The "New Religion of the First World Elites"

Anthropogenic (man-made) Global Warming (AGW) skeptics have an unusual ally from the land Down Under. Recently, by a vote of 42 to 30, the Australian Senate rejected their version of cap-and-trade.

In a speech opposing the bill, Senator Nick Minchin stated, “this whole extraordinary scheme, which would do so much damage to Australia, is based on the as yet unproven assertion that anthropogenic emissions of CO₂are the main driver of global warming.... The Rudd government arrogantly refuses to acknowledge that there remains a very lively scientific debate about the extent of and the main causes of climate change, with thousands of highly reputable scientists around the world of the view that anthropogenic emissions of CO₂ are not and cannot be the main driver of the small degree of global warming that occurred in the last 30 years of the 20th century.”

Leading Australia’s march away from AGW is its most eminent geologist Ian Plimer. Plimer is a Professor in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences (University of Adelaide) and Emeritus Professor in the School ofEarth Sciences (University of Melbourne). He has authored six books and 60 papers and has twice (1995 and 2002) won Australia’s Eureka Prize, science prizes awarded in the fields of scientific research & innovation, science leadership, science communication & journalism and school science.

His latest book, Heaven and Earth: Global Warming, the Missing Science, is the product of 40 years’ research containing over 2,300 footnotes. It sheds light on many of the false claims of man-made global warming. As Robert Tracinski and Tom Minchin recently noted, “The influence of Plimer's book is particularly interesting because it is not a light introduction to the topic. It is a thick book, chock full of science…If the book is comprehensive in its scope, that is because everything science has discovered about ‘history, archaeology, geology, astronomy, ocean sciences, atmospheric sciences, and the life sciences’—Plimer's list—refutes the global warming dogma.”

Interestingly, Plimer is also an ardent atheist and evolutionist. In other words, he is normally a darling of the political left. Australia’s 1995 Humanist of the Year, Plimer has been arrested and taken to court for disrupting meetings by creationists. One of his books is Telling Lies for God: Reason vs. Creationism.

As vehemently as Plimer has gone after Christians, especially those who take a literal view of the Bible, he has gone after the AGW crowd. He calls global warming “the new religion of First World urban elites,” adding that “Environmentalism has many of the hallmarks of failed European socialism and Western (failed) Christianity. It has a holy book which few have read (IPCC reports), has prophets (Gore) who cannot be challenged, relies on dogma, ignores contrary evidence, has armies of wide-eyed missionaries...; imposes guilt, has a catastrophist view of the planet, and seeks indulgences.”

Now, of course, I could not disagree with him more when it comes to Christianity, the Bible, and Creation. I also find it highly ironic that, even though Plimer possesses a worldview that in almost every way agrees with those who have turned their eyes toward “Mother Earth”—worshipping and serving “created things rather than the Creator,”—he remains an “unbeliever.”

After all, evolutionary philosophy teaches that, since all life sprang from the same single celled source, all living things are “related.” Darwinian evolutionists see humans as a product of nature and natural processes. Therefore, to see humans on equal footing with all other life and owing our very existence to the earth are very logical conclusions for such a philosophy.

This view of the “Church of Environmentalism” is summed up by the monk, Phra Paisal Visalo, who, in the Bangkok Post recently stated that, “Humans fail to realize that they're part of nature. They can survive and maintain their race throughout the passage of time, simply because of nature's mercy and hospitality. Humans should be grateful to nature.”

There you have it. Leave it to an atheist such as Plimer to recognize a religion when he sees one.

This would all be just interesting and sad if we weren’t staring at climate legislation that threatens to cripple our economy further and is based on such nonsense. However, there is still hope that, just as happened in Australia, the Senate here can stop the legislation. After all, if an atheist can help reveal the light of the truth Down Under, anything is possible.

Copyright 2009, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.

Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World

tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Feds Should Heed the Lessons of GM and Chrysler

Forget Obamacare. Forget stimulus plans, government bailouts, cap-and-tax, or any other recent or imminent spending legislation. The current level of government involvement in pensions (Social Security) and healthcare (Medicare/Medicaid) alone could soon bankrupt this country. General Motors and Chrysler provide the lesson here.

General Motors’ and Chrysler’s obligation to nearly 700,000 retired employees’ healthcare and pension funds was the most significant contributing factor to their bankruptcy earlier this year. Do you think this conclusion is far reaching? Roger Lowenstein, columnist for Bloomberg News and author of the 2008 book While America Aged, doesn’t think so (see column here)—at least when it comes to GM.

The thesis of Lowenstein’s book was that “many decades of inflated pension and health-care benefits forced the company to redirect its free cash flow to retired workers. As a result, there was little or nothing left for the shareholders.”

Lowenstein notes that, “In 2003, GM sold $13.5 billion in bonds—one of the biggest debt offerings ever—and plowed the money into its pension fund. Then in 2007, after the UAW went on strike, GM agreed to funnel more than $30 billion into a special trust for retiree health care.”

He concludes, “It was as if the company had secretly been sold and now belonged to the retired workers and their dependents.” Of course, with the Obama administration’s takeover of Chrysler and GM, Lowenstein’s “as if” proved all too literal. With the companies restructuring, the UAW now owns 17.5% of GM and 55% of Chrysler.

With its current level of indebtedness (and the prospect of even more), the dilemma that faces the U.S. government is very similar to what broke Chrysler and GM. The former GM was roughly a microcosm of the U.S.government: large, powerful, wealthy, leader of its industry, and so on. For 77 consecutive years, from 1931 to 2007, GM led the world in sales of automobiles. This streak, of course, is by far longer than any other automaker in history. If there ever was a company that was “too big to fail,” it was GM.

The twentieth century saw the U.S. flex its industrial, technological, military, and economic might to the extent that, with the fall of the Soviet Union, America now stands as the world’s lone military and economic super-power. With only 4.5% of the world’s population, the U.S. represents 23.6% of world gross domestic product.

However, like GM and Chrysler, but to an even greater extent, the U.S. is staring at an economic reckoning unlike anything the world has ever known. Before its bankruptcy, GM lost money on every car it made. Currently, the U.S. spends $2 for every $1 it takes in. GM’s losses weren’t nearly this drastic.

Also, according to the 2009 Social Security and Medicare Trustees Report, the combined unfunded liability of these two programs has reached nearly $107 trillion in today's dollars. Medicare and Social Security trust funds will be exhausted in 2017 and 2037, respectively.

Is the United States “too big to fail”? Some think so. Certainly most of the world shares an interest in not seeing economic ruin come to the U.S. However, unlike G.M. and Chrysler, there will be no bailout for the U.S. No one could afford it.

As with the U.S., the automakers were warned before disaster struck. For example, an Institutional Risk Analytics column from 2005 concluded that, “Even [if] GM and Ford [were] to suddenly produce products that were superior to those of the various foreign competitors, and at a lower price, the accumulated retirement and health care liabilities to current and retired workers would still threaten their solvency.”

Moody’s has warned the U.S. that if it doesn’t clean up its act, America stands to lose her Triple-A credit rating (first issued in 1917). In other words, the U.S. would be downgraded like a bad company.

America literally cannot afford its current level of federal spending, and it especially cannot afford the spending increases the Obama administration seeks. Unlike the automakers, congress and the president must heed the many warning bells being sounded by the experts and by everyday common-sense citizens all over the country. From Moody’s to the TEA parties to the town halls, Americans are saying ENOUGH! Stop this spending madness!

Will congress and the president listen? Time will tell, but time is running out.

Copyright 2009, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.

Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World

tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Who's Laughing Now?

On Rush Limbaugh's radio program yesterday he took issue with Democrats such as Nancy Peolsi, comparing those showing up at town hall meetings and opposing Obamacare with Nazi's. On Pelosi, Rush said, "Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the House. She is very powerful, one of the most powerful people in the country. This is what I mean by unraveling. She's running around now claiming that we're Nazis, that not only are we an unruly mob but that people are showing up wearing swastikas..." 

