This is not good. I ardently hope that the police will take this seriously. As Mr. Levant supports free speech for everyone – not just a select group of people who think like he thinks – he has ‘ruffled feathers’ in many places.
Yet, as some of the people commenting have pointed out, killing someone is ‘murder’. Advertizing in advance the intent to kill someone is ‘terrorism’!
Sometimes, I have a terrible feeling that the social engineers are attempting to create a Canada which is very much like the good soldier Svejk’s Austro-Hungaria!
Well, perhaps they are not trying, but they sure are succeeding!
Why do I think this?
The novel ‘The Good Soldier Svejk’ by Jaroslav Hasek, widely regarded as the earliest example of modernist writing, is said to be perhaps the first ‘anti-war’ novel ever. Yet, it describes no combat, no killing, no military training….
I don’t think it is an anti-war novel at all. I think, like his contemporary Kafka’s ‘The Castle’, it is anti-bureaucracy novel! It uses humour to explain the ridiculesness of existing in a over-bureaucritized, regulations-trump-common-sense system where humans are merely an afterthought!
And, like it or not, that is what Canada is slowly but surely becoming!
All right, let’s keep the ‘big cases’ tackled by the ‘Human Rights Commissions’ aside for a while, and look at some of the other examples of where ‘bureaucratization’ has replaced normal scoial discourse:
This one, I witnessed with my own eyes, or I might have had a hard time believing it..
A man, obviously ill, produced an invalid publich health insurance card at a medical clinic. The nice lady behind the counter refused his offer to pay to see a doctor: ‘As a resident of Ontario, you are entitled to free health care. So, you are not allowed to pay money to see a doctor. Just go down to the government office, get the problems with your card straightened out, and we’ll be glad to put your name down on the waiting list.’
How nice!
And while I am on healthcare, how about this one…
A elderly gentleman (in his 70’s or 80’s) came to a specialist’s office for his appointment. Being forgetful, he could not find his ‘card’…but did not want to loose the appointment, as he had waited 3 months to get in. The receptionist went into a bit of a panic… Paying was out of question, that would be illegal. Seeing the patient without having the card first – well, they could face big penalties when they got audited (not if, but when – most doctors are audited 2-3 times each year to make sure they adhere to all the government regulations, like appointment length per patient).
After talking to the doctor, she came up with a unique solution: the doctor would see him, no card, no charge, but during his lunch. And it would not be recorded on the official medical chart, so the doctor could not get into trouble with the government.
How insane is that!?!?!
When doctors are afraid of seeing patients because of sanctions by the government, we have Svejk-like bureaucritization of our society!
And don’t let me get started on education, where a kindergarten teacher is not allowed to comfort a child that fell, because it might infringe cultural practices…
The laws tell us what kind of signs we are – and are not allowed – to put up to promote our businesses.
How can one expect humane treatment, when the bureaucratic process becomes more important than people?
But all this is only a tiny, tiny part of the whole machine!
Yes, a bureaucratic machine is the universal result of an overbloated government which continuously attempts to expand its existence by regulating more and more aspects of its citizens’ lives. And, as a rule, bureaucrats tend to be very, very humourless…
Of course, this is where the Human Rights Commissions come in: their role is to keep the machine going by eradicating all semblance of independent thought. After all, independent thought might lead to independent action – and we only want machine government regulated actions around here!
Is it surprising, then, that humour just might be made illegal in Canada?
This guy, Guy Earle, is being dragged through the legal system, because his jokes were ‘hate speech’….here is his account of that saga: (Note – may contain offensive humour/language.)
It seems insane, but the HRCs DO have the right to forbit this man from ever telling a joke again!
Now, I do recall some countries – under some regimes – where people could be jailed for telling jokes. Coincidentally, they all valued bureaucracies over people. Namely, Nazi Germany, Communist Soviet Union and its satellites, and so on.
Oh, and let’s not forget, the Habsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire of the good soldier Svejk!
