The U.S. School System Is More Deeply Socialized than Soviet Agriculture Was under Stalin; the Economics of the U.S. Public-School System Would Be Readily Familiar to Any Student of the Soviet Economy

Though the United States is a broadly capitalist country, primary-secondary education is conducted under an almost exclusively socialist model. Indeed, the U.S. school system is more deeply socialized than Soviet agriculture was under Stalin. About 90 percent of U.S. students attend government schools for primary and secondary education, and practically 100 percent of taxpayers pay into the system. The Soviets, for all their effort, never managed to achieve 90 percent socialization of agriculture.

This comparison is not a facetious one; just as Soviet apparatchiks used their positions of influence to command better wages, better food, better housing, and other privileges not accorded to the vast proletariat on whose behalf they alleged to labor, American government workers—and government-school workers in particular—enjoy far higher wages, better healthcare benefits, more job security, guaranteed pensions, generous paid vacations, and other benefits not dreamt of by the working people on whose behalf they allegedly engage in “public service.” And the economics of the U.S. public-school system would be readily familiar to any student of the Soviet economy.

--Kevin D. Williamson, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Socialism (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2011), e-book.

Today’s Communist Movement Is on Fire for the “LGBTQ” Agenda; Not Blameless in This Effort to Redefine Culture and Sex Is the Frankfurt School, an Offshoot of Marxist-Leninist Ideology

Communists today sound surprisingly modern and hip. Just compare the old Soviet-backed and -funded Daily Worker to its successor publication, the official CPUSA media organ, People’s World.  Read People’s World and you will be struck by just how on fire today’s communist movement is for the “LGBTQ” agenda. It was not always that way.

A few short decades ago, the Communist Party USA did not exactly roll out the red carpet for the rainbow crowd. Quite the contrary. That’s why gay rights pioneers like Harry Hay once had troubled relationships with the CPUSA, which at one point considered homosexuality deviant. What changed?

Not blameless in this effort to redefine culture and sex is the Frankfurt School, an offshoot of Marxist-Leninist ideology that arose in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s and that has become enormously influential on American college campuses in the intervening decades. The pioneers of this movement were all about culture and sex and education. The founders of the Frankfurt School were neo-Marxists, a new kind of twentieth-century communist less interested in Marx’s ideas on class and economic redistribution than in remaking society through the eradication of traditional norms and institutions. They combined Marxist theory with psychology, sociology, and Freudian teachings on sex.

--Paul Kengor, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Communism (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2017), e-book.

Because Their Goal Was Industrial and Economic Modernization and Development Not Utopian Universal Equality and Human Liberation, Fascists Supported Specific Remedies for Specific Economic Problems

Because their goal was clearly industrial and economic modernization and development rather than utopian universal equality and human liberation, Fascists supported specific remedies for specific economic problems. They sought to impose industrial peace, reduce the loss of man-hours in labor time as a consequence of strikes and lockouts, restore the efficiency of public services, renew confidence in the nation's economy, provide for a more rapid accumulation of investment capital, institute a rationalization and modernization of government bureaucracy, maintain, foster, and expand productive plants, communications, and agricultural potential.

While the dislocations that followed the war created grievous tensions for Italy's economy, the resolution of some international economic difficulties assisted Fascism's immediate rehabilitative and developmental efforts. In effect, it early became clear that Fascist judgments had been correct. Italy's economy required homeopathic therapy rather than radical surgery. Italy's immediate postwar problems turned on labor unrest, a dearth of fresh investment capital, the snarl of complex, sometimes conflicting, tax laws, the financial failure of some of the largest industrial and banking establishments on the peninsula, and a crisis in agricultural production. The most urgent problem, in the judgment of almost all commentators of that period, turned on state finances and the tax system that subtended it. A week before the March on Rome, Giolitti insisted that the state's financial difficulties--a state deficit of six billion lire, encumbered by an annual interest payment of 400 million lire--constituted the gravest peril to the economy of the peninsula.

Almost immediately after the March on Rome, Mussolini appointed Alberto De' Stefani Minister of Finance. De' Stefani, armed with special decree powers, proceeded to reform the nation's fiscal system, abolish the extraordinary tax on war profits and property, and rescind the requirement that stocks and bonds be registered in the name of the owner, all in an effort to stimulate savings and capital investment. De' Stefani further undertook to reduce the state's expenditures and balance the national budget. He introduced reforms in the national bureaucracy, reducing both the number of state employees and administrative costs.

