Assorted

1. “Global warming” / “Climate change.”

Deb Heine has a nice compendium on the “global warming” fraud and associated scandals. It’s worth your time to read it all. However, for me the most striking bit comes early on:

I got into a debate with some well-meaning but totally misled friends of friends on Facebook over the Keystone XL Pipeline, which they were totally sure would destroy the environment and contribute to global warming if it’s allowed. For these young twenty-somethings, opposing the Keystone Pipeline is about “common sense.”

It’s shocking and dismaying how many millennials have been fooled by the Soviet-style propaganda of the warmist left. How do they not see that the science has become corrupted and politicized? Real science is not proven by “consensus.” Real science doesn’t lie and manipulate data. Real science welcomes debate. It doesn’t try to silence the (growing numbers of) detractors. And with real science – predictions occasionally come true.

How is this not obvious?

Once again, I must remind my Gentle Readers that the Latin roots of “obvious” mean “overlooked.” What’s not quite so obvious is why Deb’s observations are overlooked.

Young Americans have been steeped in leftist propaganda much of their lives. Quite a lot of it originated from “authority figures” they were told to respect – and who were capable of taking vengeance on anyone who dared to argue with them. Add to that the celebrity-worship that’s so common among the young, and the ubiquity of the culture that promotes it. The habits one can develop from a dozen or two years of that are very hard to break.

Our successor generations include a devastating number:

• Who are ruled by their emotions;
• Who’ve never learned critical thinking skills;
• Who don’t know how to tell facts from opinions;
• Who place their trust in the opinions of entertainers;
• Who believe it’s acceptable to shout down one’s opponents;
• And who dismiss clear thinking and accountability in favor of presumed good intentions.

They must be made conscious of what’s been done to them. To allow them to continue on in blithe, unreasoning ignorance could spell doom for these United States.

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2. An Offense.

I like Senator Rand Paul. I think there are better choices for the Republicans’ 2016 presidential nomination, but I like him all the same. But it’s become clear that the GOP Establishment media don’t like him at all:

When asked by radio host Laura Ingraham Monday about his views on vaccination, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky said that while he is not “anti-vaccine” at all, he does think they should be voluntary, later going on to say that vaccines can cause “mental disorders.”...

“I’ve heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines,” he said on CNBC. “I’m not arguing vaccines are a bad idea — I think they’re a good thing. But I think the parent[s] should have some input — the state doesn’t own your children; parents own the children and it is an issue of freedom.”

Look closely and carefully at the assertion in the first cited paragraph. Then look closely and carefully at what Senator Paul said. Can you spot the difference? More, would you be able to explain the difference to others?

This sort of slander of a conservative politician rapidly gaining national prominence has become all too common from GOP Establishment mouthpieces. They’ve become so prone to such tactics that there’s little to choose between them and the Main Stream Media, at least on matters of opinion-editorial probity.

If you disapprove of calumny-by-implication, take a moment to express yourself to the Washington Times.

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3. Oh No, Not Another One.

Do we really need another liberal Republican to toss his hat into the presidential ring?

Former New York Gov. George Pataki said Monday that he is “seriously” considering getting into the crowded Republican race for president in 2016, and for good measure took a swipe at Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Mr. Pataki, a three-time governor, said he has the executive experience that would be a welcome change in the White House....

“Her philosophy is way to the left of me and way to the left of the American people. And it’s not what we need more of,” Mr. Pataki said of Mrs. Warren.

“I also don’t think that someone who has never had a day’s experience running something can be expected to run the government of this country particularly well,” he added.

Northeastern Republicans are not particularly conservative. Indeed, in many respects they can’t be distinguished from Democrats. Governor Pataki, though he was preferable to Mario Cuomo (and his son), is not a conservative by any interpretation of the word. Fortunately, he has little chance of gaining the Republican nomination in 2016. Indeed, he has barely more chance than I do – and only because “if nominated I will not run; if elected I will not serve.”

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4. The Legacy Of Ayn Rand.

Ayn Rand, born Alice Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg, Russia on February 2, 1905, retains a powerful influence over conservative and libertarian political thought. She deserves most of her reputation, given that her books The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged have persuaded so many away from left-liberal premises and toward a belief in individualism, freedom and the objective nature of reality.

Concerning Rand’s decision to flee the Soviet Union for America, David Boaz writes:

Like Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek, Rand demonstrates the importance of immigration not just to America but to American libertarianism. Mises had fled his native Austria right before the Nazis confiscated his library, Rand fled the Communists who came to power in her native Russia. When a heckler asked her at a public speech, "Why should we care what a foreigner thinks?", she replied with her usual fire, "I chose to be an American. What did you ever do, except for having been born?"

An important observation, doubt it not – and a reminder that one’s place of birth does not predetermine one’s character, ideas, or achievements.

Yet Rand, through the cult of personality she inspired, also did harm. In particular, she ignored an important aspect of rationality that permitted her and her followers to make several egregious errors:

Every concept has a domain of applicability.
Outside that domain, it is irrelevant or worse.

Randians’ irrational hostility toward religion, their fatuous notions about “national rights,” and their inability to grasp that individual freedom cannot imply a “right” to kill an unborn child, all stem from the overextension of Rand’s conceptions of individualism and rights. Let’s hope these missteps will someday be erased from Randian thought, before they can fatally cripple an otherwise glittering legacy of courageous thought.