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(03/04/09 12:00pm)
About three years ago, my campaign was underway for executive president of the Student Government Association at the College. About two years ago, I was looking forward to graduating as a "private citizen." I had lost the election and finished my senior year with a slim public profile. During that year, I wrote two opinion pieces on the global warming debate when the movement was at its peak.
The arrival of Ann Coulter, one of the right's most talented and controversial writers, has taken me back like the smell of freshcut grass on Quimby's Prairie. Then as now, the discussion cannot be about the substance of the debate. The discussion is forced into ancillary topics that preclude debate.
I am not going to act embarrassed about some of Coulter's more controversial statements. I am tired of offering the obligatory disclaimer about her method of delivery. I was in the room when she implied that John Edwards was gay. I immediately comprehended the deeper cultural point she was making about an actor who went to a rehabilitation facility for using a negative word about homosexuals.
Rather than focus on her point, we focused on her crude way of delivering it and her use of a slur against gays in a public setting. The embarrassing part was the uneasy applause afterwards. Either you want to applaud her point about political correctness, or you will refuse to applaud someone who uses a politically incorrect word.
The same thing applies with her books, which tend to be bestsellers. In "Godless," she said liberals have their own religion which explicitly rejects the living God, sanctifies the state as the source of rights and provider of sustenance, teaches the creation myth known as evolutionary biology and invokes articles of faith and calls them science.
During the course of her polemic, she criticized some widows of Sept. 11 for their political activism in the wake of the tragedy. No one seemed concerned that she had made a cogent argument about the religious nature of secular liberalism. Liberals were wholly unconcerned with being accused of pagan scientism. No, instead, the focus was entirely on this one issue of the Sept. 11 widows.
In response to Coulter coming to the College, the panoply of left wingers rolled out the old chestnuts of hate speech, fascism and Nazi similarities. One of the chief complaints against her is that she has made offensive statements toward variously defined subgroups. I am sure she appreciated them underscoring her point by making these groups victims of her alleged hate speech. Whereas Nazis and the Klan say that Aryans or whites are superior to other races, Coulter has suggested that young fundamentalist male adherents to Islam are more likely to commit acts of terrorism. The response of liberals is to pull out the offended victim card and lump her contention in with actual racism.
Now, I am not exactly sure what hate speech means or why it would not be protected by the First Amendment. The ideology of the left has led to hundreds of millions of deaths, and yet we still allow that death-speech to be taught as credible theories in our classrooms. But how intellectually dishonest does one have to be in order to conflate outright racism with a controversial view expressed in an inflammatory manner?
My guess is the question is explored and in large part answered in the book "Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America" by bestselling author Ann Coulter.
(04/18/07 12:00pm)
Nigel Calder sums up the global warming issue quite well: "When politicians and journalists declare that the science of global warming is settled, they show a regrettable ignorance about how science works."
Contrary to popular opinion, science cannot disprove the existence of God, empirical observations do not crown a theory correct and there is rarely consensus on any issue. Science is not what newspapers would have us believe.
The current acolytes of the Church of Ecology are not doing science at all. They are creating dogmas and dressing them up as science and it is offensive to our tradition. Aristotle knew better more than two millennia hence.
It should be troubling to our "scientific age" that global warming alarmism is not supported by current observations or reliable projections. The computer models used to suggest a dangerous warming trend are never correct in their predictions. Journals like The Journal of Non-equilibrium Thermodynamics have published studies that argue that the very concept of a "global temperature" is absurd.
I could (and might) write an entire column solely on "An Inconvenient Truth" and its heavy-handed pseudoscience spewed by the Goracle, The Church of Ecology's giver of truth and light.
The recent "Summary for Policymakers" released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) included an affirmation that humans were cooking the planet. So perhaps temperatures are generally going up. They do that periodically; they also go down. We are clearly not in an ice age now, so the planet must have gotten warmer since the last one ended. Is it unthinkable that this trend has not yet reached its zenith?