At almost the same time, the Fascist government returned the telephone system to private management and opened the insurance industry to private capital, thus abolishing the state monopoly that had been in force since 1912. Ansaldo, one of Italy's largest mechanical and conglomerate industries, and the Banco di Roma, one of the nation's largest financial institutions, were salvaged from liquidation by government intervention. In March of 1923 a parastate consortium was established by decree law to provide low-interest capital loans to industry.

--A. James Gregor, Italian Fascism and Developmental Dictatorship (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), 141-142.

Climate Change Is Governed by Hundreds of Factors; the Idea that We Can Manage Climate Change Predictably by Understanding and Manipulating One Politically-Selected Factor (CO2), Is As Misguided As It Gets

What Really Causes Climate Change

The claim by global warming activists that CO2 is the global temperature control knob has been challenged in the peer-reviewed literature. That’s simply not what the earth’s geologic history shows.

As many scientists have pointed out, variations in global temperature correlate much better with solar activity and with complicated cycles of the oceans and atmosphere than with CO2. “There isn’t the slightest evidence that more carbon dioxide has caused more extreme weather,” Happer and Schmitt wrote.

One peer-reviewed study found the climate of the “ancient” Earth similar to ours—despite CO2 levels five times higher than those today. Geologists reconstructed Earth’s climate belts between 460 and 445 million years ago and found “ancient climate belts were surprisingly like those of the present.”

Geoffrey G. Duffy, an award-winning professor at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, who has authored hundreds of scientific studies, pointed out, “Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapor and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will.”

In fact, climate change is governed by hundreds of factors, not just CO2.

University of London Professor Emeritus of Biogeography Philip Stott, whom we have already met, rebuts the notion that CO2 is the main climate change driver. “As I have said, over and over again, the fundamental point has always been this: climate change is governed by hundreds of factors, or variables, and the very idea that we can manage climate change predictably by understanding and manipulating at the margins one politically-selected factor (CO2), is as misguided as it gets,” Stott wrote in 2008.

Atmospheric scientist Robert L. Scotto, past member of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) who has authored or co-authored numerous technical publications and reports, has said, “Based on the laws of physics, the effect on temperature of man’s contribution to atmospheric CO2 levels is minuscule and indiscernible from the natural variability caused in large part by changes in solar energy output.”

--Marc Morano, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2018), e-book.

Virginia, Maryland, and Rhode Island Explicitly Reserved (in the Act of Ratifying the Constitution) their Right to Secede; One Can Easily Deduce a Right to Secession from the Language of the Tenth Amendment

Initially, many northerners conceded the validity of secession. In fact, some abolitionists had been calling for northern secession for years. In Congress, several congressmen from northern states proposed amendments to limit the right of secession, de facto conceding that the right of secession already existed. And, logically, it had to exist, because without such a right, the American colonies/states could not have seceded from the British Empire.

The Federalists always insisted during the ratification debates-knowing they had to in order to win approval for the Constitution-that the states were individual parties to a federal compact. Spelling out the logic of the compact, three states-Virginia, Maryland, and Rhode Island-explicitly reserved (in the act of ratifying the Constitution) their right to secede from the Union. And one can easily deduce a right to secession from the language of the Tenth Amendment: because the Constitution does not prohibit secession, that power, like all the other "powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states," is "reserved to the states."

Yet, in his inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln called secession an impossibility. Representative Otis S. Ferry of Connecticut must have been surprised at this, as he had only weeks before proposed an amendment to the Constitution forbidding secession without the consent of Congress, the president, and the other states. Still, Lincoln said that states could not secede.

--Kevin R. C. Gutzman, The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Constitution (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2007), e-book.

We Meteorologists Appreciate the Inherent Complexity of the Climate System; We View the Climate System As Being Self-Regulating

It is natural for scientists to put undue trust in their own research. After all, their livelihoods and reputations are at stake. And in the case of climate modeling, a large group of individuals from different specialties and having different talents have invested many years in building and improving each climate model. It is understandable, then, that as the model gradually becomes better at imitating the average behavior of the climate system, the modelers tend to believe the global warming that the model produces.

Over the years, I have noticed a distinct difference in the way climate modelers and meteorologists perceive the climate system. Climate modelers are usually physicists who are typically better at computer modeling than meteorologists. Physicists are more accustomed to reducing the behavior of a physical system to a minimum number of mathematical equations in order to study it.

