Ron Paul says global warming is a hoax.

[pnwmom]

(He also wants to get abolish the EPA, since it interferes with private property rights.)


From a pro-Ron Paul site:

http://www.ronpaul.com/on-the-issues/global-warming/

After additional consideration and analysis and shortly before the release of the Climategate emails in late 2009, Ron Paul identified the artificial panic around Global Warming as an elaborate hoax:

“The greatest hoax I think that has been around for many, many years if not hundreds of years has been this hoax on [...] global warming.” – Ron Paul on Fox Business, Nov. 4, 2009

“[The Copenhagen treaty on climate change] can’t help the economy. It has to hurt the economy and it can’t possibly help the environment because they’re totally off track on that. It might turn out to be one of the biggest hoaxes of all history, this whole global warming terrorism that they’ve been using, but we’ll have to just wait and see, but it cannot be helpful. It’s going to hurt everybody.” – Ron Paul on the Alex Jones Show, Nov. 5, 2009

[Zalatix]

1. We should do a clearinghouse thread on Ron Paul'isms. n/t

.

[Gregorian]

2. An embarrassment to Ferrengis everywhere.

What a pinhead.

[Tansy_Gold]

3. Tansy Gold says Ron Paul is putz. A monumentally stupid putz at that. n/t

[MH1]

29. +1000

[madinmaryland]

46. Please don't insult putz's like that!

Thanks!

[Morning Dew]

4. Ron Paul talking to Alex Jones - that's enough to make your head hurt

all by itself.

[Blue_Tires]

20. Yeah, they are cut from the same cloth

It's funny how quiet Paul has been about his connection with the 9-11 truther movement this time around as opposed to '08 when one of his major campaign themes was a top-to-bottom investigation of 9-11...In fact, iirc a lot of his early internet buzz originated from 9-11 blogs and discussions

[Old and In the Way]

5. I wonder what name he posts under at FreeRepublic? nt

[JustAnotherGen]

6. Rec

For that well written observation!

[mmonk]

7. Who cares what Ron Paul says? Are DU'ers that paranoid

of Ron Paul? How many Ron Paul threads are there now anyway?

[NNN0LHI]

8. Make a list of what you want or don't want posted here

Takes all the guesswork out of it.

Don

[mmonk]

13. I don't care what is posted personally. And I have no problem with the OP.

It's just he has a snowball's chance in hell of winning.

[trumad]

10. This is a political discussion forum

and Ron Paul is leading in Iowa.

You don't like the threads then ignore them.

It's that easy.

[mmonk]

12. And if people don't like comments, likewise.

[Richard D]

16. Should be at least a little paranoid.

I can't believe how many otherwise liberal friends I have that have become rabid paulites. There's something going on there that has the feeling to me of a tidal wave. Scary as shit cause you can't talk to any of them with any degree of logic. Most start spewing alex jones nonsense after 30 seconds. There's a lot of them. It's a movement. A bowel movement, for sure, but it's something that needs to be dealt with.

[Ratty]

24. I've seen more posts than I can count

That start with the words "I don't know much about Ron Paul but ..." So apparently many on DU are asking to know more.

[CreekDog]

35. you're calling DUers "paranoid" for discussing what Ron Paul says?

talk about name calling!

and your premise that because he won't win, it's paranoid to discuss what he says or believes is ridiculous.

his ideas get lots of coverage even when we do not discuss them. discussion here helps people understand not only things Paul has said, but the flaws in what he's said and responses to his arguments.

the idea that you are calling us paranoid for discussing Paul is insulting and wrong.

[mmonk]

47. Pardon me. I thought it odd at the time I posted that there

were maybe five Ron Paul threads on the page at the time I was looking at in GD.

[Laelth]

9. Appalling.

It's bad enough to deny global warming, but to accuse anyone who talks about global warming of being a terrorist? That's craven and despicable.

-Laelth

[NNN0LHI]

11. Ron Paul and his defenders are lunatics

[SidDithers]

23. +1...

I served on a jury on a post alerted for defending Ron Paul the other day. One of the other jurors posted this in their comments:

"Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: First of all, I am sick and tired of hearing that Ron Paul is a racist. Maybe people are confusing Ron with Rand, his son. If the poster had said he was voting for Ron Paul, or urging us to vote for Ron Paul, then I would be "hiding" the post. But to simply offer up a defense of this fellow, Ron Paul, who like me, is against foreign war entanglements, and who has helped Kucinich, one of my all time favorite Democrats out, while the two of them serve in Congress, seems fine with me."

Sadly, some of the lunatics are DUers.

