Thinking the unthinkable on a Second Civil War
Mass psychosis has gripped a significant fraction of the progressive regressive elites in the wake of their shock at the election and presidency of Donald Trump. The open embrace by California and some other jurisdictions of nullification – the doctrine that states can ignore or obstruct federal law – is recapitulating the run-up to our 19th-century Civil War. Serious publications are taking seriously the possibility of an actual armed conflict.
The notion some on the left have that they would gain from such a conflict is insane on every level. It would be a catastrophe of world historical dimensions, unleashing every bad actor in the world to enact its dream aggressions: China attacking Taiwan, Iran attacking Israel, and Russia restoring the old USSR borders, for starters.
But how about the question of who would win? Kurt Schlichter on Town Hall takes a cold, hard look at the question and concludes (correctly) that the blue-staters would get their posteriors handed to them. His article, titled "Why Democrats Would Lose the Second Civil War, Too," is must-reading, albeit unpleasant to contemplate. I think he is highly realistic:
Do I think there will be a civil war? No, but there could be. This is the Age of Black Swans, and anything is possible – we could easily see the country split into red and blue. Civil war is unlikely, but never underestimate Democrat stupidity and hatred.
If you can read Schlichter's article with the same amused frame of mind you might take while playing a violent videogame, there are a lot of payoffs in it. The Dems have no clue how stupid they are.
There are two Civil War II scenarios, and the left is poorly positioned to prevail in either one. The first scenario is that the Democrats take power and violate the Constitution in order to use the apparatus of the federal government to suppress and oppress Normal Americans. In that scenario, red Americans are the insurgents. In the second scenario, which we can even now see the stirrings of in California's campaign to nullify federal immigration law, it is the blue states that are the insurgents.
The Democrats lose both wars. Big time.
Let's talk terrain and numbers. Remember the famous red v. blue voting map? There is a lot of red, and in the interior the few blue splotches are all cities like Las Vegas or Denver. That is a lot of territory for a counter-insurgent force to control, and this is critical. The red is where the food is grown, the oil pumped, and through which everything is transported. And that red space is filled with millions of American citizens with small arms, a fairly large percentage of whom have military training.
Remember what two untrained idiots did in Boston with a couple of pistols? They shut a city down. Now multiply that by several million, with better weapons and training.
He does not ignore the fact that Dems are the party of disarmed civilians, and consider how law enforcement, the military, and the National Guard might handle the conflicting calls that would be made on their loyalties.
This article really should be read by progs. But it won't be. They like living in their fantasy world, where human nature can be changed, tax hikes increase prosperity, and racial agitation is the means to produce a just society. https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/03/thinking_the_unthinkable_on_a_second_civil_war.html
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“The Democrats lose both wars. Big time.
Let's talk terrain and numbers. Remember the famous red v. blue voting map? There is a lot of red, and in the interior the few blue splotches are all cities like Las Vegas or Denver. That is a lot of territory for a counter-insurgent force to control, and this is critical. The red is where the food is grown, the oil pumped, and through which everything is transported. And that red space is filled with millions of American citizens with small arms, a fairly large percentage of whom have military training.
He does not ignore the fact that Dems are the party of disarmed civilians, and consider how law enforcement, the military, and the National Guard might handle the conflicting calls that would be made on their loyalties.
This article really should be read by progs. But it won't be. They like living in their fantasy world”
Yyyyaaaawwwnnnnn...........
At my age, I won't care who wins, but I will be taking advantage of an open season on dominionists.
Did you ever discover that the vast majority of that red land is uninhabited, or does that fact still escape you and other TEAparty faithful?
It might be lightly populated compared to a concentrated population center like a city but it would be much more difficult to occupy in military terms.
Those red areas are actually the prime locations for revitalization of American soil deleted, skirting the CoC ..[SP].
You are a bundle of love and puppies.
Actually, when I read tripe like this article by good old heartland, I think that not only is the majority of land that is red uninhabited but the majority of the red brain is equally barren. Conservatives and we liberals have been on opposite sides of the political spectrum for centuries. Our nation has swayed back and forth, but we have survived all of our differences. The biggest difference is that we now have instant media to argue over. Most minds, on both sides of the aisle argue, but recognize that we come to our differences with the same goal in mind.....the best interests of this nation. It is only a radical few who talk about coming civil wars and scenarios that will entail. These are radicals that go beyond left and right and into the realm of insanity.
