SCIENCE! Global Warming and the Religion of the Left

"I'm just not sure that global warming is as certain as they say..."
"NO! You're wrong because SCIENCE!" 

 That pretty much sums up how I feel every single global warming debate goes. The "science," you see, is "settled." To the left, any "settled" science is now gospel: entirely off the table in a debate. If you have an argument with a widely-held scientific belief, you are a "skeptic," or worse, a "denier."

But ironically, skepticism is the very foundation of science. Indeed, without skepticism we'd still think the Earth is flat and the Sun revolves around it. Were these not widely-held tenants of the "science" of the age? "Science" once held that bleeding patients was an all-purpose treatment for a huge number of ailments.

But skepticism prevailed. People —scientists — asked questions: often risking their very lives in search of the truth. This value has been ingrained into the Scientific Method and science itself. Skepticism is not an enemy of science unless science has a goal other than gaining knowledge.

The moment science gains an agenda, it is no longer science. Rather it is something very different: religion. And, with any religion, espousing beliefs that conflict with the accepted theology is heresy.

But science has come to a consensus, right? Everybody knows that like...98% of scientists agree!
The funny thing about statistics is how easy they are to manipulate. And, when the most widely-cited study is made up of about 77 scientists, that "consensus" becomes a bit questionable.

What my entire argument comes down to is that science (and the population at-large) should embrace skeptics rather than demeaning them as backwards-thinking. If an idea is right, it will be proven right time and time again. It not, it should be allowed to die.

Barack Obama Makes the Case for a Smaller Government

"Okay, where's he going with this," you've probably asked yourself after reading the title.

Obviously, the President didn't intentionally open up a line of logic making the case for a smaller government. But he did.

In the midst of the current scandals, the President and the people around him have found an excuse they seem to love: the president didn't know about [fill-in-the-blank] until he saw it on the news. Here's a list of scandals for which they've used it:

1. Fast and Furious
2. IRS Targeting
3. AP/Fox Press Probes

In fact, the only scandal he apparently did know about is Benghazi. Although, we still don't know if that's actually true and Obama aide Dan Pfeiffer says that's an "Irrelevant Fact."

Apparently, a lot of stuff goes unnoticed by our Chief Executive. And who can blame him? There are about 2.8 million federal employees (300k more people than the total U.S. population in 1776). How can one man possibly know about all the goings-on in innumerable government agencies — even very important developments and scandals?

In fact, even David Axelrod seems to understand the problem. 

"Part of being President is there's so much beneath you that you can't know because the government is so vast."

But this President wants to grow the government. If for no other reason, is this not proof of it being a bad idea?

An Internet Crash-Course for Conservatives

The Internet.

A big scary place full of small scary people. So what's a conservative to do? There's so much hate, vitriol, and ignorance out there.
Nary a day goes by where I don't scroll down to the bottom of a news story only to be embarrassed by the so-called conservatives taking a fluff piece on some guy's dog with a strange talent and turning it into the perfect chance to call President Obama a dog-eater.

In fact, I've come up with a formula for ignorent conservative comments:

Wow, [two words that sort of relate to the actual story], but [extremely uncreative play on "Obama"] is a [Muslim/socialist/communist/Kenyen]!

Here's a tip: when you're in a firefight, don't give the other side ammunition. And stupid, baseless comments are intellectual ammunition. To assist those who can't tell the difference between stupid and not stupid, I've compiled a few rules for Internet commenting right after the jump.

Concealed Carry: the Permitting Patchwork

Given the current debate over gun control, I have done a significant amount of research concerning guns, permitting, and the like. I'm not going to beat you over the head with the same talking points you've probably heard a thousand times already. Instead, I'm going to delve into something that's been a problem for quite some time now and propose an actual solution.

Now, if you think the idea of a citizen being allowed to carry a handgun as they go on about their daily lives is abhorrent, you'd probably best stop reading now. I'm pretty much writing to those people who support the right to carry.

As I was poking about on the Internet, I stumbled upon USAcarry.com. I don't know much about this organization and am not making an endorsement here but their website provides a very interesting service.

Courtesy of  USAcarry.com

You can see, via an interactive map, what states accept other states' concealed carry permits. After only a few minutes, I was shocked at how patchy states' reciprocity is.

As you can see here to the left, if I had a permit from my old home state of Texas, I would be good to carry in thirty five states (slightly fewer if I had a non-resident permit). The blue states are those where I could carry, red means I couldn't, Texas is green because it's selected and Illinois is black because they've never heard of the Second Amendment.

