ext_370466 (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
talkpolitics2013-09-07 06:55 pm
sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com) wrote in talkpolitics2013-09-07 06:55 pm
Entry tags:
An open letter from a dinosaur
Dear Progressives,
Turn-about being fair play, I figured that I'd write a mirrior of Bean's post But where to start?
A couple months back Johnathan Korman wrote an excellent post on the poles of american politics. In it was the following line ...the correct social order is natural but not effortless — without devotion to the correct social order, conservatives believe we devolve into barbarism.
Do you genuinely believe that if you'd been transported back to fifteenth-century London as a baby, you'd realize all on your own that witch-burning was wrong, slavery was wrong, that every sentient being ought to be in your circle of concern? If so I'd like to know why,because as far as I can tell Homo Sapiens today are no more mentally capable than the Homo Sapiens of 500 years ago. I assert that our current high quality of life has more to do with culture and technology than it does with any inherent superiority to those who came before us. The fact of the matter is that we live in a civil society where, for the most part, people raise their kids to obey the law, pay their taxes, and generally not kill each-other without a damn good reason. It is this state of civility that conservatives seek to conserve.
The majority of these conservation efforts focus on individual and family responsibilities/virtue. They operate on the theory that if you want innovation you need to reward innovation. If you want virtue reward virtue. If you want stable kids reward stable families, because barbarity is never more than a generation or two away. If you want good social order we must reward virtue and punish vice.
It is in this space that intent runs head-long into perceived intent, and I start to turn into my grandad...
Using anfalicious' recent example, I am simply flabbergasted that a "post-gendered society" is even a topic of discussion outside of science fiction. Feminism has moved from arguing that women should be treated equal and have the same rights as men, etc... To that that men and women should be interchangeable. I am expected ignore the fact that the burden of reproduction is carried disproportionately by the female of the species. I am expected to ignore the differences in biology. To ignore the different strengths and weaknesses of both and how they compliment each other. I am expected to be genderless. I am not therefore I am a misogynist.
Global warming is based on computer models that keep failing. Catastrophic predictions are constantly proven wrong and (surprise, surprise) the only solution ever proposed is higher taxes and greater regulatory powers. I suspect that a dog is being wagged therefore I am a "denier".
I don't want to live in a world of "Honor Killings" and medieval torture and I refuse to coddle or kow-tow to those that do therefore I am a Islamiphobe.
I oppose gun control therefore I want children to die.
I support voter ID laws therefore I am a Racist.
Fascist.
Terrorist.
Killer.
I could go on...
These are labels that have been applied to me by my so-called intellectual and moral "betters" in an effort to shut me up.
I am a dinosaur. Hear me roar.
Turn-about being fair play, I figured that I'd write a mirrior of Bean's post But where to start?
A couple months back Johnathan Korman wrote an excellent post on the poles of american politics. In it was the following line ...the correct social order is natural but not effortless — without devotion to the correct social order, conservatives believe we devolve into barbarism.
Do you genuinely believe that if you'd been transported back to fifteenth-century London as a baby, you'd realize all on your own that witch-burning was wrong, slavery was wrong, that every sentient being ought to be in your circle of concern? If so I'd like to know why,because as far as I can tell Homo Sapiens today are no more mentally capable than the Homo Sapiens of 500 years ago. I assert that our current high quality of life has more to do with culture and technology than it does with any inherent superiority to those who came before us. The fact of the matter is that we live in a civil society where, for the most part, people raise their kids to obey the law, pay their taxes, and generally not kill each-other without a damn good reason. It is this state of civility that conservatives seek to conserve.
The majority of these conservation efforts focus on individual and family responsibilities/virtue. They operate on the theory that if you want innovation you need to reward innovation. If you want virtue reward virtue. If you want stable kids reward stable families, because barbarity is never more than a generation or two away. If you want good social order we must reward virtue and punish vice.
It is in this space that intent runs head-long into perceived intent, and I start to turn into my grandad...
Using anfalicious' recent example, I am simply flabbergasted that a "post-gendered society" is even a topic of discussion outside of science fiction. Feminism has moved from arguing that women should be treated equal and have the same rights as men, etc... To that that men and women should be interchangeable. I am expected ignore the fact that the burden of reproduction is carried disproportionately by the female of the species. I am expected to ignore the differences in biology. To ignore the different strengths and weaknesses of both and how they compliment each other. I am expected to be genderless. I am not therefore I am a misogynist.
Global warming is based on computer models that keep failing. Catastrophic predictions are constantly proven wrong and (surprise, surprise) the only solution ever proposed is higher taxes and greater regulatory powers. I suspect that a dog is being wagged therefore I am a "denier".
I don't want to live in a world of "Honor Killings" and medieval torture and I refuse to coddle or kow-tow to those that do therefore I am a Islamiphobe.
I oppose gun control therefore I want children to die.
I support voter ID laws therefore I am a Racist.
Fascist.
Terrorist.
Killer.
I could go on...
These are labels that have been applied to me by my so-called intellectual and moral "betters" in an effort to shut me up.
I am a dinosaur. Hear me roar.
no subject
Bullshit! Failure to support the remediation policy being discussed makes one a "denier" Full Stop.
If what you are saying were actually true in practice it wouldn't have made the list.
no subject
Bullshit on that call of bullshit! Some points in my favor:
Yes, there is recognition that we need to reduce carbon emissions (which no one knows how to do without destroying the current economic configuration) and some how sequester—suck up and lock away—what's already in the air (the many methods of which my link addresses, meaning there is no agree path to take). Beyond that, this is new, new, new, and hardly decided.
A "denier" is someone who denies, as in the AGW problem, not the solution. So far, there is no solution, at least not one universally recognized as the best way to go.
Again, I don't know who/what you're listening to to get to this conclusion, but I would strongly advise skepticism. I am in fact curious to know who is so widely disseminating such blatant bullshit.
no subject
no subject
no subject
In the minds of the true believers failure to support any and all proposed remediation policies means that one does not believe that AGW is a problem and thus that person is a denier.
There is no remediation policy
...Only because those asshole deniers refuse to let the AGWers have their way with out a fight. In an Ideal world such people would be rounded up and shot. (http://www.climatedepot.com/2009/06/05/Update-Romm-defends-remarks-as-not-a-threat-but-a-prediction--Strangle-Skeptics-in-Bed-An-entire-generation-will-soon-be-ready-to-strangle-you-and-your-kind-while-you-sleep-in-your-beds/)
no subject
. . . is belief! Fluff and nonsense! That's all! Nothing to see, nothing to consider. This goes for anyone who professes true belief, be they pro- or anti-AGW. Belief? It is but opinion, and opinions are like assholes: we all have them, true; but only when we start showing them in public does the shit fly.
That's why I concern myself with facts, the verifiable kind. And those AGW facts are more concrete: There is proof, and there are people (paid handsomely, often) who lie about the proof in the hopes of muddying the waters to opaque.
I ignore the fever pitch of rhetoric no matter which side is the source, and so I missed what you were discussing.
I do have a nagging question, the answer to which (since I avoid the fighting fray of belief online) I cannot say I even remotely know: On which side of this "debate" about verifiable scientific fact does one see the most "strangle in bed/round up and shot" rhetoric, the activists or the deniers?
no subject
Why you would wear a shoe that doesn't fit is beyond me.