Somebody should break out a copy of Red Dawn to show the left what happens when totalitarians try to take over middle America.
It's a movie not real life.
You don't scare, me, either
But your odd use of punctuation does scare me.
Exactly. It’s the way Americans act if their freedom and liberty are threatened.
It is Republicans who have threatened our freedom and liberty. We don't want your brand of Christian dominionism, xenophobia, and corporate worship.
Teavangelicals should bear that in mind if they value their family members.
The Walking Dead is really a tutorial on how to deal with white supremacists, xenophobes, homophobes, and dominionists.
It should because it scares me, too.
What war did you fight in again?
Did the fact that the Democratic party is the party of gun control cross your mind? The only way Democrats could win is if they are all a bunch of lying hypocrites...... Oh shit we really COULD be in serious trouble...
I'm a democrat and I own a gun. I know how to shoot it, too.
Careful there, you may unintentionally jump the fence!
I can't jump. I've been hobbled
So....you don't think democrats can be pro-gun, fiscally conservative, and want smaller government? You might want to trade that broad brush you've been painting with and get one with a finer point.
I wasn't born here or grew up here, tho. I grew up in the "liberal" Northeast but always wanted to shoot my mom's rifle (she wouldn't let anybody touch it). I learned to shoot in the Air Force and then finally got a .380 a few years ago for Christmas.
But I chose to live in Arkansas because my other choice was North Dakota.
Funny how msm is touted as "fake" but movies depicting rebels winning in is elevated as a proven strategy and an example of truth ......
I am an East Coast democrat and I own and know how to shoot a gun and no, I don't live rural, I live in the suburbs.
So, what’s going to happen to families of evangelical Christians who suport the TEA Party?
Don't you love it when the cons pigeon hole us democrats?
I have met people that call themselves Democrats that are pro gun but not many, I have met Democrats that are conservative though not many, I have even met a Democrat that wanted smaller government but I must admit I have never met a Democrat that was all of these things before. You sound more like a Libertarian than Democrat.
Not one of them, either. Thought I was once, but turns out I'm not an every man for himself kind of person. We still need to take care of the least of us. Taxes should be collected for infrastructure and schools. We need clean water and air. Libertarians think that the free market is the end all and be all and it's not. You can't trust large corporations to do the right thing because all they care about is money.
Who cares.
So what are teavangelicals supposed to bear in mind regarding your veiled threat against their/our families in 1.3.13?
Reasonable gun control is not same as repealing the 2nd and confiscation, despite your apparent delusions. I'm a lefty progressive and I learned to shoot on the farms in north central Ohio when I was a teen. Shooting rats and pop cans was a common way to waste time.
Where do you think Soylent Green comes from?
More shit from the American Stinker!
💩 💩
'Let's talk terrain and numbers. Remember the famous red v. blue voting map? There is a lot of red, and in the interior the few blue splotches are all cities like Las Vegas or Denver. That is a lot of territory for a counter-insurgent force to control, and this is critical. The red is where the food is grown, the oil pumped, and through which everything is transported. And that red space is filled with millions of American citizens with small arms, a fairly large percentage of whom have military training.'
What the fuck?
Let's not forget phony "heartland" Red is not where you live.
Typical Tissy - you still don't know how to discuss a thread - just one-line it.
Sad
What’s phony is denying that the part of Californication that I live in is very much fly over territory, flights to and from Seattle and Portland from LA/Bay Area and flights to Europe from SF taking the sub arctic route. It’s also phony to deny that the culture here is much more compatible with the plains and mountain west populations than with our urban coastal regime. I was born in heartland America, Nashville, Tn. and spent four college years in heartland Lincoln, Ne. Go Big Red!
So according to your logic if you don't live in or near a city with a major airline hub then you are in fly-over country.
What's wrong with living in fly-over country ? Frankly I think fly-over areas have a lot of appeal.
