The best summation of the U.N. climate circus in Denmark comes from Andrew Bolt of Australia’s Herald Sun: “Nothing is real in Copenhagen — not the temperature record, not the predictions, not the agenda, not the ‘solution.’”
Just so. Reuters, for example, carried a moving account of the speech by Ian Fry, lead negotiator for Tuvalu, the beleaguered Pacific island nation soon to be underwater because of a planet-devastating combination of your SUV and unsustainable bovine flatulence from Vermont farms. “The fate of my country rests in your hands,” Fry told the meeting. “I make this as a strong and impassioned plea. . . . I woke this morning and I was crying and that was not easy for a grown man to admit,” he continued, “his voice choking with emotion,” in the Reuters reporter’s words. Who could fail to be moved?
My country, ’tis of thee
Sweet land near rising sea
Of thee I choke!
Alas, nowhere in this emotionally harrowing dispatch was there room to mention that Ian Fry’s country is not Tuvalu but Australia, where he lives relatively safe from rising sea levels, given that he’s a hundred miles inland. A career doom-monger, he’s resided in Queanbeyan, New South Wales, for over a decade while working his way, in the revealing phrase of his neighbor Michelle Ormay, to being “very high up in climate change.” As to whether the emotion-choked lachrymose pleader has ever lived in “his” endangered country of Tuvalu, his wife told Samantha Maiden of The Australian that she would “rather not comment.” Like his fellow Copenhagen delegate Brad Pitt, Ian Fry is an actor: He’s not a Tuvaluan, but he plays one on the world stage.
Whether he’s an Aussie or a Tuvaluan, Fry’s future king is Welsh, since under the British Commonwealth’s environmentally responsible king-share program, the Prince of Wales is simultaneously heir to the thrones of Britain, Australian, Tuvalu, and a bunch of other countries. His Royal Highness was also in Copenhagen last week, telling delegates that there were now only seven years left to save the planet. Prince Charles is so famously concerned about the environment that he’s known as the Green Prince. Just for the record, his annual carbon footprint is 2,601 tons. The carbon footprint of an average Briton (i.e., all those wasteful, consumerist, environmentally unsustainable deadbeats) is 11 tons. To get him to Copenhagen to deliver his speech, His Highness was flown in by one of the Royal Air Force’s fleet of VIP jets from the Royal Squadron. Total carbon emissions: 6.4 tons. In other words, the Green Prince used up seven months’ of an average Brit’s annual carbon footprint on one short flight to give one mediocre speech of alarmist boilerplate.
But relax, it’s all cool, because he offsets! According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the prince will be investing in exciting new green initiatives. “Investing” as in “using his own money,” you mean? Not exactly. Apparently, it will be taxpayers’ money. So he’ll “offset” the cost of using up seven months of an average peasant’s carbon footprint on one flight by taking the peasant’s money and tossing it down some sinkhole. No wonder he feels so virtuous. Oh, don’t worry, though. He does have to pay a personal penalty for the sin of flying by private jet: 70 pounds. Which is the cost of about six new trees, or rather less than the bill for parking at Heathrow would have been.
So just to recap: The Prince of Wales, a man who has never drawn his own curtains, ramps up a carbon footprint of 2,601 tons while telling us that Western capitalist excess is destroying the planet. Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the railroad engineer who heads the International Panel on Climate Change and has demanded that “hefty aviation taxes should be introduced to deter people from flying,” flew 443,226 miles on “IPCC business” in the year and a half before the Copenhagen summit. And Al Gore is a carbon billionaire: He makes more money buying offsets from himself than his dad did from investing in Occidental Petroleum.
All of the above are, as that ersatz Tuvaluan delegate’s neighbor would say, “very high up in climate change.” But what about all the non-high-ups? Not just the low-level toadies like Associated Press “science” reporter Seth Borenstein, who dutifully pooh-poohed the idea that the leaked Climategate e-mails were of any significance and, for his pains, was rewarded by having to stand in line with thousands of other no-name warm-mongers for seven hours in the freezing streets of Copenhagen. All because the IPCC accredited 45,000 delegates to a space that accommodates 15,000 — but don’t worry, when it comes to recalibrating the planet’s climate, I’m sure they’ll run the numbers more carefully.
