1. There is a particular variety of Liberal, known as the Progressive. These are the true believers of environmentalism. They buy a Terra Pass sticker for their car to offset the cars carbon emissions. They know they are morally superior to everyone who disagrees with them, and based on that sense, have waged a largely successful smear campaign against conservatives. And, of course, they are the reliable Democrat voter.
2. If one had to select a moment in time when progressivism lurched toward the darkside, one might select its embrace of eugenics, the racist pseudoscience that provided Adolf Hitler as a dance partner. Of course, the Holocaust sent them scurrying.
3. But, then the movement arose from the dead, in the 1960s, with the publication of Rachel Carsons Silent Spring. From that moment, progressives embraced radical environmentalism and other visions of natural utopia. Based on anecdotal evidence and dubious statistics coupled with heaping doses of paranoia, but very little science, it gave birth to the full-blown Progressive!
a. Carsons book was dismissed in Science magazine as a prosecuting attorneys impassioned plea for action, not a book based on scientific data. I.L.Baldwin, Chemicals and Pests, Science, September 28, 1962, p.1042-1043.
4. The 60s saw lots of Progressives with lots of causes: Ralph Nader, car safety; the anti-nuclear movement; Paul Ehrlichs Population Bomb infused progressive believers in neo-Malthusian ecology; Obamas Science Czar, John Holdren, wrote a book with Ehrlich that endorsed forced sterilization and mandatory abortion. Ehrlich, Ehrlich, and Holdren, Ecoscience: Population Resources, Environment, p. 786-787, 837.
a. The key characteristic is the lack of emphasis on objective fact, and the focus on legislating ideology. And, of course, fighting anything and anyone who disagreed with their cherished ideas. Behold the modern Progressive: unscientific while claiming the mantle of modernity, denizens of a world where science is replaced by feel-good fallacies. Berezow and Campbell, Science Left Behind, p. 16.
5. For Progressives, science and technology are great until they go too far! They oppose nuclear power, and genetically modified food, demanding that corporations prove a food or chemical is safe rather than the common sense demand, watch for it to be unsafe. While claiming to wholeheartedly trust in science and scientists, Progressives do so only until scientific findings fail to uphold their cherished progressive values. When that occurs, the progressives accuse the scientists of transforming into shills for big industry.
a. As soon as a cost-benefit analysis leads a corporation to do something that isnt green enough, businesses are accused of putting profits over people.
6. Remember, for Progressives, postmodern relativism is the glue that binds all of their myths. Therefore, science doesnt have a unique claim on secular truth, as in understanding the world in terms of natural laws or, even that there are natural laws. Rather, science is just another opinion, an alternative to be turned to when it agrees with them. They may do as a doctor advises, and get a vaccine, or take the suggestion of a guru and drink herbal tea.
Berezow, Op.Cit.
a. So they may refuse to admit the veracity of research that shows differences, say, between genders.
b. And, since postmodern relativism puts the soft social sciences on the same level as hard science .there is little value to objective research.
And so Progressives elect a President who will execute wrongheaded policies .Barack Obama.
Another big mistake.
2. If one had to select a moment in time when progressivism lurched toward the darkside, one might select its embrace of eugenics, the racist pseudoscience that provided Adolf Hitler as a dance partner. Of course, the Holocaust sent them scurrying.
3. But, then the movement arose from the dead, in the 1960s, with the publication of Rachel Carsons Silent Spring. From that moment, progressives embraced radical environmentalism and other visions of natural utopia. Based on anecdotal evidence and dubious statistics coupled with heaping doses of paranoia, but very little science, it gave birth to the full-blown Progressive!
a. Carsons book was dismissed in Science magazine as a prosecuting attorneys impassioned plea for action, not a book based on scientific data. I.L.Baldwin, Chemicals and Pests, Science, September 28, 1962, p.1042-1043.
4. The 60s saw lots of Progressives with lots of causes: Ralph Nader, car safety; the anti-nuclear movement; Paul Ehrlichs Population Bomb infused progressive believers in neo-Malthusian ecology; Obamas Science Czar, John Holdren, wrote a book with Ehrlich that endorsed forced sterilization and mandatory abortion. Ehrlich, Ehrlich, and Holdren, Ecoscience: Population Resources, Environment, p. 786-787, 837.
a. The key characteristic is the lack of emphasis on objective fact, and the focus on legislating ideology. And, of course, fighting anything and anyone who disagreed with their cherished ideas. Behold the modern Progressive: unscientific while claiming the mantle of modernity, denizens of a world where science is replaced by feel-good fallacies. Berezow and Campbell, Science Left Behind, p. 16.
5. For Progressives, science and technology are great until they go too far! They oppose nuclear power, and genetically modified food, demanding that corporations prove a food or chemical is safe rather than the common sense demand, watch for it to be unsafe. While claiming to wholeheartedly trust in science and scientists, Progressives do so only until scientific findings fail to uphold their cherished progressive values. When that occurs, the progressives accuse the scientists of transforming into shills for big industry.
a. As soon as a cost-benefit analysis leads a corporation to do something that isnt green enough, businesses are accused of putting profits over people.
6. Remember, for Progressives, postmodern relativism is the glue that binds all of their myths. Therefore, science doesnt have a unique claim on secular truth, as in understanding the world in terms of natural laws or, even that there are natural laws. Rather, science is just another opinion, an alternative to be turned to when it agrees with them. They may do as a doctor advises, and get a vaccine, or take the suggestion of a guru and drink herbal tea.
Berezow, Op.Cit.
a. So they may refuse to admit the veracity of research that shows differences, say, between genders.
b. And, since postmodern relativism puts the soft social sciences on the same level as hard science .there is little value to objective research.
And so Progressives elect a President who will execute wrongheaded policies .Barack Obama.
Another big mistake.
