Louise Gray of the Telegraph reports:
Speaking in Copenhagen on Sunday Tony Blair, the former prime minister, said the world must take action on climate change even if the science is not correct.
What the deuce?
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#133, It is not impossible to prove a negative.
Sigh. You really need to get an education.
#134, Omnipotent state… I’m still chuckling. 🙂
Chuckle all you want. It’s a fact. It may not be there yet, but it is heading that way. You can’t do anything in this country without a license. If that isn’t omnipotent, I don’t know what is.
Re: #106, bobbo, thanks for the civil reply. I understand your concerns about the possible negatives… I agree with them… just not as strongly as you. Why? because in order to make a rational decision, I have to be presented both sides of the argument.
I see the climate change as a drug which contains hundreds of chemicals. A person of great influence (IPCC) steps up and says that the drug will harm parts of you because of X chemical. Nothing is said about the other chemicals. Someone of almost no influence says “wait a minute”, how does Z interact with X? Does it lesson the effects? Does it change them to to a cure? What do the other elements do? For instance, both R and K repairs part of you. The person of great influence says “shut up” this discussion is over. I am only concerned with X.
Analogies are very difficult to create, but I hope you can see my reasoning. I can tell you that if the IPCC weren’t so secretive with their data, if they weren’t afraid to show the graph I request, if they weren’t so unsure of themselves as to NOT lay all the cards on the table to show that the cons outweigh the pros and that their pan of action is the best course to take… I would be willing to take their side on this.
I’ve been scammed before, to a tune that would make your head spin, by people I trusted and who you would expect to be able to trust. I learned something valuable from that experience.
#137 Chuckle all you want. It’s a fact. It may not be there yet, but it is heading that way. You can’t do anything in this country without a license. If that isn’t omnipotent, I don’t know what is.
Licensure, when done correctly, is a good way to leverage the knowledge of the few to the benefit of the many. With licensure, I don’t have to be an expert at everything from heart surgery to car repair. Instead, We The People hire experts to set up tests, and make sure that everyone that wants to provide a service passes that test. That way, whichever provider I choose I can be confident that they’re competent.
Now, I realize Libertarians hate that. You’d rather we have the “freedom” to go to any provider who hangs out a shingle. And then if our daughter dies because an incompetent doctor botches a surgery, we have the “freedom” to sue him. And in Libertarian world, if a doctor kills enough people and gets sued enough, he goes out of business. Yay.
In the real world, I prefer the proactive, preventive approach. Rather than wait for the doctor to kill lots of people before he’s found out to be a fraud, I’d rather we find out he’s a fraud up front and prevent him from practicing. But I understand Libertarians prefer that the quack be given the “freedom” to kill as many people as he can get away with.
And you wonder why Libertarians are ridiculed.
And of course, if licensure is corrupted by big money, it becomes a way to stifle competition and jack up prices. But that means we fix the corruption, we don’t throw out licensure altogether. Baby, bath water, etc.
Yay. I get to be #141.
#140, Um, I am also talking about licenses to get married, to start a business, drive, fish, hunt, etc.
#142 OK, so you agree with me that doctors should be licensed? Won’t they take away your Libertarian membership card and secret decoder ring if you do? 😉
You want I should run down the list on why licenses are a good idea for those others too? This isn’t the primitive wild wild west any more, you know. I damn well want to make sure someone driving 6000 pounds of steel and rubber is capable of controlling it, else he might run me over, or my family. Your “freedom” to f*ck up has the potential to harm lots more people than yourself since the colonial days. One of the downsides of advanced technology. Lots fewer people killed in buggy accidents.
Zoning laws: curbs your freedom to open a strip joint/liquor store next to an elementary school. Bummer. Why do those parents hate freedom so much?
Yes, lots of freedoms are curtailed as civilization develops. You can maximize your freedom by finding some pre-industrial society to live in. I doubt that many of us would make that trade.
#143, Yes, lots of freedoms are curtailed as civilization develops.
Yes, lots of freedoms are curtailed as fascists civilizations develop. Why do you hate freedom so much?
#143, Phydeau,
Just to add to your very pertinent and well articulated post,
The balance is restraint on the unrestricted advantage of the seller versus the protection of the citizen in particular and society in general.
Licensing protects society from those who would take undue advantage in an unrestrained market. It also allows the license holder to use society’s laws to protect himself from members of society that don’t respect the laws.
#144, Loser,
#143, Yes, lots of freedoms are curtailed as civilization develops.
Yes, lots of freedoms are curtailed as fascists civilizations develop. Why do you hate freedom so much?
The freedoms denied us in a “free” society are those actions that would injure another member of society or society itself. The organized nature of our society dictate that we will either restrain those who wish to hurt us or degrade into anarchy.
But from the other side, which you never care about, is the “freedom” of a person not to be injured. You don’t care (by previous posts) if someone is injured by a peanut processing plant that failed to clean itself or do proper inspections. As a society we have decided OUR right not to be injured is more important than YOUR right to sell contaminated peanut butter.
Now change that line to anything you want.
OUR right to a sustainable supply of fish is greater than YOUR right to over fish and take all the young fish.
OUR right to good health is greater than YOUR right to play doctor, sell miracle drugs, or hawk phony boxes with flashing lights that cure cancer, halitosis, and hemorrhoids.
OUR right to control the environment we live in is greater than your right to open a rendering plant next to Central Park, a heavy stamping plant next to a hospital, or (as Phydeau mentioned) a strip joint next to my kid’s school.
We, as a society have decided that OUR rights serve a better purpose than YOUR right to injure us.
Why do you hate America?
#146, You still haven’t answered your own question. Answer it and I’ll school you on what I know.
Why would you sacrifice other to save your wife?
I thought glaciers were going to raise the sea. Now you’re telling us the water level will be a relative constant. Define relative for us so that those two statements are consistent.
Be careful, you don’t temperatures to stay relatively constant.
Well the deniers have all fled, discredited and demoralized. Bewildered by science. And they left Loser to steer the discussion in a different direction.
#149, Oh, this discussion is just a continuation and it will never be over until you man up and answer your own question.
You started it but like every other liberal it’s easier to place blame somewhere else instead of taking responsibility for your own actions.
Why would you sacrifice others to save your wife?