--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jst...@...>
wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Richard M"
<compost1uk@> wrote:
> >
> > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend"
<jstein@> wrote:
> > >
> > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "shempmcgurk"
<shempmcgurk@>
> > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > No Laughing Matter
> > > > By: Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson
> > > > FrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, July 02, 2009
> > > <snip>
> > > > For years, fiscal discipline has been eroding in
> > > > Washington, but President Obama has increased
> > > > government spending with reckless abandon as the
> > > > leviathan government absorbs more and more of the
> > > > private sector.
> > >
> > > It appears that the good Dr. Hendrickson has been
> > > on Mars for the past year, and since his return
> > > nobody has bothered to tell him there's been a
> > > financial crisis and a massive recession.
> > >
> > > In his NYTimes column today, Nobel Prize-winning
> > > economist and Princeton professor Paul Krugman
> > > urges a third stimulus bill and notes that fear
> > > of spending and debt in the current economic
> > > situation are absurd:
> > >
> > > "It has been a rude shock to see so many economists
> > > ...lending their names to grossly exaggerated claims
> > > about the evils of short-run budget deficits. (Right
> > > now the risks associated with additional debt are much
> > > less than the risks associated with failing to give
> > > the economy adequate support.)"
> >
> > I can't say I'm predisposed to take this chap as
> > seriously as I perhaps should.
> >
> > As a Brit I find Krugman's support for Gordon Brown,
> > our Great Helmsman, inexplicable. He appears to think
> > Brown "saved the world financial system" and has
> > since urged British voters not to support the
> > opposition. Oh dear.
>
> Can't comment, don't know enough about Brown or
> about Krugman's thinking about him.
>
> > And what's this?
> >
> > (On the Waxman-Markey climate-change bill) "...as I
> > watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn't
> > help thinking that I was watching a form of treason
> > treason against the planet.
> >
> > To fully appreciate the irresponsibility and immorality
> > of climate-change denial, you need to know about the
> > grim turn taken by the latest climate research."
> >
> > That's just silly in my view (and not well-informed).
> > Not because one or t'other view is right, but for its
> > glib intemperateness.
>
> It's a bit shrill, but he's a passionate guy (and
> much better informed than most). Then again, we have
> Shemp accusing those who support the fight against
> global warming of being mass murderers. I can't
> recall having seen you object to that.
Fair cop. Schemp, you are a very bad man (if you said that).
> I don't know if Krugman's religious, but Judaism is
> *very* big on stewardship as part of *Tikkun Olam*,
> repairing the world:
>
> "God showed Adam all the trees in the Garden of Eden
> and said: `See how beautiful and perfect are my works!
> All that I created, for you I have created. Do not
> abuse or destroy my world. For if you do, there is no
> one to repair it after you'" (Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:28).
>
> Tikkun Olam is a cultural imperative even for many
> secular Jews.
>
> If one (Jewish or otherwise, religious or otherwise)
> takes stewardship seriously, and one is convinced
> global warming is a genuine crisis, then "a form of
> treason [in the sense of betrayal of a trust] against
> the planet" isn't all that intemperate as a
> characterization of the deniers.
It's an interesting and perhaps revealing 'take'. But
Krugsman's source of kudos is supposed to be as a
representative of the rationalist, scientific wing of human
thought. His Nobel prize wasn't awarded for services to
religion.
Some militant atheists blame religion for most of our woes and
conflicts. I don't think that's entirely fair, but where they
DO have a point is when religious zeal overshadows one's sense
of fallibility.
A nobel prize winner for a scientific discipline SHOULD be a
fallibilist IMO, and especially so if the "science" is
Economics(!). But a sincere fallibilist would never be capable
of generating the heat of certainty that would power the kind
of bluster Krugman emits here ("Deniers, "traitors" and other
assorted codswallop).
It's about being able to disagree with people without
demonising them. I can't see what's so difficult about that.
Looks like "Nobel prize winner" is fast becoming a devalued
currency.
> What he was so angry about in that column, of course,
> is not that some people say global warming isn't a
> threat, but that so many of them are appallingly
> ignorant and even irrational--and there are quite a
> few of those in Congress who are voting against
> climate change legislation. (For many of them, it's
> not even a scientific or economic issue, it's just
> a political issue. Democrats want the bill, so
> they'll vote against it. Of course, there are some
> ignorant Democrats too.)
Neither side of this debate has a monopoly on ignorance and
irrationality. That's for sure.