But forget Borenstein and other hangers-on. Even making allowances for the stupidity of youthful idealism, the protesters in the streets of Copenhagen seem especially obtuse. Far from sticking it to the Man, they’re cheerleading for the biggest Man of all: They’re supporting a new globalized feudalism in which Prince Charles, Prince Al, Prince Rajendra, and others “very high up in climate change” jet around the world at public expense telling the rest of us we need to stay put. A British parliamentarian recently proposed that everyone be issued with an annual “carbon allowance” that would be drawn down every time he booked a flight, or filled up his car, or bought a washer and dryer instead of beating his laundry on the rocks down by the river with the village women every week. You think the Prince of Wales or any other member of the new global elite will be subject to that “allowance”?
If you’re young and you fall for this, you’re a sap. Indeed, you’re oozing so much sap the settled scientists should be measuring your tree rings. Remember that story a couple of weeks ago about how Danish prostitutes were offering free sex to Copenhagen delegates for the duration of the conference? I initially assumed it was just an amusing marketing cash-in by savvy Nordic strumpets. But no, the local “sex workers’ union” Sexarbejdernes Interesseorganisation was responding to the municipal government’s campaign to discourage attendees from partaking of prostitutes. The City of Copenhagen distributed cards to every hotel room showing a lady of the evening at a seedy street corner over the slogan “BE SUSTAINABLE: Don’t Buy Sex.”
“Be sustainable”? Prostitution happens to be legal in Copenhagen, and the “sex workers” were understandably peeved at being lumped into the same category of planet-wreckers as Big Oil, car manufacturers, travel agents, and other notorious pariahs. So Big Sex decided they weren’t going to take it lying down. Yet, in an odd way, that municipal postcard gets to the heart of what’s going on: Government can — and will — use a “sustainable” environment as a pretext for anything that tickles its fancy. All ambitious projects — Communism, the new Caliphate — have global ambitions, but, when the globe itself is the cover for those ambitions, freeborn citizens should beware. Nico Little, a Canadian lefty at the Rabble website, distilled the logic into a single headline:
“Hookers Are Killing Polar Bears And Now You Can’t Water Your Lawn.”
Write that down. And next time the Prince of Wales, Al Gore, Dr. Pachauri, or the delegation from Tuvalu give an “impassioned” speech, keep it handy as a useful précis.
By Mark Steyn
Saturday, December 19, 2009
The best summation of the U.N. climate circus in Denmark comes from Andrew Bolt of Australia’s Herald Sun: “Nothing is real in Copenhagen — not the temperature record, not the predictions, not the agenda, not the ‘solution.’”
Just so. Reuters, for example, carried a moving account of the speech by Ian Fry, lead negotiator for Tuvalu, the beleaguered Pacific island nation soon to be underwater because of a planet-devastating combination of your SUV and unsustainable bovine flatulence from Vermont farms. “The fate of my country rests in your hands,” Fry told the meeting. “I make this as a strong and impassioned plea. . . . I woke this morning and I was crying and that was not easy for a grown man to admit,” he continued, “his voice choking with emotion,” in the Reuters reporter’s words. Who could fail to be moved?
My country, ’tis of thee
Sweet land near rising sea
Of thee I choke!
Alas, nowhere in this emotionally harrowing dispatch was there room to mention that Ian Fry’s country is not Tuvalu but Australia, where he lives relatively safe from rising sea levels, given that he’s a hundred miles inland. A career doom-monger, he’s resided in Queanbeyan, New South Wales, for over a decade while working his way, in the revealing phrase of his neighbor Michelle Ormay, to being “very high up in climate change.” As to whether the emotion-choked lachrymose pleader has ever lived in “his” endangered country of Tuvalu, his wife told Samantha Maiden of The Australian that she would “rather not comment.” Like his fellow Copenhagen delegate Brad Pitt, Ian Fry is an actor: He’s not a Tuvaluan, but he plays one on the world stage.
Whether he’s an Aussie or a Tuvaluan, Fry’s future king is Welsh, since under the British Commonwealth’s environmentally responsible king-share program, the Prince of Wales is simultaneously heir to the thrones of Britain, Australian, Tuvalu, and a bunch of other countries. His Royal Highness was also in Copenhagen last week, telling delegates that there were now only seven years left to save the planet. Prince Charles is so famously concerned about the environment that he’s known as the Green Prince. Just for the record, his annual carbon footprint is 2,601 tons. The carbon footprint of an average Briton (i.e., all those wasteful, consumerist, environmentally unsustainable deadbeats) is 11 tons. To get him to Copenhagen to deliver his speech, His Highness was flown in by one of the Royal Air Force’s fleet of VIP jets from the Royal Squadron. Total carbon emissions: 6.4 tons. In other words, the Green Prince used up seven months’ of an average Brit’s annual carbon footprint on one short flight to give one mediocre speech of alarmist boilerplate.