Yesterday, Mr. Ezra Levant spoke as an expert witness to the US Congress on the topic of human rights, freedom of speech and their erosion through lawfare and ‘soft jihad’. Here is the link to the entire speech, from which come these following excerpts:
“Canadian human rights commissions, however, are not respectful of the sensitivities of all religions. Less politically correct faiths are regularly prosecuted by them. This May, an Alberta pastor named Stephen Boissoin was given a lifetime gag order, never to say anything critical of homosexuality – not in a church sermon, not even in private e-mails. As well, in what can only be called a Maoist verdict, he has been ordered to renounce his religious beliefs, and to publish a self-denunciation in the local newspaper.”
…
“By the way, the truth of what you say is not a defence. And at the Maclean’s magazine trial last month, half a day was spent determining whether their jokes were funny. They even had a joke expert.
Don’t laugh – literally. Just three weeks ago, a comedian was ordered to stand trial for telling off-colour jokes in a night club. Warning to Chris Rock: don’t bother coming to Canada”
…
“Because we didn’t fight for freedom of speech and freedom of conscience for people who were hard to like, now we’re having to fight for those fundamental freedoms for ourselves. It’s always better to fight in the first ditch rather than the last one.
The legal onslaught against freedom of speech and religious pluralism continues. There are 14 human rights commission in Canada, employing 1,000 people, and with an annual budget of $200-million. It’s an industry, and it needs social strife to stay in business. So it positively drums up discontent. This spring in Alberta, 60,000 new immigrants were taught English as a Second Language using a workbook all about how to file grievances, including against un-funny jokes.”
The conclusion of Mr. Levant’s speech is eloquent, and very, very powerful:
So what can Americans do?
1. The first thing you can do is what you always do: continue to monitor the erosion of freedom around the world, including through Congressional committees like this one. Publish annual reports shaming foreign countries for their abuses of freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Put Canada on that list, to let our government know what they’re doing isn’t acceptable.
2. And rededicate yourselves to your First Amendment. Understand that the erosion of freedom doesn’t always happen with a bang – it can happen with a whimper. And that, when it comes to free speech, it’s usually unpopular people who are censored first. But if they can go for a neo-Nazi yesterday, it’s Geno’s Steak House today, and then a Christian pastor or a news magazine tomorrow.
I believe in a pluralist society where I can be Jewish, he can be Christian, she can be Muslim, and we all get along peacefully – we can agree to disagree about political or religious matters. The use of our own Western laws to crush such disagreement, and end healthy debate, is a threat to all of us, and the U.S. Congress should be on guard.”
(All emphasis is Mr. Levant’s)
Brilliant!
In a related development, the very radical Imam who brought a complaint against Mr. Levant and his then magazine, Western Standard – and thus starting the process which had turned Mr. Levant into ‘an expert’ in this field, may indeed be becoming less radicalized… Unless I am much mistaken, this is the very first radical Imam who has actually become more moderate after exposure to our ‘western’ values and publicly said so.
When I initiated my complaint against Mr. Levant, I saw human rights commissions as a non-violent means of resolving differences among Canadians.
I was not aware of the controversies between the commissions and Canada’s faith communities. I am thinking specifically of my friend Fred Henry, the Roman Catholic bishop of Calgary.
Upon learning about the difficulties he and other faith communities have encountered with the commissions, I withdrew my complaint against Mr. Levant.
One of the reasons I chose Canada as my adopted homeland is because of our country’s great respect for religious freedom.
In Canada, I am free to be good Canadian and a good Muslim. There is no contradiction between the two.
In listening to the experiences of Bishop Henry and Pastor Boissoin, I realized how precious religious freedom is to our country and how easily freedom is lost.
Yes, I have often expressed concerns over Islamophobia.
Some of the portrayals of Muslims in the media have been painful – so much so, that I worried when I set out across Canada on the multifaith walk against violence.
However, the reaction from ordinary Canadians could not have been more hospitable. Canadians of all races, colours, religions, and ages have welcomed me, a Muslim man with brown skin, into their homes, their neighbourhoods and their communities.
They have walked with me, eaten with me and prayed with me.
They have expressed strong concern for preserving our civil liberties – which includes freedom of speech and religion.
They have also expressed a strong desire to end violence in Canada and around the world.
