A disturbing trend has developed in this country where some, including many in the press, are arguing against the 1st Amendment’s guarantee of the freedom of speech. Mark Steyn has termed the phrase “ideological cleansing” to describe the phenomenon where the political left is attempting to eliminate any opinions other than their own from the public discourse. In the linked video, Mark discusses the “politicization of everything” and the dangers that it presents.
This issue is relevant to climate change debate because once the left-wing embraces climate change as their cause celebre/du jour, they will follow a familiar MO. Anyone that disagrees with them will be personally attacked and smeared. Hillary’s “basket of deplorables” where she slandered 50% of Trump supporters (25% of America) as deplorable “racists, sexists, homophobes, xenophobes, and Islamophobes,” many of them “irredeemable.”
You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people — now 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks — they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.”
The other thing the political left-wing do is conflate all the other left-wing into climate change. That has already been happening, and graphically demonstrated at the recent “March for Science.”
Fortunately, not all on the political left are supportive of this trend towards censorship, book burnings, riots, and violence. In a rare show of solidarity between left and right, Robert Reich, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, ex-President Obama, and Bill Maher among others are all supporting Ann Coulter right to speak at Berkeley. In this linked video clip Ann Coulter provides the basis for the title and content of this article where she claims “No, I’m sorry, I’m engaging in a public policy debate, that is not hateful speech.”
People who engage in the climate change debate that takes the opposing side should expect the attacks to gradually ratchet up as the more successful are. So far the attacks have been relatively limited to the climate scientists, politicians and journalists involved, but it will likely expand the more people as more people get involved in the discussion. I, as a non-climate scientist, got audited 3 times under Obama, as did another involved with my climate change activities. That may be a coincidence, but I doubt it.
Ann Coulter offers some great ideas for the people engaging in the climate change debate. Frame it as a public policy discussion, not a scientific debate. It is the climate alarmist that has to defend killing coal jobs and not building roads, schools, and hospitals, not the climate skeptic. That is a discussion I would like to have and am sure I could win.