I’m just saying that Redding, Ca. and the region around it is both literally and figuratively flyover country. There is nothing wrong with flyover country. I love it. We do have three commuter/connector flights to and from San Francisco and one to and from Portland each day.
...and a Greyhound station.
And you can't rule out that those large red spaces contain virtually all US military bases that are stateside. In a staggering number, those votes counted for those states.
Hopefully the left will never seriously consider such an option. They shouldn’t be rethinking the unthinkable.
In their fairytale land, they think they will come out victorious. Now keep in mind, many of them are the same people eating Tide Pods and smoking bath salts.
Collectively they couldn't blink and breath without instruction.
that's a scary thought.
I'll start my recon for times and places where unamerican domestic terrorists gather. Like on Sundays, around 10 am. Because of articles like this, I've personally waived my restrictions on age and gender when it comes to the Violation of ToS, [SP]
You don’t even know what a so called dominionist is or how few of them actually exist.
There's buildings full of them on every 10th street corner, every Sunday morning. Easy peasy.
Dominionists are the religious extremists who want the secular US government to enforce conservative Christian religious law. They are people like you and other conservative Christians who think that the US is a Christian country and the US Constitution was based on the Bible. They often claim that only Christians have full religious rights in the US and that the Establishment clause is a one-way street that keeps the government out of religion but lets religion play in the government.
These people are jealous of the Taliban because they also want to enforce their mythical religious idiocy with the power of the state like they do in Saudi, Afghanistan and Iran.
So you think that virtually the entire Protestant evangelical movement is dominionist? It’s not.
No. It's their spin-off cult of born again scum that's most dangerous to America.
One can’t be saved without being born again. That’s no spin off but the core belief of all Christianity. Based on what Jesus Himself said to Nicodemus.
Quite the straw man you created.
Not Mainstream Protestants like Presbyterians and Methodists but Pentecostals are big time Dominionists. They're infiltrating the Air Force Academy at all levels.
Then you got them so-called "nondenominational". I call them bullshitters because they're for sure hooking up with the Pentecostals on the side.
So basically what your saying is, every person on the planet that isn't a born again POS is going to hell. Total bullshit that supports the white supremacist foundation of the most extreme xtian cults. I got news for you. Teavangelical heaven is hell.
Jesus said that no one can come to the Father except through Him. He said we must be born again to be saved. I’m not about to sit in judgement about any Christian denomination and say they are or aren’t right. Any member of any denomination can be born again. God will save anyone anywhere, from any time that had no contact with His people and lived by the best that was shown to them. Those who have heard the gospel message of Jesus and salvation by faith through grace and then reject that message in disbelief, demanding proof, or adapt to some alternative value system there after are the only people on earth who can not possibly be saved.
Please identify where I created a Christian strawman.
That idea is not constant through all Christian denominations. The idea of being born again is a fairly recent evangelical protestant idea.
I don't remember being born again is part of Lutheran teaching and that was one of the first to break away from Catholic Church
I had never heard about it as a Catholic. Catholics have the sacrament of baptism when you are born or join the church and then confirmation that is typically in the early teens.
Being born again is a Baptist idea that I first heard about in the early 1980s.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.biblegateway.com/passage/%3fsearch=John+3:1-21&version=NIV&interface=amp
3 Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.[a]”
4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit[b] gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You[c] must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”[d]
9 “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
10 “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11 Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12 I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.[e] 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,[f] 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”[g]
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 1
This is the act of baptism. There is no mention of being born again.
Why do you like your own posts? It is assumed that you agree with them because you wrote, them but why do you also like them?
One of my all time least favorite passages:
This is oft repeated in Church services. Chanted even. People mouth these words as if they actually make logical sense. More than anything else, this illustrates the mind-numbing power of faith and religious indoctrination.
How was his supposed only son sacrificed for our supposed sin when he rose from the dead less than 72 hours later? I've slept for almost that long after college exams.
Why do protestant religions that support predestination also believe in prayer?
It was the suffering on the cross.
The most grand possible entity - the supreme being - demanded horrific human torture before He could offer forgiveness. How does this make any sense to anyone??
Absence of critical thinking.
