Simple, it gives them a chance to be Democrats, i.e., a chance to be part of a herd. Of course, a herd needs a leader and so Democrats must always have one. No one ever made this point more innocently and more accurately than George Clooney when he recently said, "when Obama walks into a room you see a leader". Never mind that Thomas Jefferson and the Republicans instantly transformed all of human history by founding America to be free of leaders. To Democrats, the need to be joyously and caringly led in a spirit of community, by a benevolent leader, feels deeply profound regardless of what its real meaning might be. It moves their very soul in a way that is virtually indisguishable from their confused need to be part of a loving family.
The animalistic Democratic herd instinct played out in history until it was gainsaid, at least temporarily, by Thomas Jefferson. One might have thought the success of America would have put a permanent end to the collectivist mentality that produced Caesars, Czars, and Kings, but instead it just spawned new creative forms of herd gov'ts that purported to be superior to the older failed forms, and superior even to Jeffersonian freedom. Theses included, primarily, Nazis, Communists, Fascists, Socialists, Liberals and American Democrats. But the collectivist herd mentality of the Democrats just never established any intellectual principles, let alone a country, that worked very well no matter what form it took. Freedom was the obvious intellectual victor. In Jeffersonian America , at least, the wisdom of the masses replaced the genocides of the elite, but that did not change millions of years of evolutionary history that left many human beings with the herd genes of their animal ancestors, and a relatively small rational brain with which to discipline those genes for a modern age which features freedom and individual liberty.
So what's a innovative Democrat to do? He must find a new rationale for a powerful central gov't that can bring the herd together once again, and global warming provides the perfect rationale. Yesterday, Sen. Harry Reid alluded to it this way: "renewable forms of energy are all around us just waiting to be utilized". He seemed like an earnest Girl Scout leader describing to all the summer campers the meaningful communitarian fun they were going to have while joined together around the camp fire doing gov't projects to utilize all the wonderful new forms of energy. Could the herd have a higher more inspiring reason to follow along? Harry Reid and the Democrats seem to have topped even Karl Marx, and just when you thought it could never happen again, let alone here.
But, because global warming appears to be just another gimmick around which another herd gov't can develop , it makes no rational sense to thoughtful and freedom loving Jeffersonian Republicans. For example, if scientists agree that the warming from to 1900 to 2000 (when the carbon based industrial revolution reached full steam) was only 1.3 degrees F how could that be significant given that temperature rose more from 1800 to 1900 (before the Industrial Revolution) owning to an end to the universally recognized, Little Ice Age? When George Washington crossed the Delaware it was laden with ice, people were walking from Manhattan to Staten Island, and the Themes River ice was parceled out to the homeless for living space in winter. There is no doubt that temperature rose more during the century immediately prior to the Industrial Revolution than in the century during it. If you then conclude that the 20th Century was too soon to measure cumulative effects of the Industrial Revolution then there is no relevant period from which to cite data about the existence of warming.
If that doesn't discourage true believers, consider then that if mankind raised the temperature only 1.3 degrees in the 100 years from 1900 to 2000, then wouldn't modern technology enable us to lower it , say, 3 degrees in just 3 days now? Actually yes, and we did it on 9/15/2001, when we again allowed jet planes into the air in the aftermath of 9/11, whereupon their exhaust contrails shielded us from the sun and in doing so raised the temperature in the US by 3 degrees. Jet travel is only going to grow and grow so why not merely schedule more flights during the day (when the dreaded sun is out) and/or put some biodegradable particles in the exhaust to shield us as much as we want from sun, and not bother transforming the entire economy behind Harry Reid's totalitarian and bankrupting herd instincts that propose an entirely new economy in which energy will cost enough to dramatically expand the ranks of those Americans living below the poverty line by a significant multiple? And, this is to say nothing of how it would affect poorer people all around the globe. And that is to say nothing about what the optimum temperature of the earth ought to be. After all, the earth was once a frozen glacier all the way to the equator. Today it is at the warmest and most prosperous ever, and the fastest growing cities are the two hottest: LasVegas and Phoenix.
If all that's not discouraging to the Democratic herd then consider how passionately the Democrats want us to unite behind their leadership by driving small cars? Al Gore called our cars the greatest threat to civilization on earth. Gee, but they did switch to small cars in Europe 50 years ago and it led, exactly, no where? But consider also that there are only 110 million cars in the USA. Even if you accomplished the absolutely impossible and took each one of them off the road forever the carbon saved would only amount to 2.5% of the new carbon that China's new coal plants (a new one goes on line each week) will add to the atmosphere over the next 30 years. Their new coal plants will be the equivalent to putting 4 billion new Ford Expeditions on the road in terms of the pollution they produce. And this is to say nothing of other sources of carbon that China, and India, will add to the atmosphere as their economies (with 5 times the US population) fully diversify into the industrial age as our relatively tiny economy did 100 years ago. And that is to say nothing of the simple reality that if oil depletion actually does occurs (as Democrats insist it has been since the first oil shocks back in the last Century) the likelihood is that the world will compensate by burning cheap, higher carbon coal rather than by turning to scarce, expensive renewable fuels like wind and solar.
Complaining to China and India about this gets us nowhere as they are understandably desperate to grind their way out of dire poverty. Expensive windmill power there would simply mean more people would die from poverty. Their other argument is that their per capita pollution will be a tiny percentage of ours for at least the next 75 years so it is us who must reform; not them. But in 75 years, we are assured by the herd, that if we don't all drive hybrids we will all be deep fried by global warming? But hey, why let reason stop us from missing an opportunity to join the Democratic herd to enjoy all the communitarian good feelings that will surely come from playing with all our new freinds at summer camp?
tues537
Ted Baiamonte
comments: bje1000@aol.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment