MONEY AND THE EPISTEMOLOGIES OF IGNORANCE CONCERNING CLIMATE CHANGE

They explored these topics through active investigation, using guidelines designed to surface evidence of covert racial reproduction in their own families. Finally, writing instructions stipulated they articulate racial logics. Here, I utilized theory to orient my discursive analysis, coding for evidence of color-blind racial frames Bonilla-Silva , as well as anomalous logics deployed to explain family data. Through iterative coding, I eventually reached saturation around patterns, revising and reconstructing theoretical assumptions in light of themes.

Together, the breaching methodology and theory-driven analysis laid bare epistemic maneuvers by which white students arrived at colorblindness and other racial logics. Prior analysis of these data, alongside 51 papers submitted by students of color, revealed extensive disparities and racialized dynamics in family mobility trajectories Mueller a. A majority traced back three or more generations, occasionally to ancestors alive during legalized slavery. In terms of wealth and capital acquisition and transfer, the full pool of papers documents over six times as many transfers of monetary assets across generations within white families than families of color.

Intergenerational land, home, and business inheritances were similarly disproportionate. White families reported nearly six times as many instances of such state-derived assets, including formal land grants and GI Bill or other state-related educational benefits and mortgage backing. In short, white students documented plentiful evidence of privileged access to the forms of intergenerational wealth and capital addressed in course material.

Discursive themes reinforced that prior to completing this assignment white students assumed no possessive stake in racial oppression—a finding consistent with other research see e. Students gave frequent testimony to initial skepticism or opposition to course material and the assignment e. These kinds of comments were exceptionally common, suggesting the project succeeded in breaching commonplace colorblindness about everyday racial reproduction for most.

Though not universal, completing the family project usually disrupted common color-blind frames. Nonetheless, white students often developed creative racial logics that foreclosed or otherwise distorted racially conscious learning. Specifically, I identified four white epistemic maneuvers —one offensive, three defensive—that white students used to bypass racial awareness and justify ongoing domination.

Table 1 Table 1. Dimensions of White Epistemic Maneuvers. White students engaged in one epistemic maneuver that invariably produced racial ignorance— evasion. This strategy surfaced in evidence suggesting white students had avoided race-based project directives. Students performed evasiveness in different ways, yet all precluded developing race-based explanations. Sometimes students directly avoided racial investigation with explicit acknowledgement. Surely, for some the assignment generates tension between wanting to perform well and needing to initiate uncomfortable conversations to do so.

Nina completed a sensible class-based analysis of her data, but avoided all terms related to race, racism, or racial inequality. My grandfather [also] attended [college]. Finding examples among students, however, is uniquely clarifying: As such, their sustained ignorance appears more willful than passive or unintentional. Though examples were rare, it is impossible to know how many students actually engaged in evasion; infrequency is likely a by-product of competing social pressures aroused by the method, at least in part.

Others may have been compelled to not evade as a result of the special motives cultivated by the assignment. Nevertheless, as a maneuver that protects whiteness, evasion supports Mills's position that management of memory—a vital component of cognition—is a central feature of the epistemology of ignorance see also Cohen ; Lavelle ; Maly and Dalmage Of these, nearly three-quarters about a quarter of the total sample exhibited what could be described as willful colorblindness.

Students used this epistemic maneuver defensively and sometimes artfully to retreat to color-blind explanations for disconcerting findings. Unlike Nina above who evaded race altogether , Felicia well utilized course material to highlight racial dynamics in her family history. The transfer of wealth is more than just giving your kids money and assets.

My grandfather came to the U. Primarily through hard work and our own merit my family has been able to accumulate a little wealth and. At times students had to be exceedingly creative in navigating troublesome facts with colorblindness. After the war, his slave stayed with him because he had nowhere else to go. More common than this kind of uninterrupted defense, however, students who willfully reasoned colorblindness often appeared compelled by race-critical arguments for their data initially. Despite evidence of burgeoning race consciousness throughout, Derrick made a dramatic retreat to colorblindness: All of these inequalities are more accurately defined, to me , as wealth inequalities.

