Several weeks ago I read an excellent article that made the argument that conservatives had successfully made a bad word out of the term “liberal” over the course of the past thirty-plus years–despite the fact that liberalism was responsible for many of our societal advances in the mid-20th century. The article argued that it was time to fight back against that perception and to show the world just what a bad word conservatism can be. Unfortunately I did not bookmark the article and have not been able to find it despite my best effort to Google for it–if anyone knows the article I’m talking about then please reference it in a comment.
While some of my politics are centrist, I identify far more with the Left than the Right. In keeping with the spirit of taking back the word “liberal” as a good thing, I present the top ten reasons why liberals are better than conservatives:
10) Liberals prefer to be sensitive to the issues of various groups of people, while conservatives deride sensitivity as “political correctness.” (“Macaca,” anyone?)
9) Conservatives prefer cutting taxes on the wealthy even if it creates deficits. Liberals believe in paying for what you spend.
Conservatives prefer to thumb their noses at the rest of the world. Liberals remember that America is the leader of a community of nations.
7) Conservatives prefer to shoot first and ask questions later. Liberals prefer to ponder the long-term consequences of their actions before using force.
6) Conservatism cares most about what is best for the individual, and is therefore inherently a selfish philosophy. Liberalism cares most about what’s best for society and the environment as a whole.
5) Conservatives prefer to prey on the environment for the sake of industry. Liberals understand that without a healthy planet and environment there can BE no industry.
4) Conservatives want to legislate morality to other people who may not share their views. Liberals prefer to live and let live.
3) Conservatives believe that majority rules. Liberals understand that the Bill of Rights was crafted to protect minorities from the predations of majorities.
2) For conservatives, religion and politics are like bread and butter. For liberals, they are like oil and water.
And the top reason in my mind why conservatism is backwards and Luddite:
1) Conservatives prefer looking to the past for guidance on solving today’s problems. Liberals understand that times change and often require new approaches to problems not envisioned by our forefathers.
I also can’t help but toss in one last one for the sake of humor:
0.5) Have you ever known anyone “hip” who was a conservative? 
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Here are FACTS about global warming:
FACT:An actual greenhouse works as a physical barrier to convection (the transfer of heat by currents in a fluid) while the atmosphere really facilitates convection so the impression of actual greenhouse-like activity in the Earth’s atmosphere is incorrect. (if it’s too warm in the greenhouse you open a top and bottom window and let convective action displace warmed air with cool, while Earth’s atmosphere is surrounded by the near-vacuum of space.)
FACT: The so-called “greenhouse effect” is necessary to maintain a habital planet. (water vapor)
FACT:The sun behaves approximately like a black body of radius rs=6.599 x 105 Km, at a temperature of Ts=5,783 K. The radiative flux at the sun’s surface is given by the expression σTs4, where σ is the Stefan-Boltzmann Constant (5.6704 x 10-8 Wm2K4). Flux refers to radiation per unit area. Thus, at the Earth’s distance from the sun, res=1.496 x 108 Km, this flux is reduced by the factor (rs/res)2. The Earth’s disk has a cross section, acs=Ï€re2, where re is the Earth’s radius (6.378 x 103 Km), and thus intercepts acsσTs4(rs/res)2 radiation from the sun. In order to balance this intercepted radiation, the Earth would warm to a temperature Te, where σTe44Ï€re2 = acsσTs4(rs/res)2. This leads to a solution Te=272 K.
Clouds, which obviously require an atmosphere, and other features of the Earth reflect 31% of the incident radiation. Taking this into account reduces Te to 255 K.
FACT:2008 is coldest year in a decade
FACT:According to satellite, balloon and mountain top observations made over the last three decades show a mild warming of 0.6 to 0.8Cover the last 100 years, which is well within the natural variations recorded in the last millennium.
FACT: Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time. For instance, the Medieval Warm Period, from around 1000 to1200 AD (when the Vikings farmed on Greenland) was followed by a period known as the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the 17th Century the “average global temperature” has been rising at the low steady rate mentioned above; although from 1940 – 1970 temperatures actually dropped, leading to a Global Cooling scare.