This experience has taught me that we can only end violence when we respect the freedom of all Canadians.
There will always be pockets of Islamophobia in Canada, just like there are still pockets of anti-Semitism, racism and sexism.
However, I have learned that the best way to dispel misconceptions between our various cultures and communities is for us to meet face to face and learn from each other’s similarities and difference.
This can only be accomplished in a society that respects freedom of expression, freedom of religion and all of our other democratic freedoms.”
All right, this is not breaking news… not by a long shot. The article is from 2003.
The article is about a University of Toronto project which looked at what websites were being blocked and inaccessible from within various countries. Check out the wording in this quote:
Using ICE, Diebert and his team have discovered that pornography and government criticism are the subjects most frequently blocked by non-democratic countries. China’s blocking techniques keep out everything from Playboy.com to Friends of Falun Gong to the Dalai Lama’s website.
Chinese officials insist such techniques do not amount to censorship.
“We don’t have censorship of the Internet,” said Larry Wu, second secretary for Science and Technology at the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Washington. “Generally, the Chinese government is for the full exchange of information. We have full freedom of speech, freedom of the press. However, we have our own understanding of what is a limitation of the freedom of speech. So we do use techniques to block certain websites, as well as we try to block spam.”
(All emphasis is mine.) What a swell thing to do – nobody likes spam, right?
Also noteworthy quote from a different government’s official:
Nail Al-Jubier, a spokesperson for the Embassy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, admits that his government regulates Internet access.
“The overwhelming number of blocked sites are pornography,” Al-Jubier said. “Some websites that are deemed un-Islamic — those that promote violence — are blocked because of the standards of the community. Some parents don’t want their children going online if these are the things they can see.”
Why is this so interesting now?
It is the old and tired ‘we are not opressing anyone, we are only protecting children – every good parent wants that’ justification for censorship!
Yesterday, at the dentist’s office, I picked up Macleans magazine and read the following story: ‘Guess who’s watching porn’. As a matter of fact, the whole issue was geared that way, including the cover. The editorial was headlined ‘Plug the porn pipeline’ and demanded government action to regulate the internet to prevent this evil.
To be clear, this is not an issue of censorship. The goal should be to prevent children from viewing what may be legally viewed by others. And parents must take responsibility for monitoring their own child’s computer usage. But there is likely a legitimate role for government and industry in tackling this problem, and with luck it won’t require the brigades of bureaucrats that are somehow necessary to managing movies and TV.
Ah, yes. A ‘legitimate role for government and industry’ indeed! This is the same Macleans which has been fighting for the freedom of speech in front of multiple Canadian Human Rights Commissions/Tribunals….
The gist of this legal battle, which has dominated the Canadian news for months? That a ‘potential harm’ is not a justification for censoring the press!!! And now, that same Macleans is arguing that ‘potential harm’ is a justification for censoring the internet???
Ah, but it is for the good of the children! How could any reasonable person oppose something that will protect our children?
So, how could such ‘regulation’ be accomplished? Without censorship, of course, because – what was that phrase?
“We have full freedom of speech, freedom of the press. However, we have our own understanding of what is a limitation of the freedom of speech.”
Yet, many ‘Western’ audiences would not submit to censorship and site blocking this easily. How to go about it? Or, as Marvin from the Buggs Bunny cartoon might say:
The ISPs could offer consumers access to the internet in a new, unique way – the customer could pre-select the sites they want to allow into their homes! These could be bundled – much like today’s cable TV is bundled – and they could pick which bundle they’d like! Wouldn’t this be swell, to increase the customer choices like this???
Of course, being a large, well-established Canadian magazine, Macleans would make it into the ISPs bundles. Its competition – not as likely.
Oh joy!
As long as we have that freedom of speech and freedom of the press – and increased customer choices in one swell move, how could we possibly complain? No, I really mean – HOW??? We would no longer have means of being heard!
There is so much happening in the whole wide world! And the blogosphere makes it all so easy to access.
The internet is truly changing our society. Not just within our town, or within our countries – it is truly allowing people from all ‘corners of the world’ to build up a common pool of knowledge. I truly think that the blogosphere is one of the most effective tools driving this change for the better. (As a matter of fact, that is why, few months ago, I decided to join it!)
The blogosphere is not merely a communication tool, it is a completely new ‘animal’.
It may facilitate the exchange of information, but it is not just the sort of ‘information’ that ‘reading the same newspaper’ or ‘watching the same newscast’ could convey. After all, as the mainstream media (msm) had already discovered, transmitting factual information is only a part of any ‘story’. While the msm has attempted to ‘flesh out’ their stories by including that ‘human experience’ factor, their medium is uniquely unsuitable to such a job. Instead of adding dimension to their coverage of world events, they end up appearing to be manipulating the emotional context and reducing ‘news’ to ‘gossip’.
Add to this that many new journalists are being taught in school to put emphasis on ‘reporting the news and facts and presenting them in a manner which will indicate to the audience what their appropriate response should be’. In other words, the very journalists whom we used to rely on to report unbiased facts only are being taught in journalism schools to be the tools of social engineers…
No wonder the msm are becoming irrelevant!
The blogosphere, on the other hand, is actually really, really good at adding a real human dimension to what is happening in the world around us.
Why?
Because it is so highly interactive! Because it is made up of millions of individuals! Individuals from ALL over the world, with all kinds of backgrounds, all points of view!
That is what makes the blogosphere so powerful!
I do not have to rely on some pretty/serious/demure/outraged face on TV to tell me how people on the other side of the world ‘feel’ about some event. I don’t have to read a ‘cookie-cutter’ story with a preset word-count, surrounded by pointless ads, the ink of which is bound to come off on my fingers. If I don’t like the slant of the story, or if I notice factual inaccuracies, I don’t have to be one of thousands of phone calls or emails or letters-to-editor, hoping, despite the odds, to be noticed…
Instead, I can go and look for a real live blogger (OK, I only access their virtual personnas’ posts, but I find these represent a real person, who can use the internet as a shield – and thus expose more of their ture self than they would ever dare in a person-to-preson interaction) who actually is from that part of the world. And it is not somebody who makes a living from ‘how’ they report the event – which necessitates ‘offocial spin’. Yes, there will necessarily be ‘personal spin’ – as in, it will reflect the person’s perceptions and understanding of what happened and thoughts and emotions about it. But they will actually be ‘that person’s’!
And I can go to many bloggers there – and get many different individual points of view. If I don’t understand things, I can post a comment – and usually get answers that are very useful and educational….and very personal. And if I like that blogger, I am likely to re-visit the site from time to time – just to keep in touch with what is happening in that part of the world and what is happening with that blogger.
That makes a world of difference.
In a very real sense, the ‘bloggers of the world’ establish a virtual community.
We may never meet in person, but that is not necessary to develop an empathy, an understanding – to let them into our monkeysphere! That means we begin to perceive ‘our familiar bloggers’ as people, as individuals. All of a sudden, should a tragedy occur in a faraway place, the body count is not just a statistic: these are our virtual friend’s families!
It is impossible to overstate the incredible power in the combination of being able to access uncensored information and points of view along with establishing social bonds with people all over the world!
After all, it always affects us much more deeply if a wrong happens to someone we are connected to than if it happens to a stranger….
Now, we not only learn what happened, we know it happened to someone connected to our social network. One of us. Without these social bonds, most of us would lack the depth of desire to affect change.
During successful wars, the governments/rulers kept tight control over the flow of information – and used propaganda to dehumanize the ‘enemy’ into an abstraction! Only then could they manipulate people into a war… Large partof the US military failure in Vietnam was due to the fact that the American people were recieving more uncensored information from the frontlines than ever before.
Make no mistake, this lesson has been learned by opressors everywhere!
It is not surprising, then, that censors and manipulators and social engineers are all waging a war on the blogosphere!
In Canada, it is in the gray drab of bureacratic HRCs which ban people from ‘ever expressing their opinions or thoughts or emotions’ on a subject…. They appear to follow a clear, well defined process, but use this process to bring financial ruin to those whose opinions they disapprove of, and silence them thus.