The above examples illuminate how logical maneuvering is often geared toward rescuing white virtue, as most whites require some degree of psychic ignorance to perform and enjoy the spoils of domination Mills ; see also Bracey ; Maly and Dalmage Nonetheless, some students were content to patently reject race-critical logic and simply assert colorblindness without the fanfare of imaginative reasoning. Sam detailed many patterns common to racialized transmission, including expectations of future inheritance.

I still do not agree that I am unconsciously adding to the inequality of race.

Money and the epistemologies of ignorance concerning climate change

Hopefully when I start a family I want to have the advantages of being able to place my children in a top school system. Maybe I am just being greedy, but I feel that this assignment has shown me that I must start making a future for my children. My children will be my priority over other children. From an epistemology of ignorance standpoint, however, these maneuvers are actually processing successes. That is, despite encountering and even embracing the veracity of race-critical propositional knowledge at least initially , some whites will continue to discursively—and creatively—reproduce color-blind ideology.

Students here deployed very willful reasoning to fashion color-blind ignorance from exposing truths. Among the remaining students—nearly three-quarters of the sample—contextualizing family research with course material seemed to inspire a less fleeting racial consciousness. And yet, the majority folded in additional assumptions that neutralized critical elements of racial understanding, patterns captured by the final two themes. About a third of the sample engaged in tautologically reasoning ignorance; Chelsea was exemplary.

Discovering and accepting the veracity of ugly racial facts in personal family histories was unsettling for Chelsea, as for many students. To be sure, if white students sometimes used willful colorblindness to preserve morality, those engaged in tautologically reasoning ignorance often built directly from this basis of presumed white virtue.

Here we see everyday whites using a socio-cognitive maneuver that achieves similar currency, with examples that clarify the psychic dissonance sitting in most race-logical deliberations. At times students grappled with moral incongruities in palpable ways. So beset, Steven wrestled with this dissonance over two full pages in a paper that was only five—40 percent of the paper. Students used tautologically reasoned ignorance to repair moral breaches, trumping the immorality implied by unjust enrichment. Developing tautological explanations specifically emboldened students to reify structure as solely responsible for reproducing white supremacy, while whites appeared mostly unwitting and involuntary participators—a move that preserves white virtue while minimizing agency and motive.

Moreover, in confusing causes this maneuver led many students to imagine white consciousness raising an automatic corrective for white supremacy. This tacit trust connects back to core beliefs about white morality, with a tautological logic that now appears fully formed: Students who engaged in this maneuver developed racially conscious analyses and expressed concern about injustices they discovered, but generated doubt and mystery surrounding related, practical solutions—even antiracist praxes their research and experience would logically advise.

Most students avoided such questions altogether, perhaps because identifying practical solutions was not explicitly prompted; but for some the subject loomed. For all her new insight, Abby was unclear what came next: I am left not knowing what to do with that. Should I feel guilty or blessed, do I fight the system or are we too far embedded in this ideology to get ourselves out? It is easy for me to state all the privileges I have been given throughout my life based on race.

Should I feel guilty about what I have? We tolerate ignorance because we believe in education and hope to overcome some of it; we tolerate falsehood in the name of eventual correction. But we should never tolerate offensive ideas and beliefs that are harmful to others. Once again, it is one thing to argue about black holes, and quite another to argue about whether black lives matter. You will always be forced to have another chance.

Socrates was searching for the truth and fought with the sophists, as Popper fought with the logical positivists and the Kuhnians, and as scientists today are searching for the truth and continue to fight superstitions and debunked pseudoscience about vaccination causing autism in young kids. If post-truth is like postsecularism, scientific and political discourses can inform each other.

When power-plays by ignoramus leaders like Trump are obvious, they could shed light on less obvious cases of big pharma leaders or those in charge of the EPA today. In these contexts, inconvenient facts and truths should prevail and the gamesmanship of post-truthers should be exposed for what motivates it. Denise Davis of Brown University, whose contribution to my critical thinking about this topic has been profound.

Translated by Henry W. Kurt Andersen , Fantasyland: How America Went Hotwire: Al Gore , An Inconvenient Truth: A Report on Knowledge. Translated by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. University of Minnesota Press. Theoretical and Empirical Investigations. The University of Chicago Press, pp. Proctor , Cancer Wars