But physicists tend to have a simpler view of how the weather works than do meteorologists. They usually have little or no formal education in meteorology. In contrast, we meteorologists appreciate the inherent—almost biological—complexity of the climate system. Based upon our experiences with weather forecasting and watching the weather, we view the climate system as being self-regulating.

As a result of the difference in backgrounds between climate modelers and meteorologists, I find much more skepticism about global warming among meteorologists than among the physicists/ modelers. I believe this is just one more reason why modelers are often unduly confident in their model predictions.

--Roy W. Spencer, Climate Confusion: How Global Warming Hysteria Leads to Bad Science, Pandering Politicians and Misguided Policies that Hurt the Poor (New York: Encounter Books, 2008), e-book.

Women’s Studies Deploys Social Constructionism in a Highly Selective and Self-Serving Way: It’s As If Everything They Dislike about ‘Women’ Gets Dismissed as Social Construction, While All the Rest Is the Real Thing

And let’s not forget social constructionism, which figures in all identity studies but plays an especially significant role in Women’s Studies—after all, a key tenet of the discipline is that gender itself is a social construction. But Women’s Studies deploys social constructionism in a highly selective and self-serving way: as Patai and Koertge note, “It’s as if everything they dislike about ‘women’ gets dismissed as social construction, while all the rest is the Real Thing. As for men, most everything about them is not socially constructed, since that would, in some sense, let them off the hook, so men get heavy doses of essentialist attributions while the students imagine they’re espousing a straight constructionist line of analysis.”

Foucault’s notion of hegemony—the claim that power in a democracy like America is more potent than power in a dictatorship because it’s invisible—is also a critical element of Women’s Studies ideology. The irony is that while the power of the U.S. government is not, in fact, a good example of “hegemony” as described by Foucault, many Women’s Studies programs are: on the surface, there’s plenty of pretty rhetoric about women’s mutual support and nurturing and openness to diversity; the underlying reality, however, is one of hard-core ideological indoctrination and enforcement. As one Women’s Studies professor told Patai and Koertge,

“feminist process” in the classroom winds up being . . . a push toward conformism and toward silencing dissent. It’s all done under the rubric of being nice and open, and not being an authoritarian, old-fashioned type of teacher. But this winds up being tremendously more coercive. Because with authoritarian teachers you know they’re being authoritarian, and you can resist. You know who’s doing what to you. But the other way is manipulation, which is far worse than straight coercion, because students are being led someplace without any clarity as to whose accountable for what and who’s leading them there.

You could hardly come up with a more nearly perfect description of Foucault-style hegemony.

--Bruce Bawer, The Victims' Revolution: The Rise of Identity Studies and the Closing of the Liberal Mind (Sydney: Broadside Books, 2012), e-book.

It Is Vital to Understand that Political Correctness Is Utterly and Completely Immune to Evidence; the Reason that PC Is Absolutely Evidence-Proof Is that It Operates at a Wholly Abstract Level

It is vital to understand that political correctness is immune to evidence – and I do not mean resistant to evidence, nor do I mean blindly dogmatic such that PC requires an overwhelming weight of evidence to be convinced; but I mean utterly and completely immune to evidence such that unanimity of incontrovertible evidence against PC is still insufficient to induce significant re-evaluation.

This is important to realize; since it makes clear that time, energy and personal resources expended on trying to convince PC advocates with evidence is just so much time and energy down-the-drain and lost--precious resources that could potentially have been expended constructively elsewhere.

The reason that PC is absolutely evidence-proof is that it operates at a wholly abstract level.

But the reason that it superficially appears that PC might potentially be open to evidential refutation is that, although abstract, PC is concerned exclusively with material proxy-measures of its abstractions.

That is the distinctive move which sets-apart PC from any preceding ideology.

Political correctness operates on the assumption that an abstract system of allocation is intrinsically superior to the lack of such a system; and the details can be worked-out in the fullness of time. . . .

My point is not that abstract systematic altruism is a means to some kind of end, but is an end in itself.

This is why effectiveness is of no interest, outcomes are of no concern and evidence has no relevance.

--Bruce G. Charlton, Thought Prison: The Fundamental Nature of Political Correctness (Buckingham, UK: University of Buckingham Press, 2015), e-book.

The Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom Also Stated, “To Compel a Man to Furnish Contributions of Money for the Propagation of Opinions which He Disbelieves Is Sinful and Tyrannical”

It [the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom] asserted: “The impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time.” It also stated, “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical.” And: “Even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion” would be a deprivation of liberty.

--Alf J. Mapp Jr., Thomas Jefferson: America's Paradoxical Patriot (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2008), 176.

The Mind Must Be Freed from the Tyranny of Censoring Governments: “I Have Sworn Upon the Altar of God Eternal Hostility to Every Form of Tyranny over the Mind of Man”

But Jefferson was so impressed with the last words of the “epitaph,” whatever their origin, that he tried to have them adopted as Virginia's motto and, failing that, adopted them as the personal motto surrounding the monogram on his seal: “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” Later Jefferson was to express a similar idea in even more memorable words of his own: “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility to every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” Freedom of the mind was, to him, at least as vital as freedom of speech and press. The mind must be freed from the tyranny of censoring governments, but it must be freed also from the domination of ignorance and superstition.

--Alf J. Mapp Jr., Thomas Jefferson: America's Paradoxical Patriot (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2008), 174.

To Take a Single Step Beyond the Boundaries Thus Especially Drawn Around the Powers of Congress Is to Take Possession of a Boundless Field of Power, No Longer Susceptible of Any Definition

Attorney General Randolph had already expressed his firm conviction that the National Bank bill was unconstitutional when Jefferson wrote his reply to Washington. Thus the Secretary of State, along with Madison and Randolph, became part of a trio of Virginians making an orchestrated attack on the bank.

In his reply to the President, Jefferson methodically listed the three things that the bill was designed to do. It would form a corporation with functions crossing state lines and challenging state authority. In effect, it would grant a monopoly. It would authorize directors of this new corporate monopoly to make regulations superseding in some instances the laws of the states. He then examined these provisions in the light of an amendment to the Constitution of the United States which had not yet been formally adopted but was assured of passage. He anticipated that it would be the Twelfth Amendment, and so designated it, but it became the Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to  the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." "To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus especially drawn around the powers of Congress," Jefferson argued, "is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition."

--Alf J. Mapp Jr., Thomas Jefferson: America's Paradoxical Patriot (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2008), 294.

Whether One Generation of Men Has a Right to Bind Another Is a Question Pertaining to the Fundamental Principles of Every Government

The concluding article of Lafayette's draft, asserting the right of successive generations "to examine and, if necessary, to modify the form of government" seemed to echo Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. At this distance, in view of the close association of Enlightenment figures from France and the United States, it is difficult to say who influenced whom. It must have been difficult even in their own generation. Distinguished historians have cited Jefferson's letter of September 6, 1789, to James Madison as an example of radically original thought, yet there is strong evidence that its central idea was simply borrowed from an Englishman and amplified by Jefferson. The American minister wrote:

The question whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have ben started either on this or our side of the water. Yet it is a question of such consequences as not only to merit decision, but place also, among the fundamental principles of every government. . . . I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, 'that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living': that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it. . . . 

It may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it then, and what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct. . . . 

This principle that the earth belongs to the living, and not to the dead, is of very extensive application and consequences, in every country, and most especially in France. 

--Alf J. Mapp Jr., Thomas Jefferson: America's Paradoxical Patriot (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2008), 268.

In Obedience to the Principle So Often Attributed to Sir Thomas Gresham, Paper Money Issued by the National Bank Was Driving Out Dependable Coinage

Jefferson charged that the national debt had been grossly mishandled. It had become too large to be taken care of by the ordinary sources of revenue, so that the impost had been raised to such a height that the collectors might have to bear arms. Even so, the sums obtained were still insufficient to service the debt, and the federal government had to resort to excise taxes. This expedient was so unpopular as to invite mass resistance. To the Revolutionary generation, revolt against taxation was not inconceivable.

In obedience to the principle so often attributed to Sir Thomas Gresham, paper money issued by the National Bank was driving out dependable coinage. This ghost currency served only the lenders, whose annual profit of 10 to 12 percent was "taken out of the pockets of the people." The bank, which was supposed to stimulate commerce and insure national prosperity, was imperiling both commerce and agriculture by substituting "paper speculation" for true production.