The ‘blogosphere‘ may be be a virtual community, but the social connections it creates are very, very real. These connections cross boundries: political, cultural, linguistic, + + +… In a very real sense, the blogosphere transends these boundries and makes them irrelevant.
This threatens all those who would control their populace, forcing them to adhere to only one ideology (regardless of what the particular ideology may be), limiting them to access only those opinions approved by these rulers. Yet, like Pandora’s box, once the lid was opened and people realized the vast possibililties the blogosphere presented, closing the blogs down, or filtering them, was not enough to slam the lid back down. Those who would control now had to ‘neutralize’ those who had peeked in…
Thus, many opressors are going after bloggers themselves.
Here, in Canada, we face only minor punishments: monetary penalty, perhaps a lifelong gag order (!)against ever ‘expressiong oneself’ on or about a particular topic… This is enough of a threat to our inherrent right to freedom of speech from our own bureaucratic opressors, but it is nothing comparing to what our counterparts in other parts of the world are facing!
Here is the unpleasant bit of news from ‘Global Voices’, and another from ‘Daily Tech’ (this one includes the original cartoon), Khaleej Times Online, thought many other sources have picked up on it, too.
Earlier this year, Iranian bloggers had been asked to register each and every blog on a specific government site. Fearing this will be a tool to prosecute/persecute them, many bloggers refused to comply. Predictably, bullies feel threatened by anyone that stands up to them. This show of backbone by the bloggers could not go uncrushed by that opressive regime…
Last Wednesday, Iranian parlilament has agreed to discuss adding ‘disturbing mental security in society’ to such crimes as rape, kidnapping and armed robbery: all capital crimes.
Apparently, blogging could ‘disturb‘ this ‘mental security in society’ if it were to ‘promote prostitution, corruption or apostasy‘. In the sense used here, the term ‘apostasy’ applies to anything that is not in full agreement with the views and policies of the ruling Ayatollahs.
According to the strict interpretaions of Islam in Iran (and other Muslim countries), apostasy is punishable by death, as per Koran, chapter 4 (Al-Nisa), verse 90 (partial quote):
“If they turn away [from Islam], then sieze them and kill them wherever you find them…”
That is not such only quote in the Koran, just the one which is best known. From its past behaviour, it is also clear that the current regime in Iran is using the very strictest possible interpretation of the Islamic scriptures and imposing death sentences on people it deems to be ‘apostates’. Of course, the Iranian regime is abusing the scriptures in order to silence its political opposition and to stifle legitimate political debate among its populace.
This is how that twisted reasoning goes:
The government is headed by the highest religious authority, the Ayatollahs.
Questioning the government’s policy is therefore questioning the Ayatollahs.
Questioning the Ayatollahs, the highest authority on Islam, is questioning Islam itself,
Questioning Islam, by the Ayatollahs’ definition, is apostasy.
… and apostasy is a capital crime.
Q.E.D.
But Iran is not the first country to make such a move!
Last April, Yemen passed a similar law. Under this law, bloggers whose blogs are deemed to be ‘inciting hatred’ (does the wording sound familiar) could face death penalties. Here are some quotes from ‘Mideast Youth‘:
Walid Al-Saqaf, the administrator of YemenPortal.net which has been blocked in Yemen since January of this year, has just sent this very alarming news to his friends and colleagues:
“This week, the government’s Minister of Information threatened to file lawsuits against news websites on the justification of ‘inciting hatred’ or ‘harming national interests’ and the other usual excused they often use to prosecute journalists. The threat is even more severe for websites because the government would use the penal code instead of the press law. This means that website owners could get up to death penalties.”
Report in Arabic:
وحذر مصدر مسؤول في المركز من خطورة مثل التصريحات التي توحي بتوجه رسمي لزج الصحافيين والمخالفين بالرأي إلى السجون وتشديد الخناق عليهم بتطبيق قانون العقوبات الذي يحتوي على عقوبات قد تصل حد الإعدام
Having re-read my post, it seems to me that the idea Blazing was getting at was burried at the bottom of the post…even though this is something I really, really think is important. So, perhaps it will not seem too egotistical if I pull up that portion of the original post and repeat it here:
In times when so many immigrants live in self-imposed ghettos, it is important for those of us who have succeeded in integrating into our host cultures to share our experiences and insights. It is imperative that we go out of our way to help all other immigrants – not just those from out specific background – succeed the way we have, so they, too, may enjoy all that our new homeland has to offer us!
