Posted on 06/19/2006 10:13:56 PM PDT by goldstategop
Observers of contemporary society will surely have noted that a liberal is far more likely to fear global warming than a conservative. Why is this? After all, if the science is as conclusive as Al Gore, Time, Newsweek, The New York Times and virtually every other spokesman of the Left says it is, conservatives are just as likely to be scorched and drowned and otherwise done in by global warming as liberals will. So why aren't non-leftists nearly as exercised as leftists are? Do conservatives handle heat better? Are libertarians better swimmers? Do religious people love their children less?
The usual liberal responses -- to label a conservative position racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic or the like -- obviously don't apply here. So, liberals would have to fall back on the one remaining all-purpose liberal explanation: "big business." They might therefore explain the conservative-liberal divide over global warming thus: Conservatives don't care about global warming because they prefer corporate profits to saving the planet.
But such an explanation could not explain the vast majority of conservatives who are not in any way tied into the corporate world (like this writer, who has no stocks and who, moreover, regards big business as amoral as leftists do).
No, the usual liberal dismissals of conservatives and their positions just don't explain this particularly illuminating difference between liberals and conservatives.
Here are six more likely explanations:
-- The Left is prone to hysteria. The belief that global warming will destroy the world is but one of many hysterical notions held on the Left. As noted in a previous column devoted to the Left and hysteria, many on the Left have been hysterical about the dangers of the PATRIOT Act and the NSA surveillance of phone numbers (incipient fascism); secondhand smoke (killing vast numbers of people); drilling in the remotest area of Alaska (major environmental despoliation); and opposition to same-sex marriage (imminent Christian theocracy).
-- The Left believes that if The New York Times and other liberal news sources report something, it is true. If the cover of Time magazine says, "Global Warming: Be Worried, Very Worried," liberals get worried, very worried, about global warming.
It is noteworthy that liberals, one of whose mottos is "question authority," so rarely question the authority of the mainstream media. Now, of course, conservatives, too, often believe mainstream media. But conservatives have other sources of news that enable them to achieve the liberal ideal of questioning authority. Whereas few liberals ever read non-liberal sources of information or listen to conservative talk radio, the great majority of conservatives are regularly exposed to liberal news, liberal editorials and liberal films, and they have also received many years of liberal education.
-- The Left believes in experts. Of course, every rational person, liberal or conservative, trusts the expertise of experts -- such as when experts in biology explain the workings of mitochondria, or when experts in astronomy describe the moons of Jupiter. But for liberals, "expert" has come to mean far more than greater knowledge in a given area. It now means two additional things: One is that non-experts should defer to experts not only on matters of knowledge, but on matters of policy, as well. The second is that experts possess greater wisdom about life, not merely greater knowledge in their area of expertise.
That is why liberals are far more likely to be impressed when a Nobel Prize winner in, let us say, physics signs an ad against war or against capital punishment. The liberal is bowled over by the title "Nobel laureate." The conservative is more likely to wonder why a Nobel laureate in physics has anything more meaningful to say about war than, let us say, a taxi driver.
-- People who don't confront the greatest evils will confront far lesser ones. Most humans know the world is morally disordered -- and socially conscious humans therefore try to fight what they deem to be most responsible for that disorder. The Right tends to fight human evil such as communism and Islamic totalitarianism. The Left avoids confronting such evils and concentrates its attention instead on socioeconomic inequality, environmental problems and capitalism. Global warming meets all three of these criteria of evil. By burning fossil fuels, rich countries pollute more, the environment is being despoiled and big business increases its profits.
-- The Left is far more likely to revere, even worship, nature. A threat to the environment is regarded by many on the Left as a threat to what is most sacred to them, and therefore deemed to be the greatest threat humanity faces. The cover of Vanity Fair's recent "Special Green Issue" declared: "A Graver Threat Than Terrorism:
Global Warming." Conservatives, more concerned with human evil, hold the very opposite view: Islamic terror is a far graver threat than global warming.
-- Leftists tend to fear dying more. That is one reason they are more exercised about our waging war against evil than about the evils committed by those we fight. The number of Iraqis and others Saddam Hussein murdered troubles the Left considerably less than even the remote possibility than they may one day die of global warming (or secondhand smoke).
