Nov

21

From Henry Gifford: "Libertarians often oppose welfare programs, yet do not deny that some people are poor, nor do they deny that differences in income levels can be measured. My research has not revealed the reason why libertarians will not discuss the science, but has simply measured that this tendancy is very strong, leaving me fascinated to find an explanation for it."

Poor libertarians. When, like Ayn Rand, they carry on the way almost everyone else has in Hollywood since the place was invented, they are accused of immorality. When they suggest that "the greenhouse effect" –the science Henry refers to — may be best considered an hypothesis that is more political than scientific, they are accused of being logically inconsistent. Thank God they don't believe in God; that would require that they all be put on the last remaining ice floes, along with us Constitutionalists. (The Baptists and Mormons and other scriptural literalists will, of course, have to be drowned outright.)The willingness of good-hearted people to accept iron rule in the name of the public good or the future of the planet is precisely what drove Rand and others to the edge of madness. No one who admires Hayek as much as I do can accept even Mises' a priori objectivism, and — to this victim of self-employment for the past 37 years — Ayn Rand's portrait of free enterprise and architectural practice, in particular, remains one of the great parodies of all time. But we should grant the Ms. Rand and the Libertarianistas their due: they have been consistently accurate in their instinctive mistrust of doctrines that surrender actual liberties for the sake of hypothetical paradises on earth.
One can admire Marx as a political economist and think that his prescriptions for saving humanity were pernicious fallacy that has been more murderous than all the known plagues of human history. No one who thinks Al Gore is a blinkered, greedy idiot questions that water vapor and CO2 have effects. What they question is the honesty of the measurement of those effects and the consistent dishonesty of the advocates of environmental totalitarianism when it comes to sharing their scientific data and the operations of their models.

This was not the best week for assertions about the certainty of the facts regarding "the greenhouse effect". Stephen McIntrye's amateur sleuthing made the Wall Street Journal.

Even worse for Henry's side of the argument, some clever and clearly politically-incorrect criminals discovered how diligent scientists can be in manufacturing the necessary data to support a beloved theory.

As Mark Steyn puts it , "'The science is settled' means: The politics is settled. So the science has to follow."


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