George Rebane
Two sides claiming that 2+2 equals four and five can always find common ground at 4.5 …, which would still be wrong.
Another strong piece of evidence that the ‘consensus science’ behind manmade (anthropogenic) global warming (AGW) continues to be institutionalized fraud is revealed by the National Association of Scholars. NAS takes no position on global warming per se, nor does it opine on regulatory schemes such as imposed by the EPA. What the organization does is review the process of how science is done and what academic standards are applied. In its 6jun14 piece ‘Short-circuiting Peer Review in Climate Science’ the authors disclose the very opaque circle jerk that has been going on among government units like the EPA, NOAA, NASA, … ‘peer reviewing’ each other’s work within a mutually shared political objective and common funding spigot. The bottom line is that the peer review process, much ballyhooed by climate calamatists, has been and remains broken. But that continues to be the best that our central planners can do as they grow the regulatory leviathan. (H/T to Russ Steele for the alert.)
History did not end in 1989 as historian Francis Fukuyama then expounded. The fall of international communism with USSR’s demise and the economic redirection of Red China did not lead to years of international civility and the inevitable spread of democracy. Indeed, as far back as 1997 historians William Strauss and Neil Howe published The Fourth Turning, their wrenching vision of what the next historical cycle has in store for America. Now a quarter century after the fall of the wall, with Islam fighting the west, China building and flexing its military muscle, and Russia expanding its borders, Fukuyama’s thesis needs more than a little dusting off. The good professor has recently gone through a number of ‘I didn’t say it well enough for you to understand’ exercises, the latest being a significant essay – ‘At the End of History still stands Democracy’ – in the 7jun14 WSJ.
In these pages I have argued that democracy – accepting for the moment that history has an ‘end’ – is not at all the likely rosy terminus for the governance of man. You can judge the strength of Fukuyama’s arguments yourself, but one thing that more and more people who think about such things will agree with is that in this century the world’s sovereign nation-states will go through some wrenching changes in how they organize and govern their societies. I have cited multiple works by American socio-political pundits that lay the foundation for such changes – Coming Apart (2012) Charles Murray, Knowledge and Power (2013) George Gilder, Average is Over (2014) Tyler Cowan.
Now we have a major political essay – The Fourth Revolution (2014) – which argues that the next revolutionary change in global governances will be powered by the growth of China and India, and abetted by the self-absorbed softening of the greater debt-ridden west (America, EU, Japan). The book (reviewed here) is written by John Micklethwait and Adrian Woolridge, respectively the editor-in-chief and managing editor of The Economist, one of the world’s most influential and respected ‘newspapers’ (their term), most certainly one of the few remaining profitable products of periodical print journalism left in this day among the growing legions of uninformed.
Micklethwait and Woolridge make the case that “If the state is not radically reformed and reduced, Western democracy could suffer, and the appeal of more innovative authoritarian regimes, notably in Asia, could increase.” Don’t be fooled by the inclusion of the hopeful “could”. I’ll have more to say about this essay in coming days.
[10jun14 update] To doubly underline the dark side of what I have described that the climate calamatists really want is made clear by leftwing pundit Lucia Graves writing unapologetically in the National Journal. It is a socialist autocracy with the president exercising "dictatorial powers". (more here)
[Lucky Strike Extra 10jun14 update] Apropos the new EPA anti-coal regs that will soon hit the street, Warren Buffett is betting heavily that the energy markets will remain mangled for the indefinite future. He has invested $15B in renewable energy enterprises that throw off tax credits to protect profits from his other ventures. Of course, that is just one of the ways that government is mangling this market. The real cost and profitability of renewable energy will remain a mystery for some time to come since it looks like government crutches for the industry will not come off any time soon, if ever. Buffett is so confident that he has long lasting state protection that he’s about to put another $15B (of Berkshire-Hathaway money) on the same square knowing exactly where the little ball will land when the wheel stops.
RR has been tracking the militarization of the nation’s police for some time. Well, boys and girls it is time for the ‘surge’. Now the military has upped the ante and added grenades, 50 cal machine guns, silencers for pistols, rifles, and submachine guns, night vision systems, … to the catalog of surplus freebies from which your local sheriff and police chief can select what is ‘needed’. Yes, the cited need is that strapping on such gear will protect the outgunned police and make sure that they can go home at night – now what upstanding citizen would be against that? The problem is that the police haven’t been outgunned in living memory, and for the last 25 years crime rates (including violent crimes) have been steadily dropping.
Meanwhile the number of SWAT assaults has skyrocketed along with tragic mistakes causing innocent people in their PJs to be shot in the middle of the night. And the local constables now show military style assault videos to get the young bucks juiced to sign up for a career of making life safer for the rest of us. (Now why do I and millions across the land not feel any safer?) Since no one can see a credible threat that requires such hardware and tactics on every main street in the land, some jurisdictions are beginning to get alarmed and push back at their police getting militarily musclebound. And the risk that a cop doesn’t go home at night is much lower than for a dozen other occupations listed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Here are the ten most dangerous jobs.) Things have gotten so bad that even the solidly big government, leftwing NYT has published an alarming summary of what is happening with America’s police. (more here)
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