It is just as important that we do identify ourselves as immigrants to ‘the mainstream culture’ – in order to make people see that immigrants CAN successfully integrate! And, of course, to reassure them that we came here BECAUSE of thier culture and customs, and that we, the immigrants, want them preserved at all costs!!!
Therefore, it is also imperative that we, the well-adjusted immigrants, oppose most vehemently and most vocally the erosion of values in the cultures of our adoptive homelands!!! We are the ones who MUST LEAD the forces that protect the cultures and customs whose protections we sought when we were the most vulnerable!
After all, this is the only way we will be able to preserve our host cultures! We have NOT picked them lightly, we picked them because we liked them.
Perhaps each and every immigrant is not completely comfortable with all aspects of the host culture, but the whole is what we came for, and this whole cannot exist without the bits we are not all that comfortable with….so we must protect ALL OF IT!!!!
All right, I know I am ranting now – but, well, this is something really, really important!
I do not wish to loose all that my adoptive homeland has to offer – especially its culture! I came here for the benfits the ‘Western culture’ of individualism has to offer – and I’ll be damned if I don’t do everything in my power to preserve it for my children to enjoy!!!
The Internet is the one tool in the hands of us, the ordinary people which allows us access to a wide variety of information and opinions. It empowers us, so we are able to form opinions which are truly our own.
After all, most of us are not able to explore every aspect of science and society (and all that) all on our own! If I spend my time in the lab, chances are I will not be able to travel to far off places to see what is happening there. And, if there is no news-source to tell me that, say, a brand new type of car fuelled by water has been invented in Brazil, it just might not occurr to me to be dissatisfied with my gas-guzzler here….
The internet corrects this. It allows me to search all kinds of sites, read things written by people from all over the world, with all kinds of opinions. Raw and unfiltered… so I must learn to differentiate between supportable fact and fanciful notions or downright manipulations, but – again – the internet enables me to do that. I learn a lot by doing this.
Yet, perhaps, even before my younger son gets to high-school, this may no longer be the case….
Thanks to Blazing Catfur, here is a truly scary piece of information:
“The plans made by the large telecom businesses would change the Internet into a cable-like system, where customers sign up for specific web sites, and must pay to see each individual site beyond a certain point. Subscription browsing would be limited, extra fees would be applied to access out-of-network sites. Many sites would be blocked altogether. “
…
“The plans would in effect be economic censorship, with only the top 100 to 200 sites making the cut in the initial subscription package. Such plans would likely favor major news outlets and suppress smaller news outlets, as the major news outlets would be free (with subscription), and alternative news outlets, like AFP, would incur a fee for every visit.”
…
“Marketing and big budget ‘content-pushing’ just doesn’t seem to work on the Internet, and this is something that several industries want fixed. ISPs know this and will benefit greatly by fixing this for the marketing and entertainment industry,”
In other words, the internet will no longer be what it is now. No more ‘surfing’. Instead, the internet might – in effect – become no more than an extention of the current cable-subscription service/directed advertizing.
The ISPs will be paid by the ‘richest’ sites (which will increasingly include specific TV shows and other ‘big-budget’ mass-media entertainment) to include their websites on the ‘package’ of 50/100/200 websites, much as entertainment channels are now sold in ‘bundles’. If one wishes to go to other sites, they will either be ‘billed per visit’, or (depending on the ‘package’ one can afford to purchase from the ISP, all other sites will be blocked.
Yes, blocked.
But, even if you could access them ‘per visit’ – how many sites do you check on a daily basis? For fun, news, entertainment? 5? 10? 50?
How many would you visit if it cost you $1.00 each time you went on?
