This is NOT an entry about that kook view out their that there is a shadow world government manipulating the whole world (often referencing such organizations as the Council on Foreign Relations). That is the realm of kok conspiracy theories. This is an entry about defective thinking.
Isaac Asimov was a really good science fiction writer (especially earlier in his writing career), and pretty good popular science writer. He was also a secular humanist and advocate of world government (yes, there are people out there who believe in world government--they just don't run the world).
It is in his advocacy of world government that Isaac Asimov went over the edge, and into the world of what I will call "Obama think". Asimov said: "We MUST have a world government by the turn of the century (2000), or humanity is DOOMED." (Emphasis mine). In other words, Asimov was arguing that, however difficult or risky it was, we had to have a "world government policy" to form a world government before 2000, or we would all perish in a nuclear holocaust. This was around the 1980 time frame, before the demise of the Soviet Union.
MY reaction (even as of 1980): It was absolutely, positively IMPOSSIBLE to have a world government by the year 2000, and to base our "policy" on such an impossible goal was insane (a recipe for disaster). Further, IF we were really doomed if we failed to have a world government by the year 2000, then we were doomed, because it was not going to happen. Who was right?
Well, it is clearer than ever that a "world government" is impossible, and that it would be an absolute disaster to move in that direction. Further, Ronald Reagan went in exactly the opposite direction. Instead of trying to form some sort of "world government" with the Soviet Union, he DEFEATED the Soviet Union in the Cold War. The result is that we are FURTHER from hunclear annihilatiion than we were when Asimov was making his stupid argument (stupid because it suggested that we base our POLICY on the necessity of an IMPOSSIBILITY). In the Cold War with the Soviet Union, nuclear annihilation was a real threat at almost any time. It is still a threat for the future, and even Russia is hardly our bosom friend, but the threat has RECEDED. It is NOT "world government" that accomplished that, or any policy aimed at "world government."
Fast forward to Barack Obama, and his exploitive reaction to the NIU shooting: "We MUST eradicate gun violence in this country." Notice the similarity to what Asimov said. First, the statement says we MUST do the IMPOSSIBLE. Worse than Asimov, Obama is not even proposing ANY--even unreasonable or impractical, as Asimov was proposing-- policy that would even arguably arguably accomplish what Obama said we MUST do. This made the statement a LIE (Asimov's statement, as events have shown, was FALSE, but he MAY have actually believed it).
That is why I have said so much (see entries over the past week) about this particular statement of Obama. Even though that one statement, and the issue of "gun control" awhich it was supposedly aimed (Obama NOT proposing to do anything radical, like actually trying to BAN private ownership of guns), is not very important in isolation, the statement says much about how Obama thinks he can say ANYTHING that sounds good. Obama counts on not being challenged on this kind of stupidity, because "his heart is in the right place." That is a continuing theme in leftist thinking: If your heart is in the right place, and you are on the "moral" side, it does not matter whether what you say makes sense. Problem: It DOES matter.
Asimov MAY have realized that his "argument" was over the top, but he would not have cared because he wanted to advance his agenda by saying something dramatic that SOUNDED GOOD. Ditto Barack Obama. Defenders of both might argue that both ending gun violence and world government (really questionable here) are worthy goals, and therefore what is wrong with having IMPOSSIBLE goals?
Well, truth is a casualty. That always comes back to haunt you. More directly, striving for unreasonable, impossible goals often causes you to adopt the WRONG policies, when other policies would have gotten you to POSSIBLE goals which would have vastly benefitted everyone. For example, would making Isaac Asimov's impossible goal of "world government" the main goal of our foreign policy have HELPED the world? Don't be silly. Germany would not now be united. Eastern Europe would not how be free. The Cold War would probably still be going on, except the Soviet Union might be WINNING. Nuclear annihilation would almost surely be mor likely. At the very least, youhave to acknowlege that what I say MAY be true, even if you think an "enlightened" policy of promoting "world government" would have been better in the end.
If "we" (Federal "central planning") put all of cour efforts into ineffective law after ineffective law to "eradicate" gun vioilence, even though we KNOW that goal is impossible, what are we accomplishing? Are we not deflecting ourselves from the POSSIBLE? Sure we are. As every new shooting shows that we have FAILED to "eradicate" gun violence, we have to have a NEW Federal law each time. That is because we are seeking the impossible "Holy Grail" of "eradicating" gun violence. As I have previously said, WHY is gun violence worse than other violence in the first place. Maybe states, localities, schools, mental health professionals, and parents should ALL be doing things to REDUCE violence. I think so Doesn't this ridiculous idea that the PRESIDENT may lead us to the mythical "promised land" of "eradicating gun violence" deflect us from what we really should be doing? Of course it does.