And what about the data that suggests that carbon levels have little to do with warming? There are theories about solar and other galactic drivers of fluctuation, and the data lines up much better here than in attempts at carbon data correlation.
In any honest branch of science, a failure to make accurate predictions spells bad news for a theory. But New Environmentalism, being a religion and not a science, whisks it under the rug with the rest of the data they don't like.
Snow rests on the cherry blossoms in our nation's capital and I wear a jacket to go to my car 10 feet away from my door. Al Gore's speech about global warming was on the coldest day in New York City. And the congressional hearing on the subject was postponed due to inclement cold weather. Surely God created irony.
Environmentalists might say, "Fine, you don't have to agree with us. But we aren't hurting anyone, so why be so fervent in speaking out against us?" I will tell you why.
In the 1970s, the New York Times informed us that "a major cooling of the climate is widely considered inevitable," while Newsweek informed us that stubborn politicians would be unwilling to take steps necessary to prepare for the impending ice age. It is precisely this sort of attitude that makes the Church dangerous.
Politicians under the sway of New Environmentalism have called for a "New World Order" to fight global warming. Scientists in Canada (and elsewhere, I am sure) have received death threats for being skeptics of human caused warming. They are called "deniers" and likened to individuals who deny the Holocaust. Climatologist Dr. Timothy Ball received a threat: "If you continue to speak out, you won't live to see further global warming."
Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg was brought up on charges of "scientific misconduct" by Denmark's Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation. Lomborg's crime? Writing a book questioning the science behind global warming theories. Lomborg is a Greenpeace anti-war protestor - but, alas, the Church will not even suffer one of its own to dissent.
It is also dangerous to pretend, as some do, that global warming is the greatest threat to the poor. It is not. Drought, famine, AIDS, political corruption, pestilence and dictatorships rank higher on the list than something that may not be happening and the consequences of which are extremely unclear.
We cannot allow The Church of Ecology to hijack the public debate with bad science and alarmism. A cursory understanding of the Kyoto Protocol makes this clear: the treaty was a thinly veiled socialist scheme designed to tax wealthy nations while leaving places like China and India immune to its terms.
We have to be ready to identify and avert underhanded attempts to get socialism in the back door. New Environmentalism is just the latest such tactic.
Information from - The Telegraph (UK), AFP, United Press International, Science Daily, the Patriot Post, frontpagemag.com, NY Times, Reuters, Newsweek
(04/04/07 12:00pm)
In this piece, I will commit a number of heresies. The Inquisitors of the Church of Ecology know where to find me. Let them come: I remain armed with the First Amendment and a proud tradition of liberty.
In order to more effectively commit heresy, I will explicitly enumerate the doctrines of New Environmentalism, which is the religion of the Church of Ecology. Please note - I do not suggest that these are the views of everyone who believes global warming is a concern. They are, however, common among activists, socialist politicians and the news media. I explicitly reject all but the first.
The first is that global warming is occurring. This is the organizing principle of the Church. They do not even bother arguing the point. I know this from experience. You might think you had questioned the existence of Canada.
Innocent skeptics - the sort who are unfamiliar with the debate and so do not know their own heresy - are treated with a sort of patronizing charity. They are gently, but firmly, informed that there is no such possibility and that the Oracle of Science has spoken. The Church is willing to tolerate this class of persons so long as they stay out of policy discussions.
Informed skeptics have a different approach: They maintain that the 0.6 (yes, that's zero point six) degree increase in average temperature over the past century is no cause for assuming it will continue. In fact, we conservative types tend to remember history a little better - and we remember the 1970s global cooling scare.
Seriously, search the archives of The New York Times, Newsweek or the Christian Science Monitor.
Finally, the scientific skeptics are relegated to the extremes and no one may hear their heresies. For example, how many of you know that some scientists actually question the validity of the very concept of a "global temperature"? These are real scientists at major universities (in Europe, no less) and they seriously contend that an average global temperature is like "calculating the average number in the phone book."