I've long wondered how any decent person can honor Biblegod, if this savage, cruel, angry being really DOES exist.
It doesn't make any sense to me. It never did and I got in trouble for asking. The longer you think about it the more logical constituencies that appear.
I was shocked and sickened when I learned that the Catholic church believes that the host and wine become the literal body and blood of Jesus. I always thought that it was symbolic.
So much of the Abrahamic religions reek of the Stockholm Syndrome.
These seeds need to be moved to the religious section of NT as soon as the bible thumping starts.
Even worse, the supreme entity - the grandest sentient force in existence - the omnipotent, loving, perfect creator of everything demands sacrifices - the deliberate killing of creatures (including humans)???
I know of a teavangelical church whose members won't be sharing the gospel in my condo complex after last week.
It is symbolic.
A symbolic strawman? How does that work?
You believe God put Jesus through crucifixion as a symbolic gesture?
Go back and read the last sentence of yours in 2.1.21 that I was responding to and then figure it out.
No. The unleavened bread and unfirmented wine are symbolic remembrances of His very real death on the cross.
Okay. Note that the context was this statement from me:
Your unqualified comment about symbolism applied to a sentence in epistte's reply rather than to the topic of the reply. Ergo the miscommunication. A quote from you would have cleared things up.
Now, that said, Catholics hold that Holy Communion is not symbolic. Did you know that?
Here is one (of many) articles on this interesting belief . Here is an operative excerpt:
Are Catholics wrong?
My mom and grand mother were raised Catholic and converted to Protestant when my mom was in high school.
Okay?
Are Catholics wrong to believe they are consuming the actual body and blood of Christ during Holy Communion? (See transubstantiation.)
No, they are not wrong, because that is their doctrine.
Very few Christian sects are permitted to accept the Eucharist during mass. I believe all Protestant sects are because they do not believe in transubstantiation. The Greek, and all the Eastern Orthodoxies are permitted to accept the Eucharist.
I am at a loss for words. Tales from the dark side?
They need to lay off the tequila and LSD before they write this partisan idiocy.
Either that or share it.
There shouldn't be any need for a civil war. I'm all for just giving the Left Coast the push it needs to break off from the rest of the county and keep out their insanity.
The article clearly states that a second civil war would be an overwhelmingly bad catastrophe for the entire free world. It is to be avoided. Regressives though are likely to start one in a vain attempt to force their will upon the rest of us as nothing short of their winning such a thing will ever lead to that result. One hopes that they would step back from the edge of one and preserve domestic tranquillity.
No worries. If the religious regressives try to force their will on the US, l can be counted on to hit triple digits. I shot lots of rats at the dump when I was younger. Same thing.
Rats don't shoot first or shoot back. If that is your sole claim to prowess under such a scenario as a Civil War, better have a Medic handy.
If you can hit a running rat, headshots are easy.
Why are you always talking about shooting things and equating that with shooting people? You are an unpleasant addition to this seed.
I think you would welcome it. Then you would have all the power to force others to bow down to your will and worship your god in the image you've made him to be
Worship of God by force is worthless and an affront to God who gave us free will to freely choose. What the church did for around 1,000 years or so was wrong and why the Protestant Reformation began and developed over time starting in the time of Martin Luther and other reformers.
I really do believe you are just mouthing words to make it look as if you really are a First Amendment supporter.
Why do I say that? Because your other words in other articles/seeds contradict this. If you really believe that people have free will to choose, then you wouldn't constantly tell us "heathens" that we need Jesus. I know that you're supposed to spread the good news, but the problem is you won't stop there. You harass and harangue people who don't follow your faith so you really don't believe in free will at all. Or I should say, you don't believe in free will for others, only yourself.
Funny, I don't recall anyone ever knocking on my door trying to convert me into being gay.
Yeah, me neither.....
Do you think it's us?
You're supposed to wear jeans under those leather chaps.
No. It's the people so offended by the lifestyles of others that they feel the need to impose their lifestyles on everyone else.
