Together we are a collective bunch of “pro’s” and “anti’s.” Some of us are pro-abortion; some of us are anti-abortion. Some of us are pro-gay marriage; some of us are anti-gay marriage. Some of us are pro-yada-yada-yada; still others are anti-yada-yada-yada. The bottom line is that there are good people who disagree on challenging issues.
The Intramuralist is comfortable with our differing. It’s not my job nor your job nor anyone’s job — nor even anyone’s capability — to be the convictor of truth. No one, my friends, is capable of usurping such a sacred role. What disturbs me, however, is when one works not to “win the argument,” so-to-speak, on the merits of the opinion itself, but instead works tirelessly to squelch opposing opinion. Allow me to borrow from Tuesday’s editorial in USA Today, written by Jonah Goldberg, member of USA Today’s Board of Contributors. Let’s discuss the yada yada yada… [Note that the emphasis will be mine.]
“… A writer for the website Gawker recently penned a self-described ‘rant’ on the pressing need to arrest, charge and imprison people who ‘deny’ global warming. In fairness, Adam Weinstein doesn’t want mass arrests (besides, in a country where only 44% of Americans say there is ‘solid evidence’ of global warming and it’s mostly due to human activity, you can’t round up every dissenter)… Weinstein suggests the government simply try the troublemakers and spokespeople… ‘Those malcontents must be punished and stopped.’
Weinstein says that this ‘is an argument that’s just being discussed seriously in some circles.’ He credits Rochester Institute of Technology philosophy professor Lawrence Torcello for getting the ball rolling. Last month, Torcello argued that America should follow Italy’s lead. In 2009, six seismologists were convicted of poorly communicating the risks of a major earthquake. When one struck, the scientists were sentenced to six years in jail for downplaying the risks. Torcello and Weinstein want a similar approach for climate change…
The truth is this isn’t as new an outlook as Weinstein suggests. For instance, in 2009, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman insisted that ‘deniers’ in Congress who opposed the Waxman-Markey climate change bill were committing ‘treason’ while explaining their opposition on the House floor.
‘The fact is that the planet is changing faster than even pessimists expected,’ Krugman insisted. How fast the earth is changing is open to all kinds of debate, but short of an asteroid strike it won’t change as fast as the global warming pessimists have claimed. For example, in 2008, Al Gore predicted that the North Pole Ice Cap would be ice free by 2013. Arctic ice, which never came close to disappearing, has actually been making a bit of comeback lately.
Gore’s prediction — echoed by then Sen. John Kerry and countless others — was always ridiculous hyperbole. But even most serious, non-hyperbolic, computer-modeled predictions have overestimated the amount of warming we’ve experienced. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has had to retract several histrionic predictions, such as its erroneous prophecy that the Himalayan glaciers would be gone by 2035.
Its new report, out on Monday, contains a new raft of dire prophecies requiring trillions in new spending. If I greet it with skepticism, shall I pack a tooth brush for my trip to jail?
Climate change activists insist that in science, revisions are routine, and that such corrections prove the good faith of scientists. Even if that’s true, one might still note that incentives are unhealthily arranged so that even well-intentioned researchers are encouraged to exaggerate the dangers of climate change and discouraged to criticize hyperbole. Moreover, were it not for the skeptics and deniers, many such corrections would never have been brought to light…
The real problem is that political activists and many leading institutions, particularly in the news media and academia, are determined to demonize any kind of skepticism — about the extent of the threat or the efficacy of proposed solutions — as illegitimate idiocy…”
The point is not the proposed validity of global warming. The point is that it’s foolish to squelch opinion — whatever the yada yada yada.
Respectfully,
AR
Ideas that cannot win on merit in the court of public opinion have no choice but to suppress the other side. But it is fascinating that those who would deny free speech typically call the other side intolerant.