Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., says he wants a law to punish politicians who dissent from man-made climate change theory — and calls them “contemptible human beings.”
Kennedy made the remarks in an interview with Climate Depot at a climate march in New York last Sunday. [Source: CNSNews.com 9/22/14 and climatedepot.com; you can also find the video on You Tube.]
First of all, have you noticed how advocates of global warming have shifted their dogma from “global warming” to “climate change”?
Back in the 1970s, environmentalists looked at inconclusive data and shouted, “We’re entering another ice age.” In the 1990s and early 2000s, they looked at equally inconclusive data (not all scientists agree) and shouted, “The earth is warming.” Since then, some new data has emerged to suggest that maybe we’re not in global warming, after all.
In other words: They don’t really and honestly know. Science is a difficult process, and it will take decades or centuries — maybe longer — to establish scientific principles about the nature of the earth’s climate.
Science and technology can barely project the weather three days ahead. How can we — with any any level of certainty — be expected to have enough clarity right now about the earth’s climate? In order to … do what, exactly? Completely transform and reorganize (what’s left of) the private economy in favor of the priorities of particular politicians? Could it be possible that the politicians are more concerned with having an excuse to exercise their economic and social priorities, more than any real urgency, fueled by certainty, about the temperature of the earth a century or two into the future?
Speculation and theorizing are one thing. Treating theories as already definitive facts is completely different. However, this is an inconvenient truth for people with political agendas. People with political agendas wish to have the government involved in virtually every area of human life, none the least of which fuel and energy consumption. Hysteria first over a new ice age, then global warming, and now unspecified “climate change” provides a convenient methodology for doing so — if you can just get people to believe.
By and large, most people can be persuaded to believe. “Gee, Phil. Sure was a hot summer this year. Must be global warming.” Or, “I can’t think of the last winter when we had so much snow, Myrtle. Golly, I guess it’s that climate change they’re talking about. Must be true, what they’re saying over there in D.C.”
It’s hard to imagine anything less rational and scientific than this sort of mentality. Yet this is exactly what RFK Jr. and his political equivalents count on in ramming transformative (translation: anti-freedom) legislation down our throats in the name of “the environment.”
What throws petty little mini-fascists (offspring of the real deal) like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. into a mind-numbing rage is a soul-draining terror that not everyone will believe them.
People, especially people like the Koch brothers who have a lot of money and can therefore spread opposing ideas, seem like a mortal threat to those terrified of dissension. The truth might get out there. Or, at least challenges to the prevailing and established opinion might become just as prevalent as the established and recieved “wisdom.”
Kennedy’s solution? Silence them. Throw them in jail.
In the video, Kennedy comments that he doesn’t think you can do that. But clearly he wishes you could. And if there’s justice in the world, as he defines it, we presumably will.
Does this not sound like fascism to you? If not, then what would it take for you to label somebody a fascist or a totalitarian?
Kennedy Jr. reportedly accused skeptical politicians of “selling out the public trust.” He says, “Those guys are doing the Koch Brothers’ bidding and are, against all the evidence of the rational mind, saying global warming does not exist. They are contemptible human beings. I wish there were a law you could punish them with. I don’t think there is a law that you can punish those politicians under.”
Have we reached a point — in the USA, of all places — where someone who disagrees with you about a matter of science or ethics should be fined or imprisoned, while someone who agrees with you is OK? Remember that RFK Jr. is not suggesting that Hollywood celebrities who support environmentalist causes, or billionaire George Soros who supports pro-environmentalist candidates, should go to jail. He might as well be saying, “If you spend a lot of money spreading ideas with which I agree, then you’re legal. But if you spend a lot of money spreading ideas or opinions I don’t like, we should put you in jail.”
If we haven’t reached that point, then where are all the progressives, Obama supporters and others who claim to believe in freedom of speech and thought to be found in response to RFK Jr.’s comments?
“I think it’s treason. Do I think the Koch Brothers are treasonous, yes I do,” Kennedy explained.
“They are enjoying making themselves billionaires by impoverishing the rest of us. Do I think they should be in jail, I think they should be enjoying three hots and a cot at the Hague with all the other war criminals,” Kennedy declared.
Hmm. It sounds to me like Kennedy is making a case for redistributing wealth here, not for anything having to do with the earth’s temperature. It sounds like his issue is more with billionaires than the rise of the oceans or the melting of ice caps.
As for impoverishing the rest of us, environmentalist legislation (“cap and trade”) will simply restrict oil production even more than it already is, resulting in higher prices and/or, ultimately, rationing. Just like all government measures aimed at control instead of freedom, liberty and innovation. Of course, that won’t bother millionaires like the Kennedys, Hollywood celebrities or other rich environmentalist supporters. They’ll still get to imagine themselves soulful warriors, and they’ll just keep blaming the rich guys who don’t give money to political candidates in favor of expansive government controls.
I don’t understand this fixation on the Koch Brothers. They have a lot of money and they give to candidates who don’t agree with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s political positions. So what? How is this a basis for treason and prison time? There are far more millionaires, billionaires and celebrities who give money to Obama and other candidates whose positions Kennedy likes. How is one treason, and the other acceptable?
What we’re talking about here is dictatorship. Kennedy might stop short of proposing legislation to throw people who don’t share his position on climate change into jail. But he’s owning up to his frustration about the fact that there isn’t (yet) such a law; and that there certainly should be, in his view.
Kennedy Jr. claims to defend reason and rationality. If he’s so certain that reason and rationality are on the side of the ever-shifting climate change dogma, then why must he propose prison for those who dissent or question? If people who question his scientific conclusions are as plainly irrational as a flat-earther, or a Moon-landing denier, or a 9/11-denier, then why is he so afraid of differing opinions?
If you’re right about something, and if you know you’re right, then dissenting opinion is not a threat. If you’re wrong — or deep down you believe you’re wrong — then it’s another story.
The fact that “progressives” like RFK Jr. are so determined to silence dissension tells us a lot, not only about further threats to freedom of speech in the near future; but on the mentality of those making the threats.
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