On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 12:31 AM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > On 11/9/2013 3:09 PM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >> >> On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 9:55 PM, meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: >>> >>> On 11/9/2013 9:37 AM, spudboy...@aol.com wrote: >>> >>> Brent, my analogy, however badly its thought-up, is to force the >>> idealists >>> to produce. My idea was to force the idealist back to painful reality and >>> hard choices, rather then mentally living in La La land. Saying "Oh >>> they're >>> working on solar and soon.." >>> >>> >>> How about forcing the libertarians to painful reality. They're going >>> through the six stages of denial: >>> >>> 1. There is no global warming. >>> 2. The science is uncertain. >>> 3. There's global warming but it's just a natural cycle. >>> 4. Global warming will really be good for us. >>> 5. It's too costly to stop global warming. >>> 6. Nothing can be done. >>> >>> Most of them I know are stuck around 3 or 4 now. They're hoping to delay >>> any action so they can get to 6. Why? Because they'd rather face >>> extinction than admit there are some things that you need government to >>> do. >> >> Brent, >> >> Out of curiosity: why do you care so much about what libertarians >> think? They are a small minority. I believe most are very much aware >> that big government is here to stay. Most people in the western world >> vote for some variation of a conservative or liberal party, both >> statist. >> >> Surely if you are right, and global warming is an existential threat, >> and government intervention is the only way to solve it, what >> libertarians think should be quite low in your list of concerns no? > > > Except that they have a disproportionate voice in the public debate because > their message is amplified by monied interests who depend on fossil fuel > (e.g. the Koch brothers). There was only a small number of lawyers, > publicists, and scientists who claimed that: > > 1. Smoking has nothing to do with lung cancer. > 2. There may be a relation but the science is uncertain. > 3. Lung cancer just occurs naturally. > 4. There are new, healthier cigarettes. > 5. It will hurt the economy to limit cigarettes. > 6. People should be free to smoke if they want to. > > and they delayed any government action against smoking for forty years. In > fact some of them are *exactly* the same people hired to spread doubt about > global warming. To undertake big government action in a democracy you need > a solid majority in the populace. As long as libertarians and oil companies > can sow doubt that's enough to prevent any action.
Come on Brent... You really want to believe... The reason why Bush or Obama or any other President or government in the current system do not take actions that hurt big corporations is that these big corporation fund their careers and campaigns. Once they get in power, the corporations own then. They are not innocent by any means, and they clearly just want the position. If they didn't they would resign once they realised that they won't be able to do any of the things that they supposedly stand for. Are you really going to tell me, with a straight face, that if you managed to convince the libertarians that they should like government more, then the mainstream politicians would start taking measure that could hurt big corps.? Look, I hope global warming is not that serious, because if it is, it's game over. Big government is most definitely not going to solve it. I think you know this too. There isn't a magical point where to government gets so big that it starts doing the right thing. If it's very small, at least there's less opportunity for the already ultra-rich to further their interests with our tax-money, like they do at the moment. Telmo. > > Brent > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
