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The Hedonistic Left and Global Warming
HUMAN EVENTS ^ | 02/16/2007 | George Neumayr

Posted on 02/19/2007 5:53:51 PM PST by neverdem

All the fretting over "the future" from global warming alarmists is a little hard to take, given that they normally support live-for-today hedonism. Does British billionaire Richard Branson and other members of the elite, who are presiding over an historic demographic implosion in Europe, really toss and turn at night worrying about the future quality of life for "the children"? Can a decadent elite which ushered in decades of self-indulgent, drugs-and-promiscuity-laden lifestyles credibly warn of "death and destruction," civilizational collapse and the need for abstemiousness?

Nothing in their customary moral philosophy would suggest seriousness about civilization's future or place any emphasis on behaving responsibly. Note also that the elitists who make the most noise about the "purity" of nature never apply that concern to human nature: they have made careers out of corrupting it. The self-appointed prophets of an environmental apocalypse from Hollywood and New York are the forces most responsible for engineering a secularist culture which is remarkable in the history of all cultures for its moral obliviousness and its utter indifference to the future, much less the moral welfare of children.

The polluted culture they have spread throughout the world poses a much greater threat to children's lives than global warming ever could. All the moral energies they refuse to spend on crises in front of their noses they are busy transferring to a fictitious future one, which is based not upon ironclad science but upon a style of grand ideological conjecture their egos find satisfying.

Why in the world should ordinary people believe the Al Gores when they pronounce on future moral threats if they can't even identify present ones? If anything, keeping children from entering the world is more in line with their relativistic philosophy than ensuring they are born into a clean one. Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe has now famously compared global warming skeptics to Holocaust deniers, bringing to bear a stern moral certainty about protecting the earth she can't find in her hear for the protection of unborn children. What dogmatic rigor from a columnist who usually tells her readers that moral issues are "complicated" and "nuanced" and pooh-poohs clear and present moral threats to children, such as the disintegration of the traditional family, as alarmist hyperbole. According to her moral calculus, carbon emissions do more damage to the lives of children than abortion or same-sex marriage and adoption.

The moral relativists of the last few decades can only manage to turn absolutist on questions unrelated to morality, particularly those touching upon environmental fads. Their faith in global warming is so strong they find themselves demanding the sorts of duties and sacrifices they discount in any other area of life. The pushy and judgmental piety of relativists on environmental issues is bottomless, amounting to a quasi-pantheism. It appears that what pop scientist Carl Sagan once said is coming to pass: "A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge."

Except environmentalism is more like feel-good mythology than religion. The same secularists and relativists who consider it ridiculous to offer sacrifices to God or regulate their conduct in accordance with the Ten Commandments are busy devising an elaborate system of irrational blandishments to serve their nature mythology. They spell out the details of this new regimen of discipline and abstinence with the confident knowledge they'll never have to carry it out. Like Marxism, this mythology is supposed to sustain civilization not through individual virtue but through regulation and centralized planning. An elite whose goodness is measured not by their own moral behavior but by the brilliance of their statist schemes will apparently save the earth.

In the meantime, the propagandists for global warming, while speaking darkly of the future and the need for greater and greater "responsibility," will continue to deepen a hedonistic culture of irresponsibility in the here and now -- a culture under which children are the first to suffer, and which, far from caring about the future, considers it the height of enlightenment to prevent children from seeing it.

Mr. Neumayr is editor of Catholic World Report.



TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: environmentalism; globalwarming
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1 posted on 02/19/2007 5:53:52 PM PST by neverdem
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To: neverdem; Killing Time; Beowulf; Mr. Peabody; Mrs. Don-o; RW_Whacko; honolulugal; gruffwolf; ...

FReepmail me to get on or off

Click graphic for full GW rundown

Ping me if you find one I've missed.



2 posted on 02/19/2007 5:56:37 PM PST by xcamel (Press to Test, Release to Detonate)
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To: neverdem

Wow...he kicks butt. I never thought of it in that way.