Under those ass - less leather chaps
People may need Jesus but are free to believe in Him or not. Presenting the good news of the gospel for people to see, hear, read, is not the same as forcing belief. I am very much into advocating for Christianity and belief in God and it being presented anywhere all over the world but compelling or coercion to force belief is not our/ my objective. When I and others do reach out locally and one is clearly disinterested or has a no soliciting sign we note the address for future reference and move on to the next place. We are to present the gospel to all the world to let all hear it and make their own choice. Religion that compels people to join it or follow it is not acceptable.
Actually you've made it clear that you want the state to enforce Christian sharia law particularly in regards to same-sex marriage. You're an opponent of secular government and an opponent of religious liberty.
Says the secessionist who promotes nothing but discord around here.
I do not advocate secession from the United State of America.
Just California? Last I heard California was part of the U.S. of A.
And so would be Jefferson or New California as America’s 51st State. Your point?
Never happen. Northern Cali. pot growers are crazy, but not that crazy.
Many pot growers up here are illegal Mexican nationals who could not care less if we are part of Californication or are Jefferson.
So Jefferson would be a sanctuary state full of imported pot pickers?
No, Jefferson is where most of the non sanctuary counties are located. There are plenty of citizen growers of that crap that we can be rid of the illegals who grow it in our national forests.
This sort of Krazy Klan Krapola is why all righties must be crushed at the ballot box on November 6th...
Off topic [ph]
Isn't the term "civil war" an oxymoron?
The author of the article is a moron for sure.
This is the same guy that wants to invade San Francisco and Los Angeles.
LOL, he is....Well like I said on another article I'm sure that the Longies (longshoremen) in Long Beach/San Pedro/Wilmington will explain to him how the world works on the waterfront...LOL
Indeed! It should be something to watch. (grin)
No one wants to invade the sewers you named above.
Nor the one where you live either. Only God knows what they might find.
I think he is part of the great swamp that his orange hero perpetuates.
Whitehood masturbation fantasy.
The thoughts of never Trump RINO’s who actually voted for Hillary?
What the fuck is a progressive recessive elite?
Look 👀 in the mirror.
It takes one to know one. So obviously your mirror must give you that kind of reflection as well.
I’m a progressive elitist? Well that’s a first for me that I’ve been accused of that.
The truth that the right wing has to face is that, while they are very mouthy and noisy, when you come right down to who is willing to fight in an actual war I mean willing to really got shot at and really die, they are very, very tiny and impotent. If they called all of their members to action I would bet they wouldn't fill the parking lot of a medium sized mid-west Walmart. They talk a good game and if a revolution could be accomplished via talking on social media they may have a chance. However if they all have to get out of their Lazy Boy's and miss the next episode of Dancing With The Stars or the coming opening of the baseball season, well then their revolution is pretty much fucked.
They do talk a good story about their revolution, however, I wonder when they will have the revelation that their fantasy is not reality.
See.... I can fantasize that certain people would move of the state of California as they seem to hate it so much, however, I am smart enough to know that it is merely a fantasy and won't happen, at least, not very soon.
Funny thing...reality. Some people hate it and so try to avoid it as much as possible, preferring to live in their fantasy world. So of like mental Prozac.
civil war can only start via state govts - (and will start in the courts with said states suing the feds for breaking the social contract.)
if hillary had won the idea of a civil war might have been plausible. now... not so much.
selling us out into a world govt would have started a civil war, but thanks to trump the globalists have been neutered.. meaning?
there will be no civil war, you can not have one
So how is it that Trump selling us out to the Russians and multinational corporations doesn't bother you?
Trump stopped Obama and Hillary from selling off our great nation to Putin and Russia 🇷🇺.
because that is all liberal BS and nothing more.
unless you would like to explain how the USA having secure borders, fair trade deals, less regulations, lower taxes and a sovereign country is in russia's best interest?
Not not to mention rebuilding our military and selling coal and natural gas to countries formerly dependent on Russia for most of their energy needs.
The last time the southern conservatives started a civil war over their claimed right to own slaves it didn't end well for them. Those bigots are still threatening to refight that bigoted idea because other people have equal rights.
What social contract did the federal government violate, if you understand what the concept of a social contract means?
