Ignorance Is Strength, Dissent Is Treason - Robert Kennedy goes Orwell.

National Review Online ^ | July 16, 2007 | Marlo Lewis

[neverdem]

July 16, 2007, 6:00 a.m.

Ignorance Is Strength, Dissent Is Treason
Robert Kennedy goes Orwell.

By Marlo Lewis

At last weekend’s Live Earth concert in New Jersey, Robert Kennedy, Jr., a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), charged ExxonMobil and Southern Company with treason, declaring:

The most important thing you can do is to get involved in the political process and get rid of all of these rotten politicians that we have in Washington D.C.—who are nothing more than corporate toadies for companies like Exxon and Southern Company. These villainous companies that consistently put their private financial interest ahead of American interest and ahead of the interest of all of humanity. This is treason and we need to start treating them now as traitors.

The usual punishment for treason is death.

On Neil Cavuto’s show Common Sense, Kennedy insisted that he was accusing of treason only the two corporations he mentioned by name. But that won’t wash. Anyone who collaborates with traitors is also traitorous. Collaborator is just another word for coalition partner. And in Washington, D.C., all politics is coalition politics. Kennedy implicitly accused many individuals and organizations of treason.

Just imagine how Kennedy would conduct a hearing if he ever ends up running a committee of the House or Senate: “Are you now or have you ever been associated with the energy-producing sector of this economy?”

Kennedy’s outburst is just a green variant of what George Orwell, in his famous anti-totalitarian novel, 1984, called “doublespeak.” Big Brother taught that:

War is Peace.
Ignorance is Strength.
Freedom is Slavery.

“Dissent is Treason” would fit in well in that litany — and that is what Kennedy is essentially saying.

A similar Orwellian inversion preached these days by global warming catastrophists is: Balance is Bias. This is the claim that journalists mislead the public by interviewing global-warming skeptics or reporting their views, because the skeptics are on a par with Flat Earthers and Holocaust deniers. This is manifestly self-serving, the objective being to ensure that the public hears from only one-side — the Kennedy-Al Gore side.

Kennedy’s doublespeak is New Left politics recycled. Recall that the New Left began by calling itself a college-campus “free speech movement.” However, their M.O. was to shout down opposing speakers, disrupt classrooms, occupy buildings, and in other ways intimidate and silence those who disagreed with them. When those radical students later became tenured professors, they instituted the politically correct speech codes that stifle intellectual diversity on campuses today.

Kennedy in effect demands a nationwide speech code for global warming. Such disdain for the First Amendment could tempt some to call him a traitor — turnabout being fair play in politics — but that would be wrong.

The Constitution defines the crime very narrowly: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort” (Art III, Sec. 3, emphasis added).

Kennedy is trying to silence his political adversaries by driving the marketplace (politically incorrect energy companies) out of the marketplace of ideas. That may be disloyal to the spirit of the Constitution, but it is not treason. To be guilty of treason, for example, Kennedy would have to become an “American Taliban,” pledge allegiance to Bin Laden, or give aid and comfort to Al Qaeda.

For the same reason, Kennedy’s charge of treason against ExxonMobil and Southern Company is absurd calumny.

However, it would be a mistake to write off Kennedy’s rant as mere bombast or rhetorical excess. It is more likely a window into his belief system. Calling your political opponents traitors makes perfect sense if you see yourself as a combatant in a war. And many eco-activists do seem to view the global warming crusade as a holy war to save the planet, our democracy, even our very souls. Thus, they naturally regard their opponents as villains and traitors.

Yet there is also another, more prosaic explanation. When you cannot sell climate Armageddon and Kyoto on the merits of the case, go ad hominem. Call the other guy a polluter, a corporate toady, a tobacco scientist. Stigmatize policy differences so that nobody dares disagree with you in public. After endlessly ramping up the polemic, you are left with nothing else but to allege treason. When Doctor Johnson said, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” this is precisely the sort of tactic he had in mind.

— Marlo Lewis is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

[neverdem]

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at LIVE EARTH

Kennedy calls "climate change" deniers to be "traitors" guilty of "treason," and that he'll "see all of you on the barricades." The video has been yanked from other websites. If you haven't heard it, click the link before it is yanked there too. It's still working and only 6 minutes long.

[Gay State Conservative]

I’d wager that he’s back on the heroin...if he was ever off of it.

[LibLieSlayer]

kennedy’s are puss boils on the arse of America.

LLS

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

I've seen it. He is legitimately insane. Yet it is the insane who are running this new "religion / political / cultural" system. Dissenters are heretics, agnostics, atheists and cannot be tolerated. Want to see religious intolerance? You just saw it in this idiot's remarks. Yet the problem is that these religious zealots are moving into positions of power throughout the nation and the world.