The second doctrine is that this warming is unnatural and we are to blame. The Church is forced to participate in this discussion, though it likely seeks to categorize it with the first as an unarguable and foregone assumption. There are a few major problems with this claim.
First, there is no good way to tell if the warming is unnatural, as climate change is a major part of any planetary ecology. In the words of one eminent biogeologist, "The system requires no external driver to fluctuate by a fraction of a degree."
This warming period may be natural. It may also be temporary. In the next decade, we may see global cooling. Or perhaps temperatures will remain relatively stable. This isn't just Hume's problem of induction writ large. The Church's acolytes are making seriously problematic inferential assumptions - which is to say, there is no good reason to believe temperatures will continue to rise.
An Internet news journal reported the following about the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, which has maintained the world's longest continuous worldwide record of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels: In 2002 and 2003 there were "recorded increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide of 2.43 and 2.30 ppm (parts per million) respectively . Did human industrial output somehow increase 55 percent during those two years, and then decline by that amount in 2004? Of course not. For the record, (the scientists) concluded that the fluctuation was caused by the natural processes that contribute and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere."
The third and final doctrine is that this warming will cause catastrophe. Therefore, we are both technologically capable and morally required to act. This is perhaps the most absurd.
First of all, even if you suspend disbelief and accept the other doctrines of the Church, it seems a little silly to respond with more human intervention in the environment - and these are just such the actions proposed. Like in 1975, when "scientists" suggested covering the ice caps with soot to curb their growth.
The claims are designed to elicit compassion. For example, the claim that the world's poor will suffer the worst. Millions of impoverished Africans will be plunged into the depths of famine. Barely self-sustaining regions of the world will see their stability totter with the rapid decrease in crop viability and fresh water supplies. Disease, they tell us, will overtake poor areas of the world, and currently "sanitized" regions will see the re-introduction of old diseases.
These claims are nothing more than rampant speculation. What about the regions of the world currently in drought or famine? Why don't we suppose that these regions will benefit? What about very cold regions of the world, where agriculture is currently impossible? Will these regions become fertile?
Even if warming is happening, even if it is the fault of humans, it is dangerously unclear what the effects of this warming will be.
The actions that environmentalists want us to take are draconian, to say the least. Implementing these policies is particularly bad for the poor and amounts to the same sort of backwards socialist class warfare as Marxism-Leninism, Maoism or, for that matter, European Socialism.
The Church of Ecology has planted its flag in science. This so-called science is really a dogmatic political stance that is probably wrong and extremely dangerous in its implications.
The "political necessity" of dealing with impending doom means that objectors to this must be controlled or silenced, their views marginalized. Anti-action politicians must be thrown out of office and dissident scientists must be discredited or disenfranchised - or worse, jailed. Sane people may not disagree.
The Church's inquisitions have already begun.
Information from - The Patriot Post, Science Daily, United Press International
(09/28/05 12:00pm)
There is an education crisis in this nation.
I am not being dramatic or exaggerating. Sure, for people like me, and most students at the College, high school was a fine tool, a step on the way to higher education. We are the privileged.
In 1983, a Reagan presidential commission released "A Nation at Risk," which found that America had all but lost the educational edge it had gained during the 20th century by allowing its public school systems to be diluted by mediocrity.
More relevantly, the 1998 report by former Secretary of Education, Bill Bennett, cleverly entitled "A Nation Still at Risk," found that in the 15 years since the initial report, things had not improved. America has fallen behind the other industrialized nations of the world, ranking 19th in mathematics and 16th in science out of 21 competitors in the Third International Math and Science Study.
During those 15 years, 10 million Americans reached 12th grade without being able to read, and 20 million without being able to do basic math.
