Sunday, February 21, 2016

Invasive Leftism


That's the term used by David Gelernter to explain the seemingly inexplicable rise of Donald Trump. Gelernter argues that this phenomenon, otherwise known as political correctness, is not merely a side issue, but is the predominant force driving the GOP revolt against itself.

Political correctness means that when the Marines discover that combat units are less effective if they include women, a hack overrules them. What's more important, guys, combat effectiveness or leftist dogma? No contest! Nor is it hard to notice that putting women in combat is not exactly the kind of issue that most American women are losing sleep over. It matters only to a small, powerful clique of delusional ideologues. (The insinuation that our p.c. military is upholding the rights of women everywhere, that your average American woman values feminist dogma over the strongest-possible fighting force—as if women were just too ditzy to care about boring things like winning battles—is rage-making.)

...The IRS attacks conservative groups — and not one IRS worker has the integrity or guts to resign on principle, not one. Political correctness is a creed, and the creed holds that American conservatives are ignorant, stupid, and evil. This has been the creed for a generation, but people are angry now because we see, for the first time, political correctness powering an administration and a federal bureaucracy the way a big V-8 powers a sports car. The Department of Justice contributes its opinion that the IRS was guilty of no crime — and has made other politically slanted decisions too; and those decisions all express the credo of thought-police liberalism, as captured by the motto soon to be mounted (we hear) above the main door at the White House, the IRS, and the DOJ: We know what's best; you shut up.

...Christians are persecuted, enslaved, murdered in the Middle East, but the Obama regime is not interested. In a distant but related twist, Obama orders Christian organizations to dispense contraceptives whether they want to or not. This is political correctness in action — invasive leftism.

...Why, by the way, was Trump alone honored by a proposal in the British Parliament that he be banned from the country? Something about Trump drives Europeans crazy. Not the things that drive me crazy: his slandering John McCain, mocking a disabled reporter, revealing no concept of American foreign policy, repeating that ugly lie about George W. Bush supposedly tricking us into war with Iraq. The British don't care about such things one way or the other — they are used to American vulgarians. But a man who attacks political correctness is attacking the holy of holies, the whole basis of governance in Europe, where galloping p.c. is the established religion—and has been effective for half a century at keeping the masses quiet so their rulers can arrange everybody's life properly. Europe never has been comfortable with democracy.

...Cruz, Rubio, Bush, and Carson — even Kasich — could slam thought-police liberalism in every speech. They'd concede that Trump was right to bring the issue forward. Their own records are perfectly consistent with despising political correctness. It's just that they lacked the wisdom or maybe the courage to acknowledge how deep this corruption reaches into America's soul. It's not too late for them to join him in exposing this cancer afflicting America's spirit, the malign and ferocious arrogance of p.c.

 http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-elephant-in-the-room/article/2001170

David Gelernter is a brilliant computer scientist at Yale University. Back in 1993, he was severely injured by one of the Unabomber's bombs. His son, Joshua also writes on political issues. One notable article of Joshua's appeared in NRO last December when he exposed the silliness of the latest Paris "climate change" agreement.

The deal sets various goals for 2023, and for 2050 through 2100. It is absurd to think that the world’s foreign ministers can intelligently discuss what the world’s climate, industry, transportation, or energy markets will look like in 2023 — much less 2050 or 2100.

Consider that 2023 is eight years from now. Eight years ago, did anyone at COP21 know Uber was coming? Did any of those foreign ministers know how popular drones would become? That new supersonic passenger planes would be in development? That four different private companies would be launching space flights? That two companies would be going forward with tests of “hyper-loop” transportation? Did they know that zero-friction “quantum levitation” would be demonstrated? Or that hydrogen-powered cars would become commercially available? Did they know about the fracking boom?

Of course not. Michael Crichton — the brilliant novelist and thinker — posed this question in a speech at Caltech in 2003, re climate predictions for 2100. What environmental problems would men in 1900 have predicted for 2000? Where to get enough horses, and what to do with all the manure. “Horse pollution was bad in 1900,” said Crichton. How much worse would someone in 1900 expect it to “be a century later, with so many more people riding horses?

“But of course, within a few years, nobody rode horses except for sport." And in 2000, France was getting 80 percent of its power from an energy source that was unknown in 1900. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, and Japan were getting more than 30 percent from this source, unknown in 1900. Remember, people in 1900 didn’t know what an atom was. They didn’t know its structure. They also didn’t know what a radio was, or an airport, or a movie, or a television, or a computer, or a cell phone, or a jet, an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite, an MRI, ICU, IUD, IBM, IRA, ERA, EEG, EPA, IRS, DOD, PCP, HTML, Internet, interferon, instant replay, remote sensing, remote control, speed dialing, gene therapy, gene splicing, genes, spot welding, heat-seeking, bipolar, Prozac, leotards, lap dancing, e-mail, tape recorders, CDs, airbags, plastic explosive, plastic, robots, cars, liposuction, transduction, superconduction, dish antennas, step aerobics, smoothies, twelve-step, ultrasound, nylon, rayon, Teflon, fiber optics, carpal tunnel, laser surgery, laparoscopy, corneal transplant, kidney transplant, AIDS. None of this would have meant anything to a person in the year 1900. They wouldn’t know what you are talking about.

Now: you tell me you can predict the world of 2100. Tell me it’s even worth thinking about. Our [emissions] models just carry the present into the future. They’re bound to be wrong. Everybody who gives it a moment’s thought knows it.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/428780/climate-change-predictions?target=author&tid=1139535

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