FACT: Nitrogen forms 80% of our atmosphere. We could not live in 100% nitrogen either. Carbon dioxide is no more a pollutant than nitrogen is. CO2 is essential to life on earth. It is necessary for plant growth since increased CO2 intake as a result of increased atmospheric concentration causes many trees and other plants to grow more vigorously.
FACT: Polar bears can swim up to 100 miles.
Here’s the only fact you need to know: over 2000 scientific and rigorous studies evaluated by the IPCC have demonstrated with clear and convincing evidence that human activity is substantially contributing to the elevation of temperatures. Now you can scream, you can cry, you can throw a tantrum. But when the vast majority of climate scientists agree on this basic premiss, then you need to pull the ideological wool from your eyes and LISTEN.
Are they saying that man made warming is the SOLE cause of global warming? No. That’s a red herring. Perhaps natural factors are also contributing. Fine. We’re still responsible for limiting the portion of the warming that we are causing.
So is the “global cooling” nonsense that conservatives spew to try to debunk global warming. While that “theory” did make the cover of some news magazine (Time?), it was a SMALL minority of scientists even at that time who believed that would occur. Most of the rest still believed the opposite.
Now am I going to believe 2000 scientific studies, or people who pull a few statistics out of their asses to try to prove an ideological point? You do the math.
You are right, let us pull the ideological wool from our eyes and LISTEN:
If you go to http://www.petitionproject.org; you will see a petition signed by 31,478 scientists against the idea that we are causing global warming. The petition consists of 9,029 PhD’s.
The world renown physicist Edward Teller is a signer.
In November 2004, German climatologist Hans von Storch, director of the GKSS Institute for Coastal Research (IfK) in Geesthacht, Germany, foresaw that claims of alarmist consensus would be made by non-scientists and even some scientists.
According to George Taylor, who is a member and will be President of the American Association of State Climatologists for the next year, he says that at their annual meeting,for every “For every outspoken scientist like Pat Michaels there are dozens of less verbose but equally committed men and women who do not buy into the Administration’s [(Obama administration)] point of view.”
If you are truly openminded, you will go to http://www.sitewave.net/news/s49p1865.htm.
You will see those who support Al Gore compared to those who don’t.
At the U.N. global warming conference in Poland, over 650 scientists voiced opposition to the 52 who authorized the IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.
“I am a skeptic…Global warming has become a new religion.†– Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.
“Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly….As a scientist I remain skeptical.†– Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology and formerly of NASA who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years.â€
Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.†– UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.
“The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn’t listen to others. It doesn’t have open minds… I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists,†– Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet.
“It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming.†– U.S Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.
“For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?” – Geologist Dr. David Gee the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer reviewed papers, and is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.
“Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp…Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact.†– Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.
“Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined.†– Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh.
“Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense…The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning.†– Environmental Scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of Portugal, the founder of the Numerical Weather Forecast group, has more than 150 published articles.
“CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or another….Every scientist knows this, but it doesn’t pay to say so…Global warming, as a political vehicle, keeps Europeans in the driver’s seat and developing nations walking barefoot.†– Dr. Takeda Kunihiko, vice-chancellor of the Institute of Science and Technology Research at Chubu University in Japan.
“The [global warming] scaremongering has its justification in the fact that it is something that generates funds.†– Award-winning Paleontologist Dr. Eduardo Tonni, of the Committee for Scientific Research in Buenos Aires and head of the Paleontology Department at the University of La Plata. # #
Go to http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2158072E-802A-23AD-45F0-274616DB87E6 to see for your own eyes.
I did the math: there are over 30,000 scientists against man-made global warming, and 52 scientists that believe in man-made global warming.
A quick perusal of the IPCC website’s documents section contains presentations that feature in the aggregate far more than the 52 scientists you ridiculously claim.
You quote a few nutjobs who call themselves scientists and are just repeating ideology.
Sad to say, even in science you will never get 100% consensus on anything. There are still a few kooks out there that believe that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS, that the Earth was created in seven days, and that global warming is nothing to worry about. They all cloak themselves in a veneer of scientific respectability when in fact they stand in the face of the overwhelming majority of the evidence.
Just because a kook says something and calls himself a scientist doesn’t make it true. I’ll go with the heavy preponderence of the evidence, thanks.
