Individual Liberty — Individual Responsibility 

The obvious solution

My dad is a wonderful man. He seems to know me pretty well too. Once again, he sent me some pearls of wisdom in email, forwarding on a message that he found humorous and particularly enjoyable. Once again, I share it here.

Barack Hussein Obama, the lead Presidential Democratic Party candidate, is for banning all guns in America.  He is considered by those who have dealt with him, as a little more than self-righteous.

At a recent rural elementary school meeting in  Texas, he asked the audience for total quiet.  Then in the silence, he started to slowly clap his hands once every few seconds, holding the audience in total silence.  Then he said into the microphone, 'Every time I clap my hands a child in America dies from gun violence.'

Little Johnny with a proud Texas drawl, pierced the quiet.  'Well, stupid, stop clapping!'

It seems to me that Little Johnny has found the obvious solution.

Of course the problem of gun violence in America is a real one. But stating it that way masks the true nature of the problem. The real problem isn't "gun violence", it's just plain "violence". A gun is merely an effective tool for dealing death. There are other effective tools for the same purpose. Removing access to one of those tools won't prevent the others from being used, and it won't reduce violence in the end either.

I refuse to be taken in by the left's straw man. The second amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America says in part "… the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." I'm tired of the left trying to infringe upon my Constitutionally protected rights.

There's a plain and simple fact that advocates of the infringement of the right of the people to keep and bear arms simply refuse to recognize. A person who is intent upon committing a criminal act will do so in spite of the fact that there exist laws prohibiting the act. Laws exist prohibiting murder, and yet, every day, people commit murder. Laws exist prohibiting a man from striking another man with his fists, and yet, every day, people strike each other with their fists to settle arguments. The mere establishment of laws prohibiting people to use guns to commit violent crimes does nothing to actually prevent people from using guns to commit violent crimes. On the other hand, decent law abiding citizens who are prohibited from owning a gun will not own a gun, while those with criminal intent will still be able to obtain guns and will continue to use them in support of their criminal activities.

This of course assumes that the constitutional prohibition on the infringement of the right to keep and bear arms doesn't get in the way of enacting a law prohibiting people from owning (read keeping) a gun. And of course, our Congress, which has seen fit for decade after decade after decade to ignore the Constitution, isn't going to be stopped by the second amendment anyway.

After all, they freely ignore the ninth (you know the one — I'm paraphrasing now, but it says that just because a particular right isn't mentioned in the constitution doesn't mean it doesn't exist) and tenth (you know the one — it says that if a power isn't EXPLICITELY granted to the federal government by the Constitution, and isn't EXPLICITELY denied to the states by the Constitution then that power is reserved for the states or the people) amendments with impunity, and Senator McCain, the Republican nominee for President, didn't see much of anything wrong with ignoring and in fact deliberately flouting the first amendment (you know the bit that says "Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech") with McCain-Feingold (you know — that little piece of congressional legislation that essentially outlaws express advocacy ads in the 60 calendar days before an election when the ad is produced by and paid for by certain organizations — in other words, the law envisioned by John McCain and Russell Feingold, passed by Congress, signed by George W. Bush and happily accepted by our Supreme Court in spite of the fact that it restricts the freedom of speech of those organizations).

No. I'm certain that a little thing like the Constitution will prove to be no impediment at all to the ambitions of a man like Barrack Hussein Obama, a woman like Hillary Rodham Clinton, or a man like John Sidney McCain III.

Little Johnny's right. STOP CLAPPING STUPID! And stay the Hell away from my guns!

Chicken or egg?

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? I suppose if you're a Darwinist, the answer is obviously the egg. After all, egg laying animals have been around for a lot longer than chickens have. On the other hand, we all know that that's not what's meant by the question don't we? So, which is better, to put your money where your mouth is or to put your mouth where your money is?

We're often told to follow the money trail when we are looking for motives. When opposition is raised to the notion of human induced climate change, or to the radical proposals to "fix the problem", the "problem fixers" love to try to find a monetary reason for the objection. If you happen to have even tenuous ties to say, the oil industry or the coal industry well then it's obvious what your motive is to deny the reality of human induced climate change isn't it? Or is it?