Minorities seem to suffer the most from the failing public school system. The report found that 13 percent of blacks ages 16-24 were not in high school and had not graduated. The most alarming statistic is that 44 percent of Hispanic immigrants left high school before completion. While this is clearly not conspiratorial racism, as my counterparts on the left are wont to immediately charge, it is certainly a discrepancy in our society that compels us to fix a very clearly broken system.
Further, schools are increasingly at the mercy of politicians and large labor unions more interested in lobbying than in education.
The National Education Association campaigns for reparations to blacks, subsidizing federal elections with tax dollars and representation in Congress for the District of Colombia.
Considering that the College's roots are firmly planted in training educators, there is something conspicuously missing from our social and political discourse: the issue of school choice. If anyone should be talking about this issue, it is the future teacher-leaders of this nation, which the College masterfully produces perennially.
"School choice" refers to the idea of allowing parents more choice in where their children attend school. This has been most controversial in the form of the voucher program, which would allow parents to "cash" education vouchers at the school of their choosing. Average per-student spending at public schools is around $6,500, and the tuition at 88 surveyed private schools is less than $4,000, and at 60 of those it is under $3,200.
Opponents to the voucher program claim that it is a violation of moral or legal ethics to spend taxpayer money in a manner of which they do not approve. While this may be true on some abstract moral level, it is patently absurd in this context. Admittedly, I don't yet own property and the majority of my income comes from the federal government, but I do not support my tax dollars going to ineffective schools that excuse mediocrity. It is just as unfair to ask anti-school choice people to pay for voucher scholarship taxes as it is to ask school choice proponents to pay school taxes.
This, of course, raises another issue. The American Civil Liberties Union, the National Education Association, the Anti-Defamation League and other opponents of school choice claim that it violates the separation of church and state.
This simply demonstrates the fact that liberals do not understand the concept of separation of church and state. The Constitution says, "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion." It does not say, "Nothing to do with government shall have anything to do with religion in any way, shape or form, and in fact all legislation, litigation and administration of the United States shall completely disavow God."
It would indeed be a violation of church-state principles if the choice vouchers were expressly intended only for Catholic prep schools, Jewish boarding schools or private Muslim education. However, critics by design seem to ignore the word "choice." This allows parents to continue to raise their children in the manner they see fit, in accordance with their freedoms. Of course there will continue to be non-religious schools. Clearly, there is a market for quality secular education.
And with that, we come to the real case for school choice: the free market. Everything in the United States has flourished under the free market system, and it is symbiotic with liberalism's cherished notions of Darwinism. If schools were forced to compete for students - and their tuition - they would independently develop pedagogy and techniques that led to success.
Much in the same way socialism failed to lead to superior technology, or superior economies, or superior culture, so too will it fail to lead to superior education.
The most inane part of the whole scenario is the liberal insistence that it won't work. They ignore Florida, Cleveland and Milwaukee, where vouchers have been implemented successfully. They ignore the fact that an increasing plurality of parents, including 68 percent of all blacks according to a 1999 survey, support the program, understanding that it gives them the chance to give their children a better tomorrow.
A study conducted by Harvard and University of Wisconsin researchers hammer the point home. The research shows that 85 percent of New York City School Choice Scholarship Foundation students were below-average students, flying in the face of the argument that school choice favors only the wealthy and brilliant.
Independent schools all over the nation are flourishing, far excelling their public counterparts. The Young Women's Leadership School in Harlem graduated 100 percent of its first senior class, with 100 percent of students passing the English Regents, compared with 42 percent statewide.
Reasonable people can disagree on other matters of politics. We all agree that we want what is best for the next generation. Theory suggests school choice will be successful and practice shows that school choice is wildly more successful than the current system. We must allow parents to choose what is best for their children, and education is no exception.
Information from - policyreview.org, adl.org, heritage.org, nea.org, ncpa.org, eagleforum.org, mrcranky.com, Sean Hannity's Let Freedom Ring: "Setting Parents Free"