Rush continued, "They accuse us of being Nazis and Obama's got a health care logo that's right out of Adolf Hitler's playbook. Now what are the similarities between the Democrat Party of today and the Nazi party in Germany? Well, the Nazis were against big business. They hated big business and, of course, we all know that they were opposed to Jewish capitalism. They were insanely, irrationally against pollution. They were for two years mandatory voluntary service to Germany. They had a whole bunch of make-work projects to keep people working one of which was the Autobahn." 

Following Rush's program, later in the day, Chris Matthews on Hardball took issue with Rush. Watch below: 

Now a simple Google search on "smoking ban" gives a link to, of course, a Wikipedia article, which states the following: "The first modern, nationwide tobacco ban was imposed by the Nazi Party in every German university, post office, military hospital, and Nazi Party office, under the auspices of Karl Astel's Institute for Tobacco Hazards Research, created in 1941 under orders from Adolf Hitler. Major anti-tobacco campaigns were widely broadcast by the Nazis until the demise of the regime in 1945." 

So, the question is who's laughing now? I mean we're talking "Google" and "Wikipedia" here. Matthews, Shrum, and/or their staffs either need to study up on their history, or at least spend more time online. 

Copyright 2009, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.

Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World

tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Govern the Least

“Why be afraid of government?” a Princeton professor writing for CNN recently asked. Touting the need for Obama’s healthcare plan, disappointingly the professor added that, “Democrats are still scared about defending the value of government.”

As an example of “the value of government,” the good professor went into significant details about the massive government program known as Medicare. Declaring Medicare a resounding success, the professor concluded that, “The program succeeded. Government worked.”

It is true that governments do many things well. I’m no anarchist. I certainly believe there is a role for good government in our country.

Consider some of the many areas of our lives that government currently occupies: healthcare (Medicare/Medicaid), retirement (Social Security), mail service (USPS), education, transportation, recreation (state parks), public utilities (power, water, sewer), and so on. As does the Princeton professor, many folks, liberal and conservative, see the government’s current role in these various institutions as a positive thing.

Of course, recently government got even more of a boost. With its foray into the automobile, insurance, and banking industries, there seems to be no institution into which the government (at least the current one) will not interject its mighty self.

Also, as there supposedly would be with Obamacare, some of those in support of big government will note, there is successful “competition” with government and private industry in many of the aforementioned institutions. FedEx and UPS compete with the U.S. Postal Service, private schools compete with public ones, private transportation competes with public transportation, and so on.

However, government, even when it has competition, never plays fair. For example, consider the mail. By law, UPS and FedEx are prohibited from offering to deliver First Class mail. Therefore, the government has a legal monopoly on a significant part of mail delivery.

When it comes to transportation and recreation, the government has the right to eminent domain. And, of course, the government has the power to tax to support everything from education to transportation. Also, the government can print money, make law, and has the power of the police and the military to enforce the law.

In addition, government programs don’t have to turn a profit, nor do they have to pay taxes. In other words, private industry competing with government is like a local high school football b-team heading down to Athens to take on the Bulldogs. It is simply no contest and it is ludicrous to think otherwise.

Furthermore, once the government gets involved, to end its participation is like finding an NFL team that wants Michael Vick. Entitlement programs, such as Social Security, are the classic example of this. These programs are massive: As of 2008, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid make up 42% of the federal budget. Medicare alone has $36 trillion in unfunded liabilities. As president Bush found out, it is practically impossible to reign in and reform these beasts.

Once the government gets itself established in an additional part of our lives, another piece of our liberty goes out the window—perhaps never to return. This is the real danger. Even the folks over at CNN have recently (see here) pointed out five significant freedoms that would be lost under Obamacare: 1.) Freedom to choose what’s in your plan 2.) Freedom to be rewarded for healthy living, or pay your real costs 3.) Freedom to choose high-deductible coverage 4.) Freedom to keep your existing plan 5.) Freedom to choose your doctors.