But relax, it’s all cool, because he offsets! According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the prince will be investing in exciting new green initiatives. “Investing” as in “using his own money,” you mean? Not exactly. Apparently, it will be taxpayers’ money. So he’ll “offset” the cost of using up seven months of an average peasant’s carbon footprint on one flight by taking the peasant’s money and tossing it down some sinkhole. No wonder he feels so virtuous. Oh, don’t worry, though. He does have to pay a personal penalty for the sin of flying by private jet: 70 pounds. Which is the cost of about six new trees, or rather less than the bill for parking at Heathrow would have been.
So just to recap: The Prince of Wales, a man who has never drawn his own curtains, ramps up a carbon footprint of 2,601 tons while telling us that Western capitalist excess is destroying the planet. Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the railroad engineer who heads the International Panel on Climate Change and has demanded that “hefty aviation taxes should be introduced to deter people from flying,” flew 443,226 miles on “IPCC business” in the year and a half before the Copenhagen summit. And Al Gore is a carbon billionaire: He makes more money buying offsets from himself than his dad did from investing in Occidental Petroleum.
All of the above are, as that ersatz Tuvaluan delegate’s neighbor would say, “very high up in climate change.” But what about all the non-high-ups? Not just the low-level toadies like Associated Press “science” reporter Seth Borenstein, who dutifully pooh-poohed the idea that the leaked Climategate e-mails were of any significance and, for his pains, was rewarded by having to stand in line with thousands of other no-name warm-mongers for seven hours in the freezing streets of Copenhagen. All because the IPCC accredited 45,000 delegates to a space that accommodates 15,000 — but don’t worry, when it comes to recalibrating the planet’s climate, I’m sure they’ll run the numbers more carefully.
But forget Borenstein and other hangers-on. Even making allowances for the stupidity of youthful idealism, the protesters in the streets of Copenhagen seem especially obtuse. Far from sticking it to the Man, they’re cheerleading for the biggest Man of all: They’re supporting a new globalized feudalism in which Prince Charles, Prince Al, Prince Rajendra, and others “very high up in climate change” jet around the world at public expense telling the rest of us we need to stay put. A British parliamentarian recently proposed that everyone be issued with an annual “carbon allowance” that would be drawn down every time he booked a flight, or filled up his car, or bought a washer and dryer instead of beating his laundry on the rocks down by the river with the village women every week. You think the Prince of Wales or any other member of the new global elite will be subject to that “allowance”?
If you’re young and you fall for this, you’re a sap. Indeed, you’re oozing so much sap the settled scientists should be measuring your tree rings. Remember that story a couple of weeks ago about how Danish prostitutes were offering free sex to Copenhagen delegates for the duration of the conference? I initially assumed it was just an amusing marketing cash-in by savvy Nordic strumpets. But no, the local “sex workers’ union” Sexarbejdernes Interesseorganisation was responding to the municipal government’s campaign to discourage attendees from partaking of prostitutes. The City of Copenhagen distributed cards to every hotel room showing a lady of the evening at a seedy street corner over the slogan “BE SUSTAINABLE: Don’t Buy Sex.”
“Be sustainable”? Prostitution happens to be legal in Copenhagen, and the “sex workers” were understandably peeved at being lumped into the same category of planet-wreckers as Big Oil, car manufacturers, travel agents, and other notorious pariahs. So Big Sex decided they weren’t going to take it lying down. Yet, in an odd way, that municipal postcard gets to the heart of what’s going on: Government can — and will — use a “sustainable” environment as a pretext for anything that tickles its fancy. All ambitious projects — Communism, the new Caliphate — have global ambitions, but, when the globe itself is the cover for those ambitions, freeborn citizens should beware. Nico Little, a Canadian lefty at the Rabble website, distilled the logic into a single headline:
“Hookers Are Killing Polar Bears And Now You Can’t Water Your Lawn.”
Write that down. And next time the Prince of Wales, Al Gore, Dr. Pachauri, or the delegation from Tuvalu give an “impassioned” speech, keep it handy as a useful précis.
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