I love how Democrats interpret history. The Democratic party was into slavery then and still are by designing Social programs that keep people in them and poor instead of giving them a hand up. If you disagree please explain why people are better off staying on welfare than getting a job, all in the name of growing a constituent base at the cost of the entire country. It is this way by design.
FAMOUS RACIST QUOTES:
Margaret Sanger, founder of planned parenthood:
"We do not want word to get out that we want to extinguish the Negro population, if it ever occurs to some of their more rebellious members"
Lindon Johnson:
"I'll have those N**** voting Democratic for the next 200 years."
I have never gotten an answer to that one. Logic combined with facts always baffles them.
They have nothing to say because they can’t defend their anti American hate and their contempt for our Constitution. They hate that it tells government what it can’t do to us when they want a document outlining what the government will give us if only we meekly obey.
resistance is never futile and always makes a great hobby
True because we will never meekly obey the dictates of any government we are not a part of. We are sovereign citizens, not subjects.
Hopefully, far right wing fascists will never be a part of any democratic government.
OOps! Too Late!
There are no far right fascists and there are no fascists in our elected government.
Fascists believe that liberal democracy is obsolete and they regard the complete mobilization of society under a totalitarian one-party state as necessary to prepare a nation for armed conflict and to respond effectively to economic difficulties. [12] Such a state is led by a strong leader—such as a dictator and a martial government composed of the members of the governing fascist party—to forge national unity and maintain a stable and orderly society. [12] Fascism rejects assertions that violence is automatically negative in nature and views political violence, war and imperialism as means that can achieve national rejuvenation. [13] [14] [15] [16] Fascists advocate a mixed economy , with the principal goal of achieving autarky through protectionist and interventionist economic policies. [17]
Fascism is a right wing political ideology. It's literally the opposite of liberalism.
Yep, that describes the Heartland Institute to a T.
You have no clue as to the Heartland Institute.
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WHAT IS 'FAKEGATE' AND WHO IS PETER GLEICK?
IS HEARTLAND'S POSITION ON TOBACCO CONTROL 'EXTREMIST' OR OUTSIDE THE SCIENTIFIC MAINSTREAM?
CAN YOU REPLY TO SPECIFIC ACCUSATIONS MADE BY THE UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS?
CAN YOU REPLY TO SPECIFIC ACCUSATIONS MADE BY MEDIATRANSPARENCY?
CAN YOU REPLY TO SPECIFIC ACCUSATIONS MADE BY SOURCEWATCH?
CAN YOU REPLY TO SPECIFIC ACCUSATIONS MADE BY EXXONSECRETS?
HAVE YOU REPLIED TO OTHER FALSE AND MISLEADING CLAIMS?
IS HEARTLAND'S POSITION ON GLOBAL WARMING 'EXTREMIST' OR OUTSIDE THE SCIENTIFIC MAINSTREAM?
2016 BY THE NUMBERS
See what sets Heartland apart:
82% of state elected officials read Heartland publications
82%
of state elected officials read one or more Heartland newspapers "sometimes" or "always."
45% of elected officials say Heartland led to a change in policy
45%
of state elected officials say a Heartland publication influenced their opinions or led to a change in public policy.
“The Heartland Institute [is] the world’s most prominent thinktank supporting skepticism about man-made climate change.”
The Economist
May 26, 2012. https://www.heartland.org/about-us/reply-to-critics/index.html
I know exactly what the Heartland Institute is. I've been fighting against their oil/coal/tobacco-soaked anti-science propaganda for many years now.
Let’s see. Off the top of my head, in the first six months of Obama’s presidency we’ve seen corporatism and “state capitalism” run amok, in the government takeover of two car companies and numerous banks. Labor unions have become increasingly indistinguishable from the government and the party that controls it. Herbert Croly and the Progressives have once again been rehabilitated as founding fathers of the New Age. The entire liberal intellectual class is convinced that this the time for a new New Deal. Critics of statism are vilified by liberal elites as racists and fascists. (And those who refuse to get with the Gorian program are guilty of “treason against the planet“). When out of power, liberals lionized free speech and celebrated dissent as the highest form of patriotism. Now, they label dissent “un-American” and the president insists he doesn’t want to hear a lot of talking from anyone who disagrees with him. While the stench of eugenics and euthanasia do not quite sting the nostrils yet, the odor is detectable and the liberal impulse for controlling the lives of others has been re-exposed.