Sid

[NNN0LHI]

34. I was chatting with a Ron Paul supporter here myself just yesterday but he left for some reason

http://www.democraticunderground.com/100247386

[SidDithers]

36. They're coming out of the woodwork...

unless it's the same one over and over and over and over and over again.



Sid

[The2ndWheel]

14. Well if we actually did do something about it

the economy would be hurt. It would have to be. The economy exists within physical reality. The ever increasing amount of human activity over the centuries is helping to change the environment. That's why our environmental issues are not just about fossil fuels. Humans are privatizing the wealth of the planet for a single species. If it's bad for the 99% that the 1% are doing the same in just the human world, then if a single species is doing the same thing on the entire world, the results will be the same.

[CreekDog]

33. Do you have a religious belief that the economy would be hurt by doing something?

doing something about global warming?

because you certainly aren't offering any evidence and doing something about global warming (climate change) has certainly helped rather than harmed countries like Germany who have invested increasingly into renewable energy and conservation.

further many economists see the value to the economy of measures designed to reduce our impact on the climate, and those measures will make our economy less susceptible to oil generated price shocks which have caused slowdowns and/or inflation multiple times in the past few decades.

but you just state some nonsense about a "physical reality" and we're expected to believe whatever you say about environmental measures and the economy.

[The2ndWheel]

37. The only evidence I would have are

tens of thousands of years of history.

It's not so much the energy that we use, as it's the amount of activity that we do as a result of the energy that is the foundation of our environmental issues. Those issues go back well before any wide spread use of fossil fuels.

Here's an example of some nonsense about physical reality. The building of the interstate highway system(for example) is one of the worst things we could ever do from an environmental perspective. From an economic perspective, it was easily one of the greatest things we've ever done.

[immoderate]

41. But if the vehicles run on renewable energy...?

Burning oil and consumer economies are unsustainable. Good for a certain stage of development, but the time has come to conserve the planet. History is not a guide to our survival, for "tens of thousands of years of history" we were not capable of destroying life as we know it.

It's the wrong guide.


--imm

[The2ndWheel]

42. The roads are a debt yet to be repaid

Progress doesn't really move sideways from left to right on the graph. It builds upon what was already built. So we may not have been able to destroy life as we know it for every one of those thousands of years, but that's only because we weren't at the scale needed to possibly do so. What Monsanto, Exxon, Wal-Mart, etc, all do, this is just what humanity has been doing for a long time, just on a much smaller scale. Monsanto experimenting with the DNA of plants is just a larger scale of agriculture.

So I'd say our history is a pretty good guide. Another aspect of that history would be that with every increase in potential energy to use, we've increased the scale at which we cause problems. If renewable energy works the way we're hoping it does, its use is probably going to cause potentially larger problems. Then again, no matter what we do, we'll have problems to deal with. We can't escape physical reality.

[immoderate]

45. Yes, the idea, is to limit entropy. And that's new.

What's different is the number of people and their power to do damage. It's also a new level of self awareness, hopefully.

--imm

[CreekDog]

43. That's an argument not evidence

And many activities use less energy than previously.

If you're going to peddle anti environmental nonsense, at least know what you're talking about.

[phleshdef]

15. Well hey! It doesn't say anything about global warming in the constitution!

It wasn't in the founders original intent for greenhouse gases to cause temperatures to rise. so it ain't fer us!

[yellowcanine]

17. I think Ron Paul may be a hoax. He is really E.T.

Here is E.T.......



Now here is Ron Paul.......



The resemblance is uncanny. I rest my case.

[newspeak]

19. yes, if methane gases are now coming up from the sea bed where the ice is melting

it's just those scientific nerds telling lies to keep our corporations from making profits. We all know those moral corporations really have the welfare of the people of the world in mind, not profits. Nope, they wouldn't destroy the world for profits because they really, really care.

Paul can take his "free market" libertarianism BS and (oh, better be nice).

[w8liftinglady]

18. Paul needs to talk to some of his peers

You HAVE been to college,right? I had to take Physics when I was pre-med.

http://www.globalchange.gov/

http://www.wiley.com/bw/journal.asp?ref=1354-1013

http://geochange.er.usgs.gov/

http://www.gcrio.org/library/index.htm

http://www.lternet.edu/global_change/

http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/category/u-s-global-change-research-program/

[mysuzuki2]

21. Abolish the EPA because it interferes with property rights?

Okay, how about if I buy the property next to your house Ron, and use it as a nuclear waste dump. Hey, I got the right to use my property any way I want, right?

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

22. Ron Paul is right on concerning foreign wars and drugs

but for nearly everything else, he's the biggest loon in the clown car.

[coalition_unwilling]

26. I don't know about that. While Paul is pretty crazy, he has

never advocated arresting 'activist judges' the way Gingrich did just a couple days ago.

