A Rose by Any Other Name

Most debates on broad topics are unprovable. General assertions provide both sides with enough anecdotal evidence to make a case. That doesn't mean that one position is not correct, only that it can't be proved, and even if it can be, counterarguments can be forceful enough that a listener who does not make a career out of investigating the topic will never know for sure which side is right. Therefore the methods used to sway opinion rely on other techniques such as repetition (get your argument and conclusion presented more often than the oppositions) and demonization (attack your opponents motives).

The lefts attempt to mislead and to stifle debate routinely employ these and more. Today I will deal with one of their favorites, the "Everyone knows" fallacy, or the "Settled science" fallacy. What it attempts to do is convince you that anyone with a brain knows whatever the speaker is advocating is self evident, and anyone doubting it is an idiot. They claim their conclusions are based on incontrovertible facts, every thoughtful person agrees, and only a moron, an ideologue (ideologues are OK with me, but that is for another time), or a liar would claim otherwise. In reality their "facts" range from opinions to fictions, and their "consensus" lives only in their imagination.

Global warming is the best known of these fictions. The claim that the entire scientific community is in complete agreement that climate change is man made is simply a bald faced lie. They have even developed a term for "hard right ideologues" like myself who disagree. We are "deniers," invoking the flavor of a Holocaust denier, few in number, absurd in their assertions, and evil in intent. Of course the fact that vast numbers in the scientific community disagree is something they choose to either ignore, or marginalize by falsely claiming they are few in number and on the fringe.

They also would rather not mention that the same crowd advocating global warming, warned us of imminent disaster from nuclear winter (the earth cooling) just a couple of decades ago. Before that the "population bomb" (overpopulation) was the tragedy du jour, and before that we were going to run out of all commodities and carbon fuels by the year 2000. Between the time of that forecast and the year 2000 proven reserves of commodities went up and prices went down.

"The Great Global Warming Swindle," is a film that examines the history of climate change theory, the theory itself, its record making predictions (the best measure of any theory), and alternative theories. The producers (deniers) offered to show it to the audiences (particularly school children) who were seeing "An Inconvenient Truth." Doing so would let viewers decide which argument was more honest and more scientific. The left knows if they agreed their scam would be exposed. So instead they choose to deny any thoughtful opposition exists, invoking the "Everyone knows" fallacy.

Many people and myself have called Obama a socialist. The left and their front line troops, the media, respond by saying that no one believes he is a socialist, it is divisive, and such talk only comes from right wing ideologues. They are helped when Obama refers to the magic of capitalism or the importance of the free market. This is becoming his trademark. He calls something that is unpopular, like socialism, by a name that is that is well supported, like free markets. This makes it appear he is moderate, sharing support for something his actual proposals indicate he abhors. His tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans would be more accurately described as welfare payments. His stimulus package is really a socialist wish list. His "Employee Free Choice Act" does the opposite of what the name implies. It takes away employee choice.. It should should be called the "Abolition of the Secret Ballot Act."

In reality he simply is a socialist. The evidence is compelling. His personal and professional history are perfectly consistent with this. As President, every proposal he has made has the socialist imprint. He has repeatedly said that the free market system has failed. What should we take away from that? Is the redistribution of wealth via the tax system capitalist or socialist? Is the government taking over the health care system capitalist? Is the proposed cap and trade (aka energy tax) and the consequent government control of the energy sector a free market reform? Is submitting our foreign policy to the will of a corrupt United Nation capitalist? His card check proposal, aka "Employee Free Choice Act," a law that will take away the secret ballot for union voting and allow union goons to intimidate workers into supporting the formation of a union, is socialism in its purest form.

Religion and charities are under attack with the Obama plan. This creates a greater dependence on government- aka- socialism. Charitable deductions are reduced, and education money appropriated in the so called stimulus bill. have disqualifiers that will eliminate faith based organizations from sharing any of it. The only appropriate term for all this is socialism. David Brooks, George Will, David Gergan, David Frum and other RINO's can criticize the language all they want. It is no less true.

Putin is warning the United States against travelling down the road of socialism, and even the European Union, France and Germany in particular, are warning us of the same thing. If they understand what we are doing, why can't the MSM understand? Why be embarrassed to clearly state it? Conservatives must speak out about this. Call him a socialist, and when his supporters scoff say it again.

When Ronald Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as the evil empire, the left was outraged, but they were also forced to defend themselves. The public became better educated to the horrors of socialism/ communism. Every time a liberal snickers at someone calling Obama and his programs socialistic, ask what better term there is to describe it. Ask if these type programs are the things that made America the greatest nation in the history of mankind, or if capitalist principles did. Ask if our spectacular economic well being, the freedoms we enjoy, our unqualified support of human rights, or our unparalleled generosity, ever existed in any nation on earth prior to this great nation.

After writing this, a saw a report in the Patriot Post.

Climate change this week: No debate

Al Gore was scheduled to appear at The Wall Street Journal's ECO:nomics conference in California this week along with Czech President Vaclav Klaus, a global warming skeptic. But Gore chickened out, changing his scheduled appearance to the previous day so as to avoid debate. Apparently, Gore knows when he's outmatched. During a question and answer session, Gore also evaded debate on the subject, telling Danish eco-critic Bjorn Lomborg, who asked for a debate, "The scientific community has gone through this chapter and verse," he lectured. "We have long since passed the time when we should pretend this is a 'on the one hand, on the other hand' issue. It's not a matter of theory or conjecture, for goodness sake." Indeed, it's a matter of Gore making a whole lot of money roaming the globe and stoking fear about climate change. He wouldn't want a debate to interrupt the cash flow. Or perhaps he knows he would blow off more than his allotment of hot air in a cap-and-trade steam.