The Closing of the American Mind was Allan Bloom’s groundbreaking critique of “absolute understanding” in academia and the way that it undermines critical thinking.
If Bloom were with us today, we could imagine him writing a sequel devoted to the way the climate change industry has sought to silence dissent.
Chuck Todd gave a stunning example of the phenomenon this morning in his introduction of a Meet the Press special edition on climate change.
Todd quite literally announced that dissent would not be tolerated. Here was Todd:
“Just as important as what we are going to do this hour is what we’re not going to do. We’re not going to debate climate change, the existence of it. The Earth is getting hotter, and human activity is a major cause. Period. We’re not going to give time to climate deniers. The science is settled, even if political opinion is not.”
Quick: someone check—are we still in the USA? Or did “democracy die in darkness” and certain positions are verboten from public speech?
And now that Todd has a taste for banning dissent from liberal orthodoxy, the possibilities are endless! Will next week bring us: “Welcome to a Meet the Press special edition on immigration. The matter is settled: open borders are good. Period. We’re not giving time to wall advocates.”
Note: Todd also managed to slip in a gratuitous shot at President Trump, declaring that it’s “extraordinarily difficult” to focus on one topic “in this era of Trump.” Sounds like an admission of Trump Derangement Syndrome to us.
Note segundo: As Oren Cass has written at National Review: “The epithet ‘climate denier,’ intended to invoke Holocaust denial, has always been tasteless and inapt . . . But climate activists delighted in defining their opposition this way.”
Chuck Todd should know better than to engage in this kind of ugly name-calling.
CHUCK TODD: This morning, we’re going to do something that we don’t often get to do: dive in on one topic. It’s obviously extraordinarily difficult to do this, as the end of this year has proven in the era of Trump. But we’re going to take an in-depth look, regardless of that, at a literally earth-changing subject that doesn’t get talked about this thoroughy on television news, at least: climate change.
But just as important as what we are going to do this hour is what we’re not going to do. We’re not going to debate climate change, the existence of it. The Earth is getting hotter, and human activity is a major cause. Period. We’re not going to give time to climate deniers. The science is settled, even if political opinion is not.
Read more at Newsbusters
MEET THE BIASED LIBERAL LEFTISTS PRESS
Will someone watch this show and note the advertisers, and post the list here. I feel a letter writing campaign coming on. On paper, not as emails – it gets more attention that way.
You bring up an real interesting idea. What if a “denier” website would publish lists of all the big advertisers on CNN, MSNBC, New York times, etc. . They could simply be named in a reply comment here. Where those advertisers have competitors that are just as good, I would do my own version of feel good virtue signalling and buy from the competitors.
I did exactly that a couple of months ago. I watched a piece of climate propaganda on The Weather Channel and listed the sponsors of that hour – long show, here. One those sponsors, Purina, has lost a regular customer.
As soon as someone uses the term “settled science”, you know that it has nothing to do with science, but is pure propaganda, There is no “settled science”. Any theory is one repeatable experiment away from disproval.
FANTASTIC
Couldn’t have said it better myself
I believe Albert Einstein and Richard Feynmann
have previously said the ” jist ”
of your comment
but I can’t find them
But, hooray for you
posting this before me or
anybody else.
Proof that you can think independently
which the alarmists obviously CANNOT !
Do you believe it is pure propaganda when NASA claims the round earth is settled science?
Should we keep looking for that repeatable one experiment to prove flat-eathers were correct all along?
Some of them claim this already happened, but the researchers memories were wiped and replaced.
NASA will admit that the Earth is not a perfect sphere.
AGW is a hot topic. Too many busy bodies are anxious to use it as a political wedge issue, an excuse to tax ambitious people, an environmental call to arms. Why not rewrite the Ten Commandments while you’re at it?
If the promoters of radical action would knock it off, AGW might be taken seriously by more people.
There is no immediacy for CO2 abatement. There are benefits to CO2 enrichment, NASA has proof of it. The Earth’s surface is greening.
Your example of flat earth seems to mix up tangible fact with proven scientific theory. I could for example say that lumber is a solid and is not a liquid or a vapor. Is that one repeatable experiment away from falsehood? Of course not. Man caused climate change is not anywhere near a tangible fact like a round earth.
A semi-spherical Earth is provable, and has been through actual observation. The so-called “greenhouse effect” has never been replicated nor observed. Why? you might ask. Because you cannot replicate a process that is impossible in the first place. You cannot violate the Laws of Thermodynamics and other such physical Laws that we have discovered and proven through repeated and consistent observations.
The “flat earth” analogy is a good one if applied to the right group of people.
The flat earth folks believe in something that is not true despite all valid evidence proving them wrong.
The global warming folks believe in something that is not true despite all valid evidence proving them wrong.
The flat earth folks won’t listen to the facts and believe those who tell the truth are wrong.
The global warming folks won’t listen to the facts and believe those who tell the truth are wrong.
The flat earth folks won’t even listen to opposing views whose views would expose their (flat earth) ignorance.
The global warming folks won’t even listen to opposing views whose views would expose their (global warming) ignorance.
Both groups are very much alike. Obviously those promoting global warming fraud are the flat earthers, not those of us who know the truth..
Will Schuck Toad consider
BURNING BOOKS
next ?
A boycott is clearly called for .
BEAT THE PRESS where everyone gets to take up sticks and baseball bats and beats up on a dummy of some lies day liberal journalists who spew the usial B.S. at us a the week long
Like the Nazis, those in the climate change movement know their theories can standup to fair debate. So like the Nazis, they ban opposing view points.
I challenge Chuck Todd to identify one person he would otherwise have been willing to invite onto his show who believes that the earth has no climate, the essential requirement to be a “climate denier”.
I would also point out that the use of the term “denier” is an example of incivility.
The consensed climate science community and their fellow travelers in the media are equally facile at conflating “denier” with “skeptic” as they are with conflating “belief” with “knowledge” and “opinion” with “fact”.
Very weak, hiding behind Al Gore’s “The science is settled”
I believe that people have seen deadlines and tipping points pass by. Armageddon gets reset after reset. Y2K over and over. It’s not an existential threat, it’s about more taxes. A majority of voters have it figured.