You think a Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, an atmospheric scientist who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years.†A UN IPCC who has an award-winning PhD in environmental physical chemistry, a geologist who is a board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet, an atmospheric scientist who is part of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA, the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer reviewed papers,a meteorologist who is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee, an atmospheric physicist who is formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh, an environmental scientist who has more than 150 published articles, the vice-chancellor of the Institute of Science and Technology Research at Chubu University in Japan, an award-winning paleontologist are a few nutjobs?
You are saying these guys are cloaking themselves with respectability?
Are you that ideological?
What I’m saying is that when you have a controversy, logic demands that you side with whoever has the majority of the evidence. And based on the previously mentioned 2000+ studies evaluated by the IPCC, that’s the global warming argument. None of the credentials you cite prevent someone from being wrong.
How about viewing it from the lens of “who has the most to gain if they convince the world they’re right?” What do the many scientists, liberals, etc. who think global warming is happening have to gain from it? Do you think they/we WANT the world to get hot? We would LOVE TO BE PROVED WRONG, and be shown that mankind’s pollution of the atmosphere is truly of no consequence. I personally have heard a new theory emerging that perhaps solar sunspots (and their recent absence) may delay warming or even be responsible for it when they appear–and I would LOVE that to be right! People who hang their hats on scientific evidence don’t have their feelings hurt if it’s later proved wrong by better, future evidence. We simply want policy to be developed on whatever the best science is at the time, NOT on ideology.
What about the other side (yours)? There, it’s easy to see who gains from convincing others of their point of view: industry in general and the fossil fuel industry in particular….the industries, in fact, that have been found to fund many a “global warming is bunk” study. Pardon me for looking askance for a point of view pushed by industry with a vested interest in convincing the public that no warming exists. Unlike the “pro” side that would love to be proved wrong, I can’t think of any evidence that would be sufficient to convince the naysayers that they are wrong. It’s almost an article of faith: there is NO warming, no matter how much evidence exists to the contrary. THAT is ideology, not reasoning based on science.
Finally, here’s an argument that should convince even a reasonable conservative that we should do something about global warming. There are four possibilities along two axes, whether man-made warming is real or not, and whether we do something about it or not. So: it’s real and we do nothing, it’s real and we do something, it’s not real and we do nothing, and it’s not real and we do something.
If it’s not real and we do nothing, nothing happens. This is the scenario most conservatives would love to be true.
If it’s real and we do something, warming gets mitigated to some extent. This is the scenario most liberals believe we should work towards.
These two cases are uninteresting because the consequences of our actions match with reality. But what about the mismatches?
If it’s not real but we do something about it: worst case, our economy falls into depression, millions become unemployed, trillions of dollars are “wasted” in developing non polluting technologies and controls, etc. Total economic chaos for no good reason. And then we recover and move on.
If warming IS real and we do nothing, then again worst case: extinction (if the planet’s climate changes drastically enough.)
We can’t know with absolute certainty whether warming is real or not (yet)–hence the controversy among scientists. All we can control is whether we do something about it or not. So which “worst case” scenario would we rather deal with if we end up being wrong about warming one way or the other: a depression, or extinction? Any reasonable person, even a conservative, should conclude that the depression is the preferable alternative, and that therefore doing something is better than doing nothing. In other words, the cost of doing nothing is FAR worse (extinction) for being wrong about warming, than is the cost of doing something for non-existing warming.
So….join me in doing something about (possible and likely) global warming!
I respect your comment, I really do. I believe we can have an honest intellectual dialogue.
But, I don’t believe in doing something without proper scientific evidence.
It’s like saying we should do something about computers turning on us without there actually being hardcore evidence about computers turning on us.
The facts say everything is natural.
It’s not going to kill us
The Jurassic Period had 1800 ppm of CO2 (4.7 times higher than today)
During the Late Ordovician period we had an ICE AGE and 12 times more CO2 (4400 ppm) in our atmosphere than we do today.
Much of the increase in temperatures this century occurred during the first half of the century, while the major increase in CO2 occurred in the last half. The CO2 increase comes after the temperature increase. In short, the increases in CO2 do not correlate to the increase in temperature.
You’re not addressing the RATE of increase, which is far faster now than in previous eras based on core sample evidence taken from the antarctic, etc.
