Orson Scott Card: Obama's Real Religion [Environmentalism]

ornery.org ^ | May 25, 2008 | Orson Scott Card

[Entrepreneur]

This is why I love science fiction. Most science fiction writers seem to be inherently conservative. Woven in the stories are possibilities, individualism, and sound economics.

Contrast this with John Grisham-type lawyer fiction, which is liberalism in print.

And, of course, Card is spot on in his analysis. It still doesn’t help to put much distance between Obama and McCain. Obama’s got the scarier rhetoric, but they’ll both take us to the same place. Obama will be more candid about it and sound loonier, so maybe we can rally the party in opposition. McCain will destroy the GOP from within as conservative Republicans struggle with the divide between principle and party loyalty.

I wish McCain were a moderate. I can vote for a moderate. I’ve done so with GHW Bush, Dole, and GW Bush. I can’t vote for a Liberal and anyone who supports cap and trade is a liberal.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

... but he completely loses me by arguing that it’s the world’s business how much petroleum America uses. And exactly who gets to determine how much is a “fair share” which OSC says America has gone far beyond?

That is also where I stopped reading.

[aruanan]

The problem of our vast overuse of and over-dependence on oil is a real one -- and a dangerous one. We fund our worst enemies because we need so much oil; we pollute our environment; and our use of cars kills us at the rate of 835 a week; and we face a devastating economic crisis if we don't have non-petroleum energy sources already in place when the oil ends.

There is no overuse of or over-dependence on oil. This presupposes that all sorts of things can simply be done away with or be done using other energy supplies. If the former, it's a value judgment that only an economic Puritan would impose on society and is something exactly like what he's railing against. If the latter, it would already have been done.

[Tanniker Smith]

Finally got around to reading Ender’s Game. I have to go to the library and look for the next book....

[Tolik]

Yes. When they resist any alternative solution, its getting clear what the totalitarian control freaks really want.

Who knows what future might bring, but now, there is no better, cleaner alternative than nuclear power. There are absolutely safe designs, that simply can’t go boom on meltdown. Even very inferior Chernobyl design would not go into a catastrophe with release of radioactive gases on its own if not some eager humans manually overriding a few layers of safety in that fateful experiment they tried.

[BibChr]

A Mormon criticizing anyone's religion is always funny.

[Tolik]

Chronology of Enderverse stories. Numbers in brackets are year of first publication. Question marks indicate a work that has been announced but not yet published.

The left fork (short story Investment Counselor and then Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide and Children of the Mind) take you into the future. Travel between stars inevitable makes generations skip on the planets. So the story goes into the future quite far and quite fast. Some very interesting ideas of how separated in time and space colonies might develop.

The right fork starts with Ender's Shadow, that basically retells the story from Bean's point of view. Very interesting. Then Shadow series continue here on Earth in slow time with stories of Ender's team members, wars on Earth, etc. As literature, its a bit worse, but as political playground - is very good.

 

[xcamel]

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obamanation, plain and simple.

[ModelBreaker]

I have to go to the library and look for the next book....

You will be disappointed. Ender's Game was by far the best of Card's books. In later books, Ender disappears off into politically correct self-recrimination and exile for having exterminated the bugs. I couldn't even get through some of them. His more recent books have gotten better.

[af_vet_rr]

Thanks for the ping. As always, Orson has something interesting and relevant to say.

[Red Badger]

...and what religion would be complete without it’s “indulgences”, now known as “carbon credits” and the pseudonym “Cap & trade”?...................

[Red Badger]

Heb 11:1 (Mof) Now faith means that we are confident of what we hope for, convinced of what we do not see.

Obama's entire campaign in a nutshell...............

[Tolik]

I have to disagree with the PC charge. By all accounts - that was a tragedy of misunderstanding of universal proportions. Sci-Fi explorations of the First Contact are varied and bring many insights. Who are the first ET will be? How different? What level of development? How to communicate with them? Is it even possible to recognize them as such?

In this story humans did what they had to do. Buggers recognized their mistake, withdrew, but could not communicate it in-time. No PC here at all. Just very clear tragedy. Ender would have been a monster if he did not feal pain for what he did.

[allmendream]

I remember when the DBM was having “Gorbasms’s” and the inestimable Rush Limbaugh “translated” a Gorbachev speech from the U.N..

“You foolish Americans. We will bury you. We will bury you. We will bury you.”

[Tanniker Smith]

Actually, the first story that I read (years ago) was “Gloriously Bright”, which is set in the Ender universe (and Ender makes an appearance toward the end of it). It was in Analog back in the 80s (or early 90s) and it was considered novel length.

[Aggie Mama]

Good list. You might want to add flexible packaging material. My husband sells it, and his material costs are going up as well. Think of all the things that flexible material covers —coffee, cookies, chips, frozen foods, meat, rice, diapers, etc..The list is endless and all of their costs are going up!

[massgopguy]

In its celebration of the Carter victory in 1976 the NYC Coucil of Foriegn Relations published Project 1980’s which called for the “controlled disintegration” of the US economy. Now we call it Kyoto.

[steelyourfaith]

 

Calculate your one-day Carbon Belch !

[wbill]

As usual, OSC nails it pretty well.

Unfortunately IMHO, the entire environmental movement has been defined in terms of black and white. Some conservatives, including many here on FR, think that if you don't let your HumVee idle in the driveway an extra 3 hours a day, then you're some sort of Tree Hugging Communist.

Whereas AlGore would be perfectly happy if 99% of mankind was reduced to living in caves, so that he could fly around cheaply on his own private jet and commend everyone for being carbon-neutral.

There is a huge middle ground to be staked out, here. Zealots on both sides of the argument won't allow it to be, though. For instance, look at CFL's - rather than saying "Look, these things have some excellent applications and they should be used instead of incandescents in speceific situations." the idiots in Washington make CFL usage mandatory, and incandescents illegal.

Fools all. A change is a comin'...

[palmer]

Let me guess, though, where Obama's thermostat is set. You can't run for president and have people see you sweat.

At least Carter would wear a sweater and pretend to be a commoner. OTOH, I could probably do without seeing Obama sitting in the Oval Office in a sweaty t-shirt.