Courtesy of  USAcarry.com

However, if I were to obtain a permit from my current home state of Minnesota, the map to the right paints a completely different picture. A Minnesota permit allows for carry in only twenty four states.

Even if you disagree with me on the right to carry, surely we can agree on this: such a patchwork is silly.

Now, the easiest solution would be to hand all permitting to the Federal Government.

And that would be really, really stupid.

Indeed, when we have a problem that affects all the states, our default setting is to turn to the Feds. However, we have a federalist system. In our system of governance, the states have rights (many more rights than are actually afforded to them).

Since we have apparently agreed as a society that the carry of concealed weapons must be regulated and the Constitution does not provide for such regulation to be undertaken by the Federal Government, that authority must then fall to the states.

Unfortunately, this then creates the nightmare of one state trying to create reciprocity with forty nine other states and five U.S. possessions too. And, judging by those maps...it just doesn't happen.

So now on to my proposed solution.

I believe that those states who wish to secure this freedom for their citizenry should look to form a coalition through which all member states will seek to create a universal standard for training and licensing. Provided that each member state implements these standards, each member state will provide full reciprocity to every other member state.

Each member state could withdraw at anytime, upholding the appropriate sovereignty for each state.

It seems to me, that such a coalition would increase training standards for citizens and universalize appropriate background check methods.

I would, however, like some input on this. Is such a group destined to fail because of differences?

"On the Current State of Labor" or "How to be a Twinkie in a Ding Dong World"

The Twinkie is dead. At least for now.
Many on the right are placing the blame squarely on organized labor and I'm inclined to agree. Of course, there is some poor management to blame as well. But, to paraphrase one labor organizer, "they kept telling us that they were going out of business and they needed more and more money from us!" Well, buddy, I guess they were right.

To truly understand the downfall of Hostess and the current demonization of business generally, let's break business down into its most basic form: you.

Now, you may or may not run a business; don't be confused. Even if you are employed by a company (in fact, even if you are unemployed), you are your own business. You want something from your employer: a paycheck. Your employer wants something from you: your labor (physical, intellectual, or both). It's as simple a business transaction as they come.

To keep your business going, you have certain expenses such as food, clothing, shelter, etc, which are other business transactions you enter into.

Unfortunately, when we think of "doing business,"images of setting up shop, complicated paperwork, and selling products arrise. But that's not business at all. Business is simply two parties entering into an agreement of their own free will (i.e. "if you do "X," I'll do "Y").

So consider this: your employer is actually your customer. They are purchasing your product. As such, this adversarial system that we find in place today makes absolutely no sense. That's not how you treat a customer.

You give your customer good service and, if you are willing to barter on your price, you can always turn down a customer's offer.

In fact, that's what no one seems to accept: you don't have to work for anyone you don't want to work for! You can go someplace where you, as a "business" can demand a higher price for your product. And if you can't (i.e. your product isn't worth any more than what you're currently getting), that's not the businesses' fault. It's yours. Perhaps you should look to expanding what you have to offer through education. Or maybe you should even look to actually starting a business of your own.

I'm not being caviler about this. I understand how hard that can be. But this is America. The American Spirit isn't one of looking to the government or a union and asking for help. It's one of blazing your own trail and, through hard work, making it all on your own.


Further Reading:
Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged

H/T to Tim Hawkins for the second half of the title.

Maybe We're the RINOs

A thought occurred to me today. Conservatives often use the term "RINOs" (Republican In Name Only) to refer to members of the Republican party who don't share the values of the party's base. People like the "establishment" types, those who run as Republicans simply because the Democrat spot on the ticket was full, and so forth.

But, after the crap that was pulled at the Convention, I'm starting to wonder. Maybe, just maybe, we're the RINOs. Maybe the Republican party has left its base so far in the dust that we conservatives just aren't Republicans anymore.

Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely not calling for any third-party nonsense. Trust me. As a Canadian, I know how badly this works. But I just don't know if we can take back what once was our party.

#Occupy 2012

Later today (I really need to go to bed), I'm going to be heading to a rally celebrating the one year anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street protests. When it comes to news, I often find myself thinking "wow, that was a year ago already?" However, with #Occupy, my thought is closer to "wow, it's only been a year?"

The fact is, #Occupy dropped off the map so quickly, it became a distant memory almost instantly. Truly, this was no Tea Party.

You can expect loads of photos later. I can only imagine what stories I'll have.