One day, our grandchildren may ask us what we did when Islamic fascism threatened the free world. Some of us will say we were preoccupied with fighting that threat wherever possible; others will be able to say they fought carbon dioxide emissions. One of us will look bad.
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
A decent article, but he overlooks the real reason.
Global Warming is an excuse to hate all the achievments of the Industrial Revolution on without coming out and saying you hate humanity.
Libs believe if only the Industrial Revolution hadn't happened we'd all be living in an agrarian utopia, without slavery, with complete equality for all, no war, no commercialism, and we'd all be liberal thinkers eating vegetarian diets and loving each other, working when we liked according to our abilities and etc. etc.
Global Warming gets them to vent about EVERYTHING they hate--namely, everything--without having to call themselves what they are, despisers of humanity.
Because when you believe that Aids is spread through lack of federal funding and that heavy tax burdens help generate jobs, science ain't exactly your strong point.
If Gore really believed the bs about global warming he'd be repenting. He supposedly grew up in a Christian home (although his father was a racist, so who knows). When he starts repenting and going against all the liberal crap that's contrary to Christianity, he might have a shred of credibility.
Almost everything in liberalism, from behavior to beliefs, can be traced to its socialist roots. Global warming (and the environment in general) is no exception.
Obviously, socialism declares that government must have power over the economy. So good excuses are needed to justify such a handing over of power...especially in America, where the foundations of this country are LIMITED government control.
So they need a reason to regulate business...voila! Make accusations. Global warming and the environment are perfect for that. Claim that capitalism's industries are destroying the earth...and since we all live on the earth, that means capitalism is killing us all. It fits perfectly together.
Liberals don't fear global warming. Most know it's 'iffy'. They crave totalitarianism and a global warming scare is just a means to power for them. Next decade it will be some other crisis that demands a totalitarian solution.
Actually the consevatives plan to leave global warming in place, so that if enemy wins and we are beaten, and the enemy is in full control,,,POOF!!.....GW kicks in!!!!!
I was on my way to new Zealand a few years ago (quite a feqw, in fact) and passing through Hawaii, I looked up an old friend who brought his then girl-friend, a Greenpeace activist, with him to dinner.
She asked me what I was going to be doing in New Zealand, and I told her I was going to work on a construction project - were going to be building a nuclear-powered whaling station.
She didn't find my joke the least bit funny. But, for me, it was worth it.
LOL. If it wasn't so easy...
I may be selling my "sisters" out, but no one is easier to goad then a liberal woman.
I can usually end up having a rational discussion with very liberal men, even if we strongly disagree. But for some reason, teasing is the absolute worst thing you can do to a lib gal. Lips are pursed too tightly I guess. Scary frankly.
"Some say the world will end in ice. Other say it will end in fire."
I say it will end in both, as a huge cometfull of fried ice cream crashes into the Earth, after being ejected away from the Carvel Galaxy towards the Helado Nebula.
ROFLMAO!
I'll have to try that with some lefty folks I know.
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It is all about control.
If Global warming is true and this policy allows the left to gain control, they can then use the "global warming" excuse for virtually every thing they want such as:
1) Power over the industrial segment via pollution controls
2) Power over the private sector via electric cars or other "environmentally favored" modes of transportation.
3) Power over architectural designs (Will this design help reduce global warming?)
4) Power over the electorate. This will gain them the opportunity to put in place many elements that they also favor: Health care, child care, elderly control, social security to the Nth degree.
Al Gore typifies the above. He does not care a rats ass about global warming, he is just desperate for votes and a little nookie on the way.
5 [liberals] - "Because when you believe that Aids is spread through lack of federal funding and that heavy tax burdens help generate jobs, science ain't exactly your strong point."
I have repeatedly noticed that liberals seem to be particulalry bad at thinking logically, and are generally more emotional and not very bright.
"a nuclear-powered whaling station."
BWWWWWWAAAAAAAHAHAAHAHAH!!!
i'll bet the spit-take was priceless!!
As others have said, it is all about socialism. It is a mistake to make it any more complicated than this. The leftists want socialistic world government. Eco-hysteria is one of their many tools to achieve this.
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