Undoubtedly, there are real problems with our healthcare industry—or more appropriately with the health insurance industry. (One of the great myths in this debate comes from confusing the word “care” with the word “insurance.”) Most of these problems are a result of the role that government already plays in the matter.

For example, currently many state governments mandate that insurance companies cover all sorts of services—from chiropractic care to hair transplants—that many people don’t want or need and that should be paid for out of pocket. This practice alone is a major cause for increased health insurance costs. The current version of Obamacare in both houses would impose such “standard benefits packages” on every plan offered.

Whatever the shortcomings of our current healthcare industry, more government is not the solution. “That government is best which governs least,” said Thomas Paine. In this succinct, but profound proverb, lies the heart of the solution to the healthcare debate. Congress and the president would do well to begin and end with this in mind.

Copyright 2009, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.

Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World

tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Founders Understood the Nature of Man

I have found common ground for liberals and conservatives. In general, most liberals have a significant distrust of corporate America, as well as a somewhat healthy distrust of capitalism. As a recent rather liberal blogger noted, “Industry after industry after industry and within them big corporation after big corporation after big corporation has acted recklessly and with only their narrow interests and avarice in mind. Often killing, maiming and poisoning tens of thousands of people without consequence or justice. That is why we have an EPA. That is why we have a CPSC. That is why we have federal oversight (supposedly) of the crooks and thieves on Wall Street and Main Street.”

Similarly, on the whole, conservatives have considerable distaste for big government and are rather suspicious of government in general. Attorney/writer Tommy De Seno highlights this in his definition of conservatism: “Conserving the rights of the individual against the trespasses of government, and the trespasses of others.”

These institutional misgivings are not without merit and they are very much rooted in the Christian view of human nature. As I wrote a few weeks ago, Christianity teaches that it is in the basic nature of each of us to be selfish. I submit to you that this take on humanity was well understood by our founders, is reflected in the founding documents of the United States, and thus is further evidence of the Christian heritage of our nation.

“There is a degree of depravity in mankind,” wrote James Madison in The Federalist Papers, “which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust.” Over a period of 11 months between 1787 and 1788, to persuade the state of New York to ratify the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay authored The Federalist Papers.

In Federalist 51 Madison summarized the misgivings of both today’s liberal and conservative: “But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”

The first governing documents in this nation, the Mayflower Compact (1620) which united the Pilgrims, and the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut (1638), considered the first Constitution written in America, both were contracts adopted by Christians and were predicated upon the Christian view of mankind.

The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut was such a significant work that it served as a model of government for the other colonies and eventually as a model for the U.S. Constitution. As noted in The Light and the Glory, “the (U.S.) Constitution…was constructed on the realistic and Scriptural assumption that the natural self-interest and self-love of man has to be checked. The checks and balances were ingenious: there would be three separate branches of government—legislative, executive, and judicial.”

For further evidence of the influence of Christianity on U.S. government, consider the work of French social philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville. In the early 1830s, Tocqueville toured the U.S. seeking to discover why the representative democracy present in America was so successful here while failing in so many other places. His efforts produced Democracy in America, an early classic account of the democratic system of U.S.government.

Tocqueville devoted a significant portion of his work to the effects of Christianity on American life. Upon his arrival in the United States he declared that, “the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention.”

Having noted the direct influence of religion upon politics in America, Tocqueville concluded that “In the United States the sovereign authority is religious…there is no country in the whole world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be no greater proof of its utility, and of its conformity to human nature, than that its influence is most powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth…The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other.”

Human beings are cursed with a sinful nature that, while yearning for freedom, requires significant accountability. Our founders understood this well and gave us the finest documents ever produced by man for his own self government which has resulted in the most enduring form of government that the world currently knows.

Copyright 2009, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.

Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World

tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com