All who disagree, all who do not accept their Gaia creed are worthy of death. The war is on and it's NOT a shooting war yet - but it will be.

[taxesareforever]

Notice how easy the words “traitor” and “treason” slip off Kennedy’s tongue? First we had Slick Willy and now we have Slick or Slimy Bobby.

[Mad_as_heck]

RFK, Jr is the biggest idiot in the Kennedy family: Quite an accomplishment. At least the Cape Cod Orca is only a drunk...

Since the left has abandoned the last vestiges of everything it ever claimed to believe in I guess this shouldn’t surprise anyone.

[steel_resolve]

we’ve got the guns. Let the shooting war begin.

[BipolarBob]

So Robbie thinks we should . . . what? Nationalize the oil companies. I mean if they’re not for profit entities, what’s left? He’s not very original here either. This is a page out of Castros and Chavezs manifesto. It’s time for the “have a cup of shut the hell up” image for Robbie boy.

[HarleyLady27]

the only people in this world that could be ‘traitors’ are the kennedys....from old joe on down....

[Gay State Conservative]

So Robbie thinks we should . . . what? Nationalize the oil companies.

In spite of his hatred of oil companies (and capitalism in general) he's vigorously opposed to developing a wind farm in Nantucket Sound.

I wish someone would explain that opposition to me.

(end extreme sarcasm)

[Emmett McCarthy]

Boy Howdy have you got that right. But even Ol’ Joe’s father was at best a crook. Utter embarassment to the Irish and to Catholics everywhere - the whole sleazy, slimy bunch, including Jack and Bobby.

[Borax Queen]

RFK, Jr is the biggest idiot in the Kennedy family: Quite an accomplishment. At least the Cape Cod Orca is only a drunk...

Lol! I would just add that the Orca, in my opinion, is THE traitor extraordinaire - of course, RFK would never see that. Purposely dismantling the country's immigration system to favor everyone but Europeans, continually lying about amnesty, allowing in every 3rd world riff-raff to destroy our country... well, I could go on.

[Borax Queen]

In spite of his hatred of oil companies (and capitalism in general) he's vigorously opposed to developing a wind farm in Nantucket Sound.

Nice...

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

Of course we do - which is why their number one goal is to remove weapons from the law abiding citizens of this country. Bill/Hill spent their 8 year term in power doing their best to accomplish this goal....but 1994 happened in Congress and slowed them down. Can you imagine what will happen should her heinous have full presidential power and has the Congress? Am sure Robert Kennedy Jr will be made a "high priest" in this government with power to take care of the heretics......the big oil companies (are already targets of Hillary, for instance) and its employees and its services and all those who cling to the out of date notion that it is a good thing for individuals and families to have personal transportation means that generate co2 emissions.....eventualy making those who do not carpool, who do not take mass transportation, who do not bicycle, who do not walk, enemies of the state......all the while the "elitist" communist party members delight in using all the carbon based fuels they choose to use......as long as they pay to one of their front companies their "indulgences" that forgive these "sins" of co2 emissions.

Remmeber - wrong is called right, right is called wrong, truth is called lies and lies are called truth, and the deception is, apparently, very widespread - making such idiocies LIKELY not ridiculous scenarios....unless those who are united in our "atheism" of this new "religion" stand up and resist NOW - effectively - while we still can.

[Travis McGee]

Did he ever manage to pass the Bar Exam?

[cubreporter]

It’s amazing to me how the kennedy’s could have been great but aren’t. They could have advanced their family into future politics and been real players in this world. Instead...they did everything wrong and have antagonized people and try to make themselves look like they are working for us when in reality all they care about are themselves. They like talking BIG. Their glory days are over. Their own fault too. They are so passe.

[cubreporter]

Are you talking about Robert or the late JFK,Jr? JFK DID pass his bar exam. There are many people who don’t pass it on the first try. JFK Jr was a real gentleman.

[Right Wing Assault]

If I disagree the GW religion, that is treason.

But if a democrat disagrees with the president’s WOT, that is considered patriotic.

[Eric Blair 2084]

Kennedy’s outburst is just a green variant of what George Orwell, in his famous anti-totalitarian novel, 1984, called “doublespeak.” Big Brother taught that:

War is Peace.
Ignorance is Strength.
Freedom is Slavery.

As the official unofficial spokesperson for the Estate of George Orwell, let me just state that while you are correct, what George meant to say was summarized by the editors of Cat Fancy magazine.

[popdonnelly]

Why does this man get an audience? Because his name is Kennedy? So what?