The political and social effects of the bank, he argued, were even worse than the economic. The institution's policies had created in Congress a "corrupt squadron." The term now conjures up visions of outright bribery but Jefferson meant simply conflict of interest in that Congressmen who were stockholders in the bank were also framing the legislation that governed it.

--Alf J. Mapp Jr., Thomas Jefferson: America's Paradoxical Patriot (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2008), 308.

Feminists Brought with Them Its Tactics of Intimidation and Interrogation; Many Radical Lesbians Were Lesbian Supremacists Who Demanded Primacy in Terms of Victimhood

Only now, looking back, do I remember how much of the early years of second-wave feminism was painful.

Individual petty jealousies and leaderless group bullying were frightening and ugly. “Mean girls” envied and destroyed excellence and talent; in short, they ate their most gifted leaders.

Feminists who had left the Left brought with them its tactics of intimidation and interrogation.

Many radical lesbians were lesbian supremacists who demanded primacy in terms of victimhood. Some also outed other women in cruel and public ways.

Thus, right at the beginning of paradise, trouble rumbled both overhead and beneath our feet. Trouble drove many a good feminist far, far away, but many of us who could still taste paradise on our tongues remained for the duration.

The psychologist Naomi Weisstein told me that within three years of its formation, the Chicago Women’s Liberation Rock Band turned on her in pretty much all the familiar feminist ways. The Chicago Women’s Liberation Union, which she had helped found in 1969, had already trashed her as a “star” and demanded that she surrender her speaking engagements to less eloquent speakers. Band members followed suit, and, fraught with envy and untold hidden agendas, the band disbanded in 1973.

Here’s what they were thinking: if all women were supposed to be equal, then no woman should be more appreciated or better known than any other.

Although unacknowledged, the trashing of the late 1960s and 1970s was ultimately the psychological reason our mass radical movement ground to a halt. The ideological disputes played out in breathlessly vicious ways. But it didn’t stop me. Luckily, I was blessed with the ability to remain connected to women on both sides of many of our major wars.

--Phyllis Chesler, A Politically Incorrect Feminist: Creating a Movement with Bitches, Lunatics, Dykes, Prodigies, Warriors, and Wonder Women (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2018), e-book.

Alan Sokal's Hoax Brought into the Open a Widespread Reaction Against the Sesquipedalian Posturings of Postmodern Theory and the Futility of the Identity Politics that So Often Travels with It

For us, however, the greatest surprises have been pleasant ones. Chief among them was the international uproar occasioned by the publication of Alan Sokal’s now-famous hoax, “Transgressing the Boundaries: The Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity,” in the trendy cultural studies journal Social Text. The ongoing saga of Sokal’s pleasantry is instructive on several levels. The joke arose from Sokal’s reading of our book. Originally, as a principled leftist, he suspected that we two might be conservatives as charged, advancing antiliberal agenda under the pretext of defending science. However, he ultimately found much of our argument persuasive. In fact, his own researches convinced him that we had in some respects understated the case. His dismay at the clear evidence that a once-vigorous intellectual tradition of radical dissent is slipping into irrationality prompted him to put aside physics for a few weeks in the fall of 1994 in order to compose his delightful parody. It was submitted to Social Text, in all apparent seriousness, early that winter. Unknown to Sokal at the time, that publication, under the leadership of Prof. Andrew Ross, was preparing a special issue on what it dubbed “the science wars.” The intention was to vindicate assorted poststructuralist, multicultural, and feminist critiques of science and to denounce their critics, most notably the depraved Gross and Levitt. Sokal’s piece, with its seconding and fulsome praise of such intentions, was snapped up by the editors.

The tainted issue appeared in due course (May 1996), Sokal’s revelation of the hoax appeared a few days later in Lingua Franca, and then all hell broke loose. Predictably, some conservatives crowed, citing the “Sokal Text” affair as further proof that left-wing sympathies equate to outright dementia (notwithstanding Sokal’s own leftist views). But the reaction of a large number of left-intellectuals was more lasting and perhaps more significant for the academy. Sokal’s hoax brought into the open a widespread reaction, years in the making, against the sesquipedalian posturings of postmodern theory and the futility of the identity politics that so often travels with it. Cutting-edge celebrities, long used to dictating the tone of political discussion in “progressive” circles, suddenly found themselves on the hot seat. As of this writing, the recriminations continue with no sign of abatement.

--Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt, preface to the 1998 edition of Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), e-book.