Paul is 'crazy' like your family's 'crazy uncle'. You know he's nuts and you'd never actually follow his advice on anything of significance, but you still can love the irascible old coot.

Gingrich, on the other hand, is 'crazy' like Benito Mussolini was 'crazy.'

Or am I giving Paul too much benefit of the doubt?

[NNN0LHI]

32. Didn't he vote to invade and occupy Afghanistan?

Or do I have him confused with some other lunatic?

Don

[Ratty]

25. I've always found the Libertarian position on global warming interesting

I mean, most deniers abhor science as godless and liberal so they are against it as a matter of principle. Then you get the religious nutcases who believe in man's dominion and all that, the oil industry puppets who only care about their bottom line, Al Gore haters. So what's up with Libertarians who almost universally deny it? I see it as a challenge to their rigid world view. A problem that only government and regulation can solve. Thus is cannot exist.

[coalition_unwilling]

27. Just out of curiosity (perhaps overly morbid), does Libertarianism

evince an anti-science stance? Would Libertarians object to the scientific method as a means to obtain knowledge about the world?

[Ratty]

28. No. Not at all

In my experience, just the opposite. They aren't anti-science. That's why I find their stance interesting rather than just predictable.

[coalition_unwilling]

44. I wonder if Libertarians acknowledge climate science as a valid

branch of science. Because I understand that the vast majority of climate scientists agree that global climate change is a reality (beyond dispute) and that only questions about the magnitude of the coming change remain to be settled. The nay-sayers (and I understand there are a few) are now mostly considered kooks.

[The2ndWheel]

30. The only regulation that could help would be

the kind that people don't come up with. For example, people not physically being able to fly like a bird. We don't have wings, so we can't fly. People not physically being able to travel at 60mph. Two legs, walk at 3mph, maybe run a little faster sometimes. Those would be some regulations that could help with the global warming issue.

Those aren't the regulations that we like though. Those are imposed on us by physical reality. We like to rewrite the laws which govern us. We like to find the loopholes. Much the same way corporations try to write legislation in their favor, find tax loopholes, etc.

[Uncle Joe]

39. I believe this column which was also a D.U. thread by backscatter best answers your question

[div class= "excerpt"]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10162122

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/12/20-5

"This Bastardized Libertarianism Makes 'Freedom' an Instrument of Oppression


Right-wing libertarianism recognizes few legitimate constraints on the power to act, regardless of the impact on the lives of others. In the UK it is forcefully promoted by groups like the TaxPayers' Alliance, the Adam Smith Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs, and Policy Exchange. Their concept of freedom looks to me like nothing but a justification for greed.

So why have we been been so slow to challenge this concept of liberty? I believe that one of the reasons is as follows. The great political conflict of our age – between neocons and the millionaires and corporations they support on one side, and social justice campaigners and environmentalists on the other – has been mischaracterized as a clash between negative and positive freedoms. These freedoms were most clearly defined by Isaiah Berlin in his essay of 1958, Two Concepts of Liberty. It is a work of beauty: reading it is like listening to a gloriously crafted piece of music. I will try not to mangle it too badly.

Put briefly and crudely, negative freedom is the freedom to be or to act without interference from other people. Positive freedom is freedom from inhibition: it's the power gained by transcending social or psychological constraints. Berlin explained how positive freedom had been abused by tyrannies, particularly by the Soviet Union. It portrayed its brutal governance as the empowerment of the people, who could achieve a higher freedom by subordinating themselves to a collective single will.

Rightwing libertarians claim that greens and social justice campaigners are closet communists trying to resurrect Soviet conceptions of positive freedom. In reality, the battle mostly consists of a clash between negative freedoms."



There is much on the link.

[pnwmom]

48. They deny it because if global warming is real, we need collective, governmental action

to respond to it.

And they want a government to do as little as possible.

These are the morons who think you should be able to pollute your "own" stream or lake -- why should they worry about environmental factors that are causing global warming?

[gratuitous]

31. Oh gee whiz!

You can't expect Ron Paul to know or answer for everything that's been published in his lucrative little eponymous newsletter, or what's on his website, especially if it makes him look racist or like a Class-A ignoramus! Let Ron be Ron! That is, whatever falls out of his mouth right this second is his deepest, most fervent belief. Until he says something else tomorrow.

[LiberalFighter]

38. Property rights for people or companies?

He would probably be okay with companies having the right to drill under properties owned by people as long as other companies don't already have the right.

[AtomicKitten]

40. Ron Paul's presidential run is a hoax.

[WCGreen]

49. Ron Paul is one of the biggest hoaxes of all time....