My local county newspaper of 12/6/18 the Macomb Daily featured Progressive Washington Post oped writer Eugene Robinson dutifully championing the latest climate change scaremongering report from the Group of 20 meeting in Buenos Aires.
And this on the heels of the United Nations conference in Katowice, Poland which recently issued the most threatening, dire, catastrophic, doomsday forecast ever for us humans. Ever, ever! I will critique Robinson's oped in a following post. For now I just want to focus on its aim.
This doomsday oped is just another of H.L. Mencken's hobgoblins which governments use to keep its citizens "frightened and thus clamoring to be led to safety." All said hobgoblins of course being imaginary.
When I graduated from High school in 1960 it was acid rain that was going to wipe out the human race unless we humans changed our evil ways and modified our industrial way of life.
That was followed by global cooling which would, yes, kill us all by freezing unless we gave up our evil industrial ways.
At about the same time another hobgoblin "population explosion" was introduced which would see us all die from starvation because we wouldn't be able to feed ourselves, unless of course, we gave up our industrial and technological ways.
Following that was global warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions which would result in the melting of the ice caps and drowning us all unless, again, we get serious about doing away with our industrial society.
Well that didn't come about so global warming had to be morphed into another hobgoblin: climate change. Now they've got us coming and going. Any change in earth's average temperature up or down automatically portends disaster. And, according to these scientists, only the government, an institution with a legal monopoly on the use of force, can save us. What a dream come true for power hungry politicians and money and fame hungry professors and scientists.
Do you see a constant pattern here? Give up our way of life. Relinquish our freedoms. Surrender our rights. Sacrifice.
The Progressives are in no hurry though. These hobgoblins were used to prod the populace into giving up just a little of their freedoms at a time with the creation of government regulatory agencies like the Dept of Energy and the EPA just to name two. These have issued myriad of regulations restricting our freedoms and rights.
Unfortunately, Congress has placed all of these regulatory agencies into the Executive branch which means they are not answerable to Congress. Sure, Congress can hold hearings and even hold individuals in Contempt of Congress. So what? Do those guilty of contempt go to jail? Not that I can see. There is no teeth behind such hearings.
This fact is revealed in the excellent book "Deep State" by Jason Chaffetz former Congressman from Utah. In it Mr Chaffetz shows how the regulatory state pretty much ignores Congress, it's subpoenas, inquiries and even its threats to hold persons in Contempt of Congress.
New to me though is the brazen act of the State Dept requiring a State Dept plant to be present at every meeting between a Congressman and regulatory staff. His job was only to take notes of what was said and report back to the State Dept so they could put their own spin on it. Amazing!
So what does all this mean? To me it means Congress has by piecemeal legislating itself out of existence by abdicating its responsibility to write rights protecting laws in favor of an unelected bureaucracy writing rights violating laws which is what most regulations are.
It also means that all of the controllers that a totalitarian dictator would require to become the next fuhrer or chairman are in place now just waiting for him or her to arrive. It almost happened. Trump's election put a temporary hold on that. The question is, how temporary?
(I deleted a link that did not work)
And this on the heels of the United Nations conference in Katowice, Poland which recently issued the most threatening, dire, catastrophic, doomsday forecast ever for us humans. Ever, ever! I will critique Robinson's oped in a following post. For now I just want to focus on its aim.
This doomsday oped is just another of H.L. Mencken's hobgoblins which governments use to keep its citizens "frightened and thus clamoring to be led to safety." All said hobgoblins of course being imaginary.
When I graduated from High school in 1960 it was acid rain that was going to wipe out the human race unless we humans changed our evil ways and modified our industrial way of life.
That was followed by global cooling which would, yes, kill us all by freezing unless we gave up our evil industrial ways.
At about the same time another hobgoblin "population explosion" was introduced which would see us all die from starvation because we wouldn't be able to feed ourselves, unless of course, we gave up our industrial and technological ways.
Following that was global warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions which would result in the melting of the ice caps and drowning us all unless, again, we get serious about doing away with our industrial society.
Well that didn't come about so global warming had to be morphed into another hobgoblin: climate change. Now they've got us coming and going. Any change in earth's average temperature up or down automatically portends disaster. And, according to these scientists, only the government, an institution with a legal monopoly on the use of force, can save us. What a dream come true for power hungry politicians and money and fame hungry professors and scientists.
Do you see a constant pattern here? Give up our way of life. Relinquish our freedoms. Surrender our rights. Sacrifice.
The Progressives are in no hurry though. These hobgoblins were used to prod the populace into giving up just a little of their freedoms at a time with the creation of government regulatory agencies like the Dept of Energy and the EPA just to name two. These have issued myriad of regulations restricting our freedoms and rights.
Unfortunately, Congress has placed all of these regulatory agencies into the Executive branch which means they are not answerable to Congress. Sure, Congress can hold hearings and even hold individuals in Contempt of Congress. So what? Do those guilty of contempt go to jail? Not that I can see. There is no teeth behind such hearings.
This fact is revealed in the excellent book "Deep State" by Jason Chaffetz former Congressman from Utah. In it Mr Chaffetz shows how the regulatory state pretty much ignores Congress, it's subpoenas, inquiries and even its threats to hold persons in Contempt of Congress.
New to me though is the brazen act of the State Dept requiring a State Dept plant to be present at every meeting between a Congressman and regulatory staff. His job was only to take notes of what was said and report back to the State Dept so they could put their own spin on it. Amazing!
So what does all this mean? To me it means Congress has by piecemeal legislating itself out of existence by abdicating its responsibility to write rights protecting laws in favor of an unelected bureaucracy writing rights violating laws which is what most regulations are.
It also means that all of the controllers that a totalitarian dictator would require to become the next fuhrer or chairman are in place now just waiting for him or her to arrive. It almost happened. Trump's election put a temporary hold on that. The question is, how temporary?
(I deleted a link that did not work)
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