Indeed, our own messianic president, who insists that we can create a Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, also apparently believes that “we are God’s partners in matters of life and death” and that religious organizations that are true to their calling should rally behind a united front to expand the scope and role of government. When the head of state says such things, it is hard not to be reminded of the Progressive concept of the God State, a major theme of Liberal Fascism. The “State is the actually existing, realized moral life . . . The divine idea as it exists on earth,” Hegel declared in The Philosophy of History. The State, according to Hegel, was the “march of God on earth.” The progressives agreed. Richard Ely, the founding father of progressive economics, proclaimed “God works through the State in carrying out His purposes more universally than through any other institution.”
It’s revealing, to me at least, that I wrote the book with Hillary Clinton as the stand-in for the fascistic ideas lurking inside contemporary liberalism. Here’s how I put it in the new afterword for the paperback edition:
….And then something funny happened. A self-proclaimed “transformative” leader formed a self-declared “movement,” powered in large measure by a sense of historical destiny (“This is the moment!”), yearning for national restoration (“We will make this nation great!”), demanding national unity at all costs, and glorifying itself for its own youthful energy. At times his most conspicuous followers were blindly devoted to a cult of personality with deeply racial undertones and often explicit appeals to messianic fervor. This new leader of men—who earned his credibility from his work as a street organizer and disciple of Saul Alinsky—vowed to restore the promise of American life in a vast new collaborative effort between business, government, churches, and labor. His platform included mandatory youth service, a new civilian security force, and spreading the wealth around. https://www.nationalreview.com/blog/liberal-fascism/closing-time-jonah-goldberg/
IS HEARTLAND'S POSITION ON GLOBAL WARMING 'EXTREMIST' OR OUTSIDE THE SCIENTIFIC MAINSTREAM?
No. See our statement here. Opinion polls in the U.S. show large majorities do not believe climate change is either man-made or a serious problem. Surveys of climate scientists repeatedly find acknowledgement of great uncertainty about the scientific basis of our understanding of how the climate works and therefore of forecasts of future warming. Surveys and article-counting exercises that claim to find a scientific “consensus” invariably ask only if there is a human impact on climate, which we readily admit there could be, and not whether that effect is large relative to natural variability or likely to pose a serious problem.
More than 31,000 scientists have signed the Oregon Petition saying "there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing, or will in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate." There is no similar petition in support of the alarmist position that has been signed by anywhere near 31,000 scientists.
Nearly 300 of the world's leading scientists spoke at one or more of Heartland’s ten International Conferences on Climate Change, These include scientists from NASA and NOAA, official state climatologists, professors from prestigious universities all over the world (including Harvard, Yale, and MIT) and officials at the Department of Energy and the Department of the Interior.
Our conferences have been described by friend and foe alike as the most important and influential gatherings of global warming "skeptics" ever assembled. These conferences were covered by CNN, Fox News, ABC News, the BBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, La Monde, The Wall Street Journal, and many other media outlets.
Heartland's spokespersons have been invited to testify on global warming issues before Congress and in state legislatures and official government meetings in Ohio, Kentucky, Connecticut, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, West Virginia, Utah, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Colorado, Arkansas, and more.These are not the activities of a group on the "extreme margin of the discourse" on global warming.
In fact, the positions on global warming expressed by spokespersons for The Heartland Institute are closer to where most scientists and economists stand than are the views of well-known alarmists such as Al Gore and James Hansen and many environmental advocacy groups. The American public understands this: A majority of the public does not believe global warming is man-made or that it is a major problem.
In short, The Heartland Institute is firmly within the "mainstream" of expert opinion on global warming. Its spokespersons are credible and respected in the national and international debate. Those who claim otherwise should be asked to document the existence of the alleged "consensus" in favor of their alarmist visions of future global warming. https://www.heartland.org/about-us/reply-to-critics/index.html
Aw, there's nothing to see here....
There's no such thing as black racism. Oh, OK.