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Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Failing Faiths
With the recent revelations that the oceans are cooling, that the polar icecaps are thickening, and that global temperatures have not risen measurably since 1998, the worldwide Church of Anthropogenic Global Warming is suffering a massive Crisis of Faith. Warmistas everywhere find themselves on the defensive, required to forestall mass disaffection of the congregation by the application of threats of ostracism and bad publicity.
The tactic has had some success. BBC Editor Roger Harrabin caved to such pressure, editing a story on the flatness of global temperatures this decade past to conform to Church dogma under threat of having his credibility called into question. What a threat! Who wouldn't quail before such a challenge -- especially coming from the prelates of a collapsing creed, unable to muster even token objective evidence in support of its crisis mongering?
But that story is now being spread widely, this evening by Glenn Beck on his Headline News television show, and these two days past by innumerable outlets on the World Wide Web. The BBC is cringing in shame to such an extent that it won't even acknowledge that the incident really occurred. As for the warmistas, they've never been quite so determined to change the subject.
Those of us on the Right, who've known what a crock anthropogenic global warming is from the start, can be excused for cackling with glee. It's always heart-warming to watch the toppling of the idols of a false god, especially if you're an allegiant of a better one. But it's important that we not allow our end-zone dance to distract us from drawing the appropriate lessons from this tale of propaganda and its refutation.
First, though people do respond to scare tactics, they can be returned to normal equanimity by the counter-application of trustworthy facts. It worked against "global famine" and "global cooling," back in the early and mid-Seventies; it worked against "nuclear winter," in the late Seventies and Eighties; and it seems to be working against the new bugaboo of "climate change," today's catch-all rationale under which the eclectic alliance of the Left hopes to totalitarianize the global economy.
Second, people are still attracted more strongly to courage than to pusillanimity. Scientists opposed to the anthropogenic global warming thesis have received steadily increasing support, despite increasing vitriol poured upon them, and no small degree of threats posed against them for daring to speak their minds.
Third, a doomed movement is always at its noisiest just before it collapses for good. Only these past few days have we seen the emergence of a widespread, expensive campaign of television pitches designed to draw people into anti-anthropogenic-global-warming activism. Of course, those pitches make no mention of the now-overwhelming evidence against anthropogenic global warming; that would spoil the mood. All the same, to take this "battle of the bulge" lightly would be a gross error.
A military man will tell you: Reinforce your successes! Every victory, whether won by attack or defense, should be used as the launching ramp for a new offensive. It might be challenging to decide on the subject -- there isn't always a second topic obviously connected to that of the most recent triumph -- but such an opportunity must not be wasted.
Conservatives appear reluctant to embrace this wisdom. In recent years, we've squandered the West's triumph over Communism, the roaring success of welfare reform, and the demonstrably beneficial effects of tax rate reduction, passively ceding the field to our statist adversaries despite having utterly defeated their contentions. No doubt this is in part due to conservatives' disdain for conflict. But it's probably at least as much because we've failed to internalize the old maxim to strike while the iron is hot.
Reluctance to capitalize on one's gains is a sign of a failing faith.
Is American conservatism -- the libertarian variety, which in Europe is still called "liberalism" -- losing faith in itself? It would seem counter-intuitive. Conservative principles, analyses, and policy prescriptions have been uniformly victorious these past thirty years...when conservatives have dared to champion them. But our preference, if the most recent cases are any indication, is to rest on our laurels, as if the other side could be trusted to concede defeat like the gentlemen they aren't.
Perhaps we're just tired. It would be a particular irony, like the old saw about the pioneers who glimpsed victory on the horizon, stopped to rest, and while resting, died. But it wouldn't be unprecedented.
It's a significant fact of political dialectics that even the best cause requires a champion. It's sad that conservatism should have lost so many prominent champions these past few years. John McCain is no replacement for Ronald Reagan, Charlton Heston, or William F. Buckley, but we must soldier on nonetheless. All the same, your Curmudgeon finds it singularly unfortunate that in this year or Our Lord 2008, American conservatives should have no one capable of raising a standard to rally us around, just when the objective state of our most prominent contests is so heavily in our favor.
Now is not the time for American conservatives to lose faith.
Comments
Do you mind if I link to more info on the BBC story here? I had to hunt for it a little. One write-up is here.
I do remember reading the article fairly close to when it was first posted, but cannot recall which version it was.
Posted by Liquid Egg Product on 04/09/2008 at 03:11 AMThe warmists are very numerous in Los Angeles. I haven’t yet encountered any in Manhattan, but that might be because I don’t get into political discussions with clients or coworkers.
What I want to know is how anyone could become so passionate about something that popped out of a computer model. No one can even predict the local weather over the near term with any reliability. How could anyone invest emotionally in some programmer’s simulation of the climate of the entire world?
(No offense meant, beloved!)
Posted by FeticheNouvelle on 04/09/2008 at 06:12 PMThe problem, I think, for the American Conservative movement is that it is too pure. A thousand different Don Quixote’s. A dozen different political parties. Sancho Panzas is needed too, and they have been purged from the movement, leaving it unable to bend, easily broken. John McCain is 100% pro life and has never gotten an earmark, and he gets called a RINO. Bush has pushed free trade for seven+ years and the movement won’t forget the steel tariffs, or see how they got his free trade authority past the Democrats. He gets called a RINO too. We are pushing aside the Heros in front of us because we are looking for and demanding Angels.
When the Libertarians left the Republican party, they didn’t win any elections, but they did loss power in the party they left, moving that party to the left. Good luck fixing that......Posted by on 04/12/2008 at 11:44 PM
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