3 posted on 02/19/2007 5:57:35 PM PST by BamaBlue
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To: neverdem

Brilliant analysis... absolutely brilliant!


4 posted on 02/19/2007 6:00:29 PM PST by FormerACLUmember
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To: neverdem

Excellent article. I had not thought of it before, but global warming plays right into the world-view of those who believe we are overpopulating. Of course, the ones primarily responsible for overpopulation aren't going to be deterred. In contrast, white people increasingly seem to want to wish themselves out of existence.


5 posted on 02/19/2007 6:13:51 PM PST by rbg81 (1)
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To: neverdem

Liberals believe that somebody else should pay taxes to support their ideological agendas.

And they also believe that somebody else should die, preferably in some poor, third-world nation, to support the personal lifestyles to which they are accustomed.


6 posted on 02/19/2007 6:18:59 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: neverdem
Sure, many on today's left are irrational, hypocritical, self-righteous, their nostrums and remedies ridiculous, their understanding of world problems shallow in the extreme.

Many...but not all. Very large numbers of lefties work very hard at productive and difficult jobs, raise decent families, and participate with intelligence and understanding in communal life.

Meanwhile, many on the Right refuse to recognize that traditional culture sucks, that it's brought us intolerance and war and death for centuries...and dysfuncional individuals and families galore (as well as pederast priests and other sickos).

7 posted on 02/19/2007 6:20:48 PM PST by liberallarry
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To: FormerACLUmember

"Brilliant analysis...absolutely brilliant!" Did you forget to add /s?? I'm sure you are being sarcastic. The article does nothing to enlighten us as to pro/con of GW debate, it merely gives a Catholic writer a chance to vent at abortion supporters. One could use tactics like these to slam most anybody for any position they may have that is opposite of writers.


8 posted on 02/19/2007 6:26:04 PM PST by diogenes ghost
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To: neverdem

Great column.


9 posted on 02/19/2007 6:28:35 PM PST by syriacus (6 months into Truman's Korean War -- Censorship imposed; 11,000 US deaths; thousands more drafted)
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To: diogenes ghost

Didn't you read the title? (Or the article for that matter.)

The author was comparing the Hedonistic Left with their new religion; Global Warming & Environmentalism.

The Author hit a grand slam out of the park! He nailed it right on the money.

Either that, or take a reading comprehension course, it would surely help.


10 posted on 02/19/2007 6:46:29 PM PST by PSYCHO-FREEP
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To: neverdem

He's saying what Dylan said in "You Gotta Serve Somebody".

The left has replaced one religion with another. It's always been this way, like when Moses came down from Mt. Sinai and saw the idol worship etc. etc.


11 posted on 02/19/2007 6:52:44 PM PST by 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten
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To: neverdem
Why in the world should ordinary people believe the Al Gores when they pronounce on future moral threats if they can't even identify present ones?

Excellent article and that question alone should be the only response to anything the Lefties say. They have discredited themselves so many times!

and I notice the Token Lefty on this thread has already begun the "Lefties=Good, Righties=Bad" spiel. Do you really think FReepers are interested in hearing that set up again? Its just more of the same passive-aggressive twaddle that Lefties have always used because they can't come up with a better refutation. Sheesh! Come back when you have something NEW to say.

12 posted on 02/19/2007 6:54:12 PM PST by Alkhin (star dust contemplating star dust)
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To: Alkhin
and I notice the Token Lefty on this thread has already begun the "Lefties=Good, Righties=Bad" spiel.

Oh, I don't think so. The author paints with too broad a brush and allows his bias to blind him to faults in his own ideology. Beams and motes, you know.

Specifically, the debate over global warming has a real scientific basis - regardless of the political clap-trap surrounding it - as real as the debate surrounding quantum mechanics (with no Einstein arguing the negative).

Also, I've been a token Lefty on this forum for a long time...which means I serve some useful purpose or am simply a useful idiot, a clown. Take your choice.