What you say about the last half of the century may or may not be true (I don’t have the weather stats), but I do know that almost each of the last ten years in the new century have been record breaking years, so slicing off an incomplete piece of time to prove a statistical point is not convincing.
Regarding the scientific evidence and doing something about it, three points: first, as I previously said I don’t think ANY amount of evidence is going to be enough to convince skeptics if the 2000+ studies previously cited aren’t enough. Second, while there is a risk of acting prematurely and being wrong, as I said before the consequences of not acting are too great in case global warming ends up being true. Third, given the amount of lead time needed to enact the fundamental changes that would be required to lower emissions, waiting until we have a priori proof akin to “I think therefore I am” is going to be entirely too late if warming ends up being true.
Anyway, I think we’ve come about as close to the other’s position as each of us is going to come. I do appreciate the dialogue.
My last comment wasn’t clear re: rate of increase. What I meant is that while CO2 levels went high in previous eras (and caused substantial change in climate), they did so over a very long period of time. This time, because of man’s use of fossil fuels the carbon is accumulating at a far faster rate (the blink of an eye compared to Earth’s age), which could cause an abrupt change in the Earth’s climate that humanity may not be able to absorb. So it’s not just what happened in the past that’s relevant, but how quickly the change occurred.
I guess we are going to have to agree to disagree on the global warming issue.
I was wondering if you would support making social security a personal choice?
Would you support making welfare a workfare program?
Do you think we should unilaterally disarm?
Social security: actually, yes…if it’s voluntary to move to a personal account. It’s about the only thing I agreed with Bush on! I have no expectation SS will be there for my retirement in its current form.
Welfare: yes. Contrary to some belief, liberals don’t want to give money away for nothing.
I think government should give every opportunity for someone to get trained, find a job, and receive some support while they’re doing that. If they refuse to work or succumb to illegal drugs or alcoholism, then bye bye benefits. (Though that’s easier said than done in an economy with 10% unemployment.)
Disarm (I assume you mean with nukes.) I think we should take the lead and lead by some example and some reduction, but it’s of course terribly foolish to go down to zero without iron clad guarantees and proof that others are doing the same. We have far more nukes than we need to mount an effective defense or deterrence, so I consider there to be some reduction wiggle room here.
Rofl!!!! Everything on here is backwards. Please wait and write articles on a day other than opposite day because we all know that liberals will believe anything they hear. Just like drones to the queen.
“Property is the fruit of labor…property is desirable…is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.” The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VII, “Reply to New York Workingmen’s Democratic Republican Association” (March 21, 1864), pp. 259-260.
If a Conservative doesn’t like guns, he doesn’t buy one. If a Liberal doesn’t like guns, they believe no one should have one.
If a Conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn’t eat meat. If a Liberal is, they want to ban all meat products for everyone.
If a Conservative sees a foreign threat, he thinks about how to defeat his enemy. A Liberal wonders how to surrender gracefully and still look good.
If a Conservative is homosexual, he quietly enjoys life. If a Liberal is homosexual, they loudly demand legislated respect.
If a Conservative is a minority , he sees himself as independently successful. Their Liberal counterparts see themselves as victims in need of government protection.
If a Conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation. A Liberal wonders who is going to take care of him.
If a Conservative doesn’t like a talk show host, he switches channels. Liberals demand that those they don’t like be shut down.
If a Conservative is a non-believer, he doesn’t go to church. A Liberal wants all churches to be silenced.
If a Conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it. A Liberal demands that his neighbors pay for his.
If a Conservative disagrees with a Liberal president, he is called a racist. When a Liberal disagrees with a Conservative president, it’s patriotic dissent.
If a Conservative expresses his political view, he is called an idiot. A Liberal expressing his political views is expressing his right to Freedom of Speech.
There’s so much nonsense in this last post that I’m disappointed with you. For a moment there in the earlier comments you showed a glimmer of rational thought so absent in a conservative movement led by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. I see I was wrong.
Further, after three years of thoroughly pissing off conservatives with this post and answering defensive diatribes (and on very rare occasion having a thoughtful discussion), I think it’s time to finally shut it down. I’ll post a new list of why liberals are so much better than conservatives soon, since so much has happened in the last three years….but that’s for another day.
Feel free to send me comments privately, though I’m not obliged to answer!
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