Still doubt me (you fool you!!!). Let us go to "global warming". Is not the argument the SAME? Of course it is.
Is it reasonably possible to REDUCE greenhouse gas emissions, or even to stop them from increasing? The U.N. says it is NOT. Their recent report said that the world will warm, no matter what we can reasonably do, over the next CENTURY. China and India are NOT going to DOOM their populations to poverty by crucifying themselves on the alter of "global warmng". Yet the "global warming" mantra is: Unless we STOP "global warmng", we are DOOMED. As with Asimov and "world government", then we are doomed. We are NOT going to STOP "global warmng" (it may well stop on its own). In fact, man is probably not even a significant contributor to whatever warming is going on. That meanst hat NOTHING we do will have any effect, other than to ruin the lieves of the people of the world.
In previous entries, I have already told you, and that recent study indicated, that biofuels (one of those byproducts of "global warming" hysteria, although higher oil prices and "energy independence" are also motivating factors) are HARMING us. They are threatening to cause WORLD STARVATION (as resources are diverted away from cheap FOOD for the poor). They are accelearating the destruction of the rainforests (once an environmental priority, which has almost been forgotten in the move toward "global warming" as the primary leftist/environmental "cause"). The price of BEER is on the rise (see recent entry as to whether this will be the eventual downfall of the "global warmnig" sham).
Is this really just like the "world government" argument of Asimov and the "eraadicate gun violence" statement of Obama? Sure it is. Consider Doug Stephan (I really MUST--a place where the word applies--change the station to which my radio alarm is set in the morning)--yes, the same Doug Stephan who I labeled a kook in the previous entry.
This morning he said that "something is clearly happening" in the world, no matter what those dimwits who deny it say. Even in the mdist of a COLD, ARCTIC winter, he repeated the STALE "global warmng' propaganda from this summer that the North Pole is melting (see previous entries). He dismisses the idea that this year's, and last year's, COOL U.S. winters means anything, because the issue is "climate change". Notice how we have left science totally behind, and we are into the area of RELIGION. "Global wrming" is NOT a coherent theory of climate, but a vague concept that greemjpise gases have a WARMING effect on the earth. Without the "warming", there is NO evidence for "global warming" CAUSED "climate change".
But Doug Stephan was even more illustrative in proving my point. He admitted that mabye man was NOT causing "global warmng" But then he went on a rant of how people DARED to keep throwing "politics" into this, when "something is clearly happening to the world", and we have to DO SOMETHING.
Consider the monumental stupidity of this (equally as stupid as the Obama statement, and the Asimov argument). If man is not causing most of the "global warming", it is IMPOSSIBLE to do anything about it (as "world government" and "eradicating gun violence") ae impossible. If we try to accomplish the impossible (impossible for more than one reason), we will merely ruin our lives (not to mention frustrating ourselves, as we fail to address things that we can do something about). You can't get any more DIMWITTED than to say that we MUST do the IMPOSSIBLE.
Then there are the people who say that stopping pollution is a worthy goal in itself, and therefore why not go with the "global warmng" flow. This, of course, explains the whole POLITICAL MOVEMENT in the first place. The religion of "global warming" is just a method for leftists to use to advance their agenda--rather than argue that agenda on its own merits. That should (correctly) indicate to you that parts of that agenda cannot be defended on their owon merits). Problem: In going this route, environmentalists ENDANGER real progress against POLLUTION and truly constructive environmental policies.
See above abut the destruction of the rainforests. CO2 is NOT a "pollutant". It is PLANT FOOD. We exhale it. Now vehicles, of course, emit real pollutants. But we wold surely be better off concentrating on the real pollutants, than having all of our policy reevolve around the SHAM of "global warmnig" (see the "world government" example above again).
LEFTISTS want to USE the "global warming" concept to advance their entire anti-capitalist, often anti-American, agenda. Don't delude yourself that this is the best way to "protect the environment". Leftists don't care whether the measures proposed against "global warming" accomplish anything or not. These things are things that leftists, including radical environmental leftists, want ANYWAY (whether the rest of us do or not).
I don't want to digrtess to far here. The point of this entry is not to argue "global warming" The point is how these FASE, apocalyptic arguments are phrased. We MUST do something about "global warmng", or we are DOOMED. We MUST do something to create a world government, or we are DOOMED. We MUST "eradicate gun violence" (implication: or we are DOOMED). The idea is NOT to have to argue reasonable policy, but simply to argue that it does not matter if a proposed policy is reasonable, because we MUST try to stop DOOM (even if we know it is impossible).
Dimwits? You bet. But what they are really counting on is for YOU to be dimwits, and buy into this over-the-top sophistry.
That is why I consider Barack Obama dangerous. He is presently the best out there at selling this outrageous stuff as if it makes sense.
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