By Any Reasonable Standard, Feminist Epistemology Should Have Expired in 1994; Feminist Epistemology Should Not Be Taken Seriously

Feminist epistemology consists of theories of knowledge created by women, about women's modes of knowing, for the purpose of liberating women. By any reasonable standard, it should have expired in 1994. Working independently, Gross and Levitt in Higher Superstition, Sommers in Who Stole Feminism? as well as Patai and Koertge in Professing Feminism all identified fatal flaws in the feminist epistemological program. More detailed analyses appeared in Feminist Epistemology: For and Against, a special issue of the The Monist, edited by Haack. The simple bottom line of all these critiques is succinctly expressed by Pinnick in a 1994 issue of Philosophy of Science: "No feminist epistemology is worthy of the name, because such an epistemology fails to escape well known vicissitudes of epistemic relativism. The central thesis of this article is that feminist epistemology should not be taken seriously."

There is a long history of cogent criticisms of feminist epistemology--recall, for example, Radcliffe Richards's beautifully argued book, The Sceptical Feminist, which appeared in 1981. And at a symposium in 1980, where Harding and Hartsock were already decrying Bacon's alleged rape metaphors, I vigorously criticized their "standpoint" epistemology: "One final polemical remark: If it really could be shown that patriarchal thinking not only played a crucial role in the Scientific Revolution but is also necessary for carrying out scientific inquiry as we know it, that would constitute the strongest argument for patriarchy that I can think of! I continue to believe that science- even white, upperclass, male-dominated science--is one of the most important allies of oppressed people."

--Noretta Koertge, "Feminist Epistemology: Stalking an Un-Dead Horse," in The Flight from Science and Reason, ed. Paul R. Gross, Norman Levitt, and Martin W. Lewis (New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1996), 413.

Opposing Theories Hold that Changes in Solar Intensity and Activity Cause Incessant Changes in Global Temperature, Which in turn Causes Natural Changes in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Content

Opposing theories hold that changes in solar intensity and activity cause incessant changes in global temperature, which in turn causes natural changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide content. These changes dominate, to the extent that it is impossible to discern any effect on the climate or on atmospheric carbon dioxide from man-made greenhouse gases. The theories provide a clear explanation for the roller coaster behavior of global temperature over centuries and millennia.

These alternative explanations are not satisfactory to the followers of the greenhouse disaster scenario teachings. If the current warming is just as natural as those that went before, there is no role for politics. The greenhouse hypothesis is politically correct, demands a political solution to the "warming problem" and refers to all other notions as "minority views." The greenhouse hypothesis is pursued as a goal in itself; science becomes politics as majority rule is accepted in determining scientific issues.

--M. Mihkel Mathiesen, Global Warming in a Politically Correct Climate: How Truth Became Controversial (New York: iUniverse Star, 2004), 71.

Carbon Dioxide Has Not Controlled Earth's Past Temperatures; Carbon Dioxide Has Been a Lagging Indicator; Its Concentrations Rising about 600-800 Years AFTER the Temperatures Warm

Recently the CO₂ levels in the Earth's atmosphere and temperatures on the Earth's surface have both been rising. Does that mean that high CO₂ levels have been causing the Earth's warming? Or is it just coincidence?

According to the greenhouse theory, more CO₂ in the Earth's atmosphere will trap more of the Earth's own radiated heat, warming the lower atmosphere and ultimately the surface of the planet--all other things being equal. But the fact that the Earth's temperature has warmed only slightly since 1940, despite the huge clouds of greenhouse gases emitted from human activities, provides evidence that the human greenhouse effect must be so small that it presents little threat to the planet or its people. This is especially true since each additional unit of CO₂ causes less warming than the previous unit. . . .

The Antarctic ice cores tell us that the Earth's temperatures and CO₂ levels have tracked closely together through the last three ice ages and global warmings. However, CO₂ has been a lagging indicator, its concentrations rising about 600 to 800 years after the temperatures warm.

--S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery, Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years, updated and expanded ed. (Lanham, MD: Rowman  and Littlefield Publishers, 2008), 107-108.

I Watched My Chosen Discipline—Climatology—Get Hijacked and Exploited in Service of a Political Agenda; It Undermines the Environmental Movement by setting up a Classic ‘Cry Wolf’ Scenario

I’ve studied climate both scientifically and academically for over forty years after spending eight years studying meteorology and observing the weather as an aircrew and operations officer in the Canadian Air Force. When I began the academic portion of my career, global cooling was the concern, but it was not a major social theme. During the 1980s the concern switched to global warming which became a major political, social and economic issue.

