The liberal/religious axis
Posted by deleted 9 years, 5 months ago to Philosophy
It has become clear that liberal politicians have found a friend in the cause of assisting Syrian refugees. Recent posts all point to the fact that the Socialist Democrats do not believe in radical Islam as a primary threat, but, rather, as a derivative one whose dependent factor is either "social justice" or "climate change". That man has been made to deal with climate change since the beginning of his kind, and now uses heating oil, coal, natural gas, nuclear, or other forms of power is beyond their mental scope. Further, it is clear that these liberal politicians believe this will all go away when their result, i.e. equality of results, is implemented. However, the reason the liberal politicians can purport this theory is their belief that socioeconomic devaluation gives rise to extremism, and not to a faulty ideology. They seem to believe that it is any number of actions, from US-led coalitions' response to terrorism to Israeli occupation of the West Bank which "cause" these issues. Notice the lack of resources argument does not apply to groups funded by large Saudi conglomerates. (Saudi has some of the world's largest oil reserves.) But that doesn't seem to matter. It is the apparent Kantian duty for the West to raise up the physical level of existence for the refugees without ever considering the possibility that the underlying philosophy prohibits such a thing from happening. To put it plainly, materialism has given license to fundamentalism to undermine the same foundation the West. That is why it is critically important to re-read the mystical premise behind the behavior seen on both sides of the fence - material and spiritual mysticism.
I'm one of the non-socialist Democrats who believes in assisting Syrian refugees and that radical Islam is evil but not a primary threat. Criminals always have a story about why they're the good guys no matter how horrific acts. I want to catch them and put them in jail and ignore their story.
Climate change is a real threat, but I think of it more as a time-value of money problem than a threat. Future costs are balanced against preventative cost we pay now. It's complicated because there are multiple options and the exact amount of the costs are far from clear.
I didn't understand the thing about anthropogenic climate change existing since the beginning of humankind. At one point we may have been down to a million individuals living a hunter-gatherer existence. It's seems obvious that supporting 7 billion people living affluent lifestyles has more environmental impact.
When we consider the fact that 90% of the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere each year is naturally produced and would not change no matter what humans change, I think the bigger question is at any expense, even if we stopped burning all fuels, could we impact the climate at all? I say no.
But that opens many more questions. Even if we could change the climate by a degree or 2, what would the price be? How many people would die because of lack of heat or air conditioning. How much more soot would be in the atmosphere since we would need to go back to burning more wood & coal to heat houses and businesses. Wood and coal emits CO2 as well so the reduction in CO2 would be reduced. What about the lost productivity. I could keep going with this list.
Maybe if we quit burning wood, elephant dung, coal and all other sources of heat for cooking and warmth we could change the temp a degree or two. Burrrrrr, at least where I live. There would definitely be less people on the planet.
The truth is, if people really study this subject with reason to proves to be a politically made crisis, not a human made problem. But it does little good to argue with the products of our school system. Most have drank the cool aide. I tried to have this discussion with a friends 8th grade daughter and she would have none of it. They are starting them early.
It's not trivial when you're looking at a series of payments now to prevent a series of uncertain costs in the future.