And, if people can no longer afford to frequent all but the richest, most ‘influential’ (with ISPs, of course) websites, how long before most of the rest become obsolete…extinct???
And who will then control the majority of the content seen on the internet? It will be the entertainment industry! The very same people who have already bougth full or partian control of so much of our news industry.
Well, at least there will be consistency…
Our movies and TV shows will show the proper ‘moral’ lesson to go along with the ‘news’ and the ‘internet chatter’ of the day. The ‘social engineers’ at the helm of these multinational corporations (which is what the big entertainment companies are now) will have unprecendented power over the opinions we, the ‘unwashed masses’, are able to form.
Is this an isolated move?
I wish it were…. But with the ‘stuff’ that has been happening all around the world, aimed at intimidating, limiting and regulating the expressions of free speech on the internet, this appears to be only one little step in the march towards internet collectivism….
If anyone were not yet convinced that the ‘Global Warming Alarmism’ is anything but a new religion, its missionaries have stepped up to remove any lingering doubts doubts.
Few months ago, Canada’s high priest of the ‘Church of Global Warming’ himself, Dr. David Suzuki, had delivered a series of speeches in which he openly called for the jailing of those who disagree with his views on Global Warming. Dr. Suzuki is a geneticist, and apparently, these credentials qualify him as the leading authority on Climate Change.
Applying this logic, an ornithologist would be qualified to assess building codes for earthquake-prone areas and a meteorologist is qualified to work as an obstetrician. After all, they are all ‘scientists’!!!
Just imagine…
But, I digress…
Is it surprising, then, that one of the founders of the ‘Church of Global Warming’, James Hansen, is doing much the same? Lubos Motl, from The Reference Frame, has analyzed this and makes some very insightful points:
“…when it is already clear that his predictions have been bunk since the very beginning, James Hansen wants trials against oil firm chiefs who help to allow the people to understand that the predictions have been incorrect.”
…
“…when you start to see fringe pseudoscientists who not only want to use their subjective, sensationalist, and mad visions and personal interests to unseat all inconvenient CEOs and Congressmen – another explicitly formulated desire of Mr Hansen – but you also see that they seem to have a clique of misinformed or equally evil collaborators who have been partially successful, I am telling you: This is a damn serious situation that should be solved unless you want to repeat some truly black pages from the history.”
It is not the beliefs or opinions themselves which identify someone as a ‘radical religionist’, it is the fanticism of their belief that it is their duty to remove all obstacles to re-shaping society according to their own visions.
Wikipedia (a great place to start info searches) says, under ‘political radicalism’, that:
‘The 19th century AmericanCyclopaedia of Political Science asserts that “radicalism is characterized less by its principles than by the manner of their application”.’
And that certainly includes the politico-religious extremists spreading the AGW creed.
This is indeed the threat facing us today: radicalization of religions.
And any set of prescribed ‘truths’ which are ‘unquestionable’ by its adherents is a religion. In keeping with the original meaning of the word ‘religios’, it is a belief system which tieseffects to specific causes. These causes need not be supernatural, but they may be.
We are used to thinking of ‘religion‘ as ‘worship’ of ‘supernaturalgod/creator/force/consciousness’, but this is only one face or ‘religion’. Rather, it is the fact that there exist some certain ‘tennets’ or ‘beliefs’ or ‘principles’ that are seen as powerful, influential or important enough to be singled out for ‘special attention/worship’ and which may not be questioned that turns a simple ‘belief system’ or philosophy into a religion.
So, it really does not matter WHAT the particular religion teaches. It does not matter whether this religion is Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Secular Humanism, or Global Warming Alarmism. The teachings/beliefs themselves are really not the point…
It is the RADICALIZATION bit that is the problem. It is the WAY in which the ‘radicalized believer’ truly and honestly believes that unless they impose their own beliefs on others, regardless of the cost, the whole society will come to an end/be punished/destroyed. It is their depth of conviction that they are the only ones who are right and that it is their duty to institutionalize their beliefs which poses the real danger.
THAT is radicalization, and THAT is the problem. We need to stop confusing ‘symptoms’ with ’causes’….
Xanthippa's Chamberpot 