There's quite a lot of scientific dissent regarding this particular issue. The real debate isn't about science though, it's about economics and sustainability. It's about liberty and control. On the right hand, it's often about the hidden motives of the "scaremongers". On the left hand, it's about denial and the greed of the deniers.

Here are a few facts.

1. The global climate is changing. This is not a new phenomenon in human history either. The global climate has changed at least once during the Darwinist's estimated lifespan for the human species.
2. The global climate has undergone periods when it has been much hotter than it is now.
3. The global climate has undergone periods when it has been much cooler than it is now.
4. Carbon dioxide is good at absorbing certain wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, commonly known as infrared radiation. It is also good at allowing certain other wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation to pass through with little or no absorption. The wavelengths transmitted are typically associated with incoming solar radiation, the wavelengths absorbed are typically associated with the radiative energy of heat emitted by the Earth's soil after the incoming solar radiation has been absorbed by the Earth. This is known as the greenhouse effect.
5. A much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide is water vapor, which is in considerably more abundant supply in our atmosphere than carbon dioxide. There is some debate as to whether the effects of water vapor in the atmosphere overwhelm the effects of carbon dioxide or not, or whether they are additive.
6. Human activity produces carbon dioxide. Every time you exhale, some of the carbon in your body, and some of the oxygen that you inhaled on previous breaths has been converted to carbon dioxide through your body's energy transformation processes into carbon dioxide, and that carbon dioxide is emitted into the air. Nearly all of the energy we use in our daily activities, whether we siphon electricity off of the power grid, heat our homes, drive cars or use materials that have been manufactured using energy comes from the combustion of carbon based fuels with oxygen from the air, producing carbon dioxide.
7. The fact that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and that human activity produces carbon dioxide means that, yes — whether you are a conservative, a liberal, an environmentalist, or a profligate wastrel — human activity contributes to some degree or another to the overall greenhouse effect of our atmosphere.
8. There have been times in the past when the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was much lower than it is today.
9. There have been times in the past when the percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was much higher than it is today.
10. We do not really know whether the contribution of human economic activity to the overall greenhouse gas effect in the atmosphere is producing global warming or not. It seems natural to assume that it does, but there is evidence both ways. The percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been said by some researchers to lag behind global temperatures. Other scientists use "models" to make predictions of what temperature will do based upon greenhouse gas concentrations. The models disagree with one another, and can produce different output depending upon the assumptions made, the parameters used, and the value of various constants that are assumed.
11. Currently we are seeing what appears to be a cooling trend. Some of the climate change alarmists tell us that this is simply masking a bigger problem. They may or may not be right, but that doesn't change the fact that there hasn't been any significant warming for the last decade, although there have been isolated high temperature records and isolated low temperature records.
12. Part of the rational behind the "urgent" need to fix the problem is that while we may not know how bad things are, if they're bad at all we need to act now to prevent the damage that we don't know will occur.
13. Conservatives typically don't view climate change as a serious problem. People (Darwinists should agree to this notion) adapt well to changes in their environment. They do this through the use of technology, surviving in places where no complex life could otherwise survive. What animal, other than man has, for example been to the moon? We have found that the use of technology can make our lives more comfortable, even when it's insufferably hot or cold, if we expend a bit of energy to make the local environment more tenable. Even if the climate changes for a significantly hotter one (and remember, the world has seen times of much hotter climate before, see item 2 above), people will adapt. Adaptation to what is is a splendid strategy for survival.
14. Liberals typically view climate change as a serious problem that may potentially result in the extinction of humanity, or as it is so oftentimes described "the destruction of the Earth". They view profligate energy consumption as a waste (they're right about that), and our use of fossil fuels as destructive. They want us to change our ways now, regardless of the economic cost, for a benefit that is uncertain in the future. We MUST take action to prevent catastrophe.
15. The methods proposed for solving the "global warming" "crisis" are extremely expensive in economic terms. They would require a growing population to make do with less than a smaller population enjoyed eighteen years ago. They would exempt nations that are transitioning from a so-called "third world" economy to a modern energy and technology based economy, even though by so doing the net change in carbon dioxide production is likely to be an increase and not a decrease. Of course, by restricting the energy consumption of the worlds current energy and technology based economies the rate of increase will be reduced — even though the fact of increase will not be changed.
16. Al Gore is a liar. His Oscar winning "documentary" made several claims based upon worse than the worst case scenarios that simply aren't tenable. His claims of projected sea level rise due to global warming are just one of many. He deliberately distorted the facts of the case to make his points. This is seen by some as justified because of the importance of the cause, but it's also a bit ironic when you consider that the title of the documentary included the word "truth". Inconvenient that hmm?
17. Al Gore has been touting environmental causes for decades. Assuming an honest and sincere motivation behind his environmentalism this is to his credit.
18. Al Gore has been investing in "green" businesses for quite some time. Perhaps that should call into question the motivations behind his environmentalism — or maybe his environmentalism is the motive behind his investments. Which came first the chicken or the egg?