I watched my chosen discipline—climatology—get hijacked and exploited in service of a political agenda, watched people who knew little or nothing enter the fray and watched scientists become involved for political or funding reasons—willing to corrupt the science, or, at least, ignore what was really going on. The tale is more than a sad story because it set climatology back thirty years and damaged the credibility of science in general.

It also undermined the environmental movement by incorrectly claiming massive environmental damage and setting up a classic ‘cry wolf’ scenario. It is the greatest deception in history and the extent of the damage has yet to be exposed and measured.

There have been, of course, other sad deceptions throughout history, but all of them were regional, or, at most, continental. The deceptive idea that human-generated CO₂ causes global warming or climate change impacted every person in the entire world, thus it reflects Marshall McLuhan’s concept of the global village. This book shows how the deception was designed to be global by involving every nation through the agencies of the United Nations. Historians with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight will wonder how such a small group was able to achieve such a massive deception.

--Tim Ball, preface to The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science (Mount Vernon, WA: Stairway Press, 2014), e-book.

It Is Taboo to Say This, But It Must Be Said: The Novel Theories of Subtle But Pervasive Racial Prejudice—“White Privilege,” “Cultural Appropriation,” and so forth—Are Complete Nonsense

I am attempting to do for race relations what Glassner did for consumer advocacy: use hard data to penetrate an intentionally created fog of exaggerations and lies and expose a surprisingly positive reality. Many Americans today, especially on the activist left, seem to believe that the United States is a racist hell-hole on the brink of civil war. In the mainstream media we hear almost constant talk about scary new forms of racism: “white privilege,” “cultural appropriation,” and “subtle bigotry.” The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement argues that a near-genocide is underway in 2019 America, including police and vigilante murders of “tens of thousands” of Black men annually. The platform of The Movement for Black Lives, one of the founding documents of Black Lives Matter, claims that immediate reparations for slavery and the opening of America’s borders are the only ways that minorities can be compensated for the harms currently being done to us. . . .

It is taboo to say this, but it must be said: The novel theories of subtle but pervasive racial prejudice—“white privilege,” “cultural appropriation,” and so forth—are complete nonsense. And many of the hate crimes cited in support of those theories never happened. . . .

You will read about almost one hundred fake hate crimes in this book. It is probable that most widely reported recent hate crimes have been hoaxes.

--Wilfred Reilly, introduction to Hate Crime Hoax: How the Left Is Selling a Fake Race War (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2019), e-book.

Simone de Beauvoir, Like the Vast Majority of Feminists, Admires Marxist-Leninism and the Soviet Union Because They Promise a World Where Men and Women Would Be Equal

Simone de Beauvoir, like the vast majority of feminists, regards the radical alteration of parenting as more than a utopian fantasy. She finds it "easy to visualize" a world "where men and women would be equal,"

for that is precisely what the Soviet Union promised: women trained and raised exactly like men. . . . [M]arriage was to be based on a free agreement that the spouses could break at will; maternity was to be voluntary; pregnancy leaves were to be paid for by the State, which would assume charge of the children, signifying not that they would be taken away from their parents, but that they would not be abandoned to them. 

De Beauvoir is so far from alone among feminists in admiring Marxist-Leninism that this admiration, together with hostility to "capitalism," can be considered virtually a further distinguishing mark of feminism. The main criticism offered of the Soviet Union is that it has not gone far enough. Kate Millett sides with Trotsky against Lenin because "there was no realization [on Lenin's part] that while every practical effort should be made to implement a sexual revolution, the real test would be in changing attitudes." To be sure, feminists are attracted primarily to the ideas that the Soviet state proclaims itself as embodying, rather than to the Soviet regime itself, but with that understood, a great many well-known feminists, including de Beauvoir, Millett, Firestone, Bleier, Mitchell, Chodorow, MacKinnon, Steinem, Sheila Rowbotham, Margaret Benston, Angela Davis, Eli Zaretsky, Evelyn Reed, Barbara Ehrenreich, Vivian Howe, and Rayna Rapp identify themselves as socialists or Marxists of some sort. According to Germaine Greer, "the forcing-house of most of the younger women's liberation groups was the university left wing."

--Michael Levin, Feminism and Freedom (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1988), 26.