13 posted on 02/19/2007 7:09:37 PM PST by liberallarry
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To: liberallarry
Also, I've been a token Lefty on this forum for a long time...which means I serve some useful purpose or am simply a useful idiot, a clown. Take your choice.

You are an honest liberal, and some of us appreciate that. Even if we turn around and seek to whump your butt around as a result of such. :^)

14 posted on 02/19/2007 7:11:04 PM PST by dirtboy (Duncan Hunter 08)
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To: dirtboy
I wouldn't have stayed for so long if I didn't find equal value in views like yours...(and if I didn't have so much fun pounding the idiots when I could find them).

By the way, I got kicked off TPM cafe for suggesting to M J Rosenberg that he was willing to wear a yellow star in his search for peace at any price. :) It was worth it...but I do miss the confrontation. You ought to visit the site. It's quite full of pretentious, self-important masturbators.

15 posted on 02/19/2007 7:19:28 PM PST by liberallarry
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To: neverdem

Looks like the Hedonistic Left are practicing what Communist dictators have perfected: Telling the masses to do one thing while they do something different.


16 posted on 02/19/2007 7:20:29 PM PST by whipitgood (When will the civil war between citizens and illegals begin?)
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To: liberallarry; Spiff; Reagan Man
You ought to visit the site. It's quite full of pretentious, self-important masturbators.

Unfortunatetly, ever since Rudy became a force in 2008 GOP presidential politics, we've had more than our fair share of such on FR. So although I do appreciate the heads up, I'll pass. No need to go elsewhere for what we already have too much of here.

17 posted on 02/19/2007 7:25:17 PM PST by dirtboy (Duncan Hunter 08)
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To: liberallarry
Specifically, the debate over global warming has a real scientific basis - regardless of the political clap-trap surrounding it - as real as the debate surrounding quantum mechanics (with no Einstein arguing the negative).

It does, and the debate goes something like this :

Leftists Who Hate Human Beings : "ONooOooz!!-western civilization SSSUXZand should give us all their money and live in sewage and tinboxes while we travel in private jets and wear little ribbons and they make us do this by being industrious and successful in technology and OOOO NOoooOOz they are destroying our own private Petit Trianons! Kill them all!"

Those who abhor tyranny/socialism/communism/despotism AKA "The Right" : It is a wise thing to conserve our resources (hence CONSERVATIVISM) and nature has BENEFITED from our God-given intelligence and abilities to utilize resources and make a cleaner, brighter, successful future for people who want to leave behind the tin boxes and raw sewage in the streets.

See...I can play the word game too!

18 posted on 02/19/2007 7:27:27 PM PST by Alkhin (star dust contemplating star dust)
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To: liberallarry
refuse to recognize that traditional culture sucks,

Works for me! :-)

19 posted on 02/19/2007 7:30:47 PM PST by x_plus_one (As long as we pretend to not be fighting Iran in Iraq, we can't pretend to win the war.)
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To: liberallarry; neverdem
many on the Right refuse to recognize that traditional culture sucks, that it's brought us intolerance and war and death for centuries...and dysfuncional individuals and families galore (as well as pederast priests and other sickos)

Waiiiiit a minute. We are all intolerant of things and must be. But some are intolerant of people based on their melanin instead of their character and their corresponding actions. Some are intolerant of those who speak truth to evildoers and liars.

War? Democracies and true Republics don't war against each other--totalitarians, fascists and megalomaniacs start wars and the sleeping giants awaken when sufficiently stirred.

Family Values? It's the Left that seeks to corrupt the sexual innocence of toddlers, destroy families and impose lame appeal upon appeal in efforts to prevent the swift sure capital punishment of pederast 'priests' and their ilk -- who are the as the evil fruits of your Italian buddy Antonio Gramsci.
20 posted on 02/19/2007 7:33:19 PM PST by The Spirit Of Allegiance (Public Employees: Honor Your Oaths! Defend the Constitution from Enemies--Foreign and Domestic!)
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