A very significant portion of the electrical power consumed in the United States is generated thanks to the combustion of coal. Burning coal produces carbon dioxide in direct proportion to the amount of coal burned. Putting a cap on the amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted by a power plant puts a cap on the amount of energy that that power plant can produce. The only solutions are to move to a non-carbon based fuel (nuclear power anyone, if Jane Fonda will permit it?) or to allow the power plant to purchase offsets from some other business that doesn't produce the carbon dioxide emissions.

That sounds workable doesn't it? Al Gore thinks so. He's invested heavily into companies that would support that sort of scheme, and so he'd profit from the sale of the offsets. Our Senate appears to think so, at least Mr. Lieberman and Mr. Warner do. They plan to auction off the carbon offsets raising trillions of dollars of revenue for the federal government that way. So where does the power company get the cash to pay for the offsets, whether they pay Mr. Gore or the new federal bureaucracy that the Senate wants to create?

Doesn't that money have to come from the money that's left over after the power company subtracts the cost of power production (fuel, etc) from the revenue generated by selling the power? So, if the power company today produces (these numbers are totally arbitrary, and just for illustration) 100 watts of power and sells it at a dollar a watt (I told you the numbers were arbitrary), and if the cost of production is 80 cents a watt, then the power company would make a gross profit of 20 cents a watt. That's what's left to pay salaries, investors, and taxes. If the carbon offsets to produce that 100 watts cost 15 cents a watt, do you honestly think that the power company is going to settle for a gross profit of 5 cents a watt? I don't. I think they're going to start charging consumers a dollar twenty a watt. Maybe — just maybe that increase in cost will drive demand down — until you consider the growing population and their desire for ever more energy. Either consumption goes down (the ideal thing according to some environmentalists) or costs go up and up while consumption remains the same — which means that carbon emissions remain the same or go up too.

So, has Mr. Gore recognized that there's a lot of money to be found in touting a crisis and exploiting the proposed solutions to that crisis — whether the crisis is real or not? Or, has Mr. Gore been making those investments because he's putting his money where his mouth is?

Is Mr. Gore going to profit by hyping a problem that isn't real, and that can't be proven to be real in his lifetime (effects of our actions won't be seen for decades at best), or is he making shrewd investments in support of causes he believes in? If you can cash in on paranoia and fear by fomenting it and proposing solutions that happen to benefit the businesses you invest in or create to provide the solutions is that laudable? Especially if you're fomenting paranoia and fear based on something that isn't real? How convenient is it that nobody who's really concerned about these questions now will be alive by the time results are due?

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Is Al Gore's environmentalism truly based upon a concern for the environment and future generations or the potential for profit and power? Could it be that the fact that he doesn't follow his own suggestions for "the rest of us" might point to the answer?

Follow the money we're told. But, only follow the money if it leads to a motivation that paints the opponents of liberal schemes in a bad light. If it leads you to question the motives of your liberal icons and elitists — well, the mainstream media will just ignore the money trail won't they.

Personally, I believe that the human induced climate change scenario is simply political opportunism built upon weakly defined science and the profit motive. When people are afraid of something that might happen they're a lot easier to control if you claim to have the solution to the nebulous "problem". Isn't that the ultimate goal of socialized big government programs anyway? To control us?

That's what Leiberman-Warner is all about. That's what Al Gore is all about.