Global Warming and Rhetoric

As part of the current media frenzy over the imminent demise of the Earth from global warming, it has become fashionable to demonize global warming skeptics through a variety of tactics. This has recently been accomplished by comparing scientists who don't believe in a global climate catastrophe to those who deny the Holocaust, to those who denied cigarettes cause cancer, or to 'flat-Earthers'...., So Now We're Holocaust Deniers, Dr. Roy Spencer, TCSDaily.com, 4/27

Welcome to the world of modern politics, Dr. Spencer! Where have you been to be so surprised? The President leads the defense of the United States against Islamist warlords after one of their attacks kills 3,000 Americans, and he's called Adolf Hitler by Al Franken. The Vice President observes that gasoline prices may have something to do with the price of oil, and the manipulation of that price by political interests as much in the US as abroad, and he's described as a villain, a thief, and the Goebbels of the present administration. An ambassador slops his way through a supposed investigation of a major foreign policy issue, lies about the results, and makes phoney claims about the administration's exposure of his non-secret spouse, and the media fall all over it to claim it as further evidence of the moral turpitude of the Bush Administration; Joseph Wilson did this while working for the President's opponent in the 2004 election. PETA makes claims that killing chickens is morally equivalent to the Holocaust. And you're surprised that global warmingists, who've already turned to the church to pitch their cause, having failed with American politicians, are now employing the same sort of rhetorical coverup for their lies, fantasies and hidden agendas?

One of Primo Levi's most powerful and persuasive complaints against fascism was that its exponents substituted rhetoric for reason and evidence; politics became based on hysteria instead of considered positions. The tendency to do this is not native to Italian or German fascism. As Hannah Arendt observed in her essay "Lying in Politics" (Crises of the Republic, 1972), lying is endemic, and even required to some degree, in political life. But it is up to us to determine whether or not we should believe in anything a politician, or his or her expert, has to say. And falling for rhetoric, while a common temptation -- we are not far removed from superstitions as common as astrology, is not the fault of the rhetorician but of the person listening to him. If you know a politician is lying for the worst reasons, turn away or fight; he or she doesn't merit a willing audience.

But try not to be too surprised though when, after you present a reasoned defense of your position, supported with real, not rewritten evidence, when the same people, or their surrogates, start to scream lies again. One thing about liars with constituencies: they never stop. To stop lying, whether about immigration, the oil supply, the war on Islamic fascism, or the weather, would be to sacrifice votes for the truth. Don't expect that to happen any time soon. Fighting back, through direct confrontation or open rejection, supported by reason and evidence, is all that we have between us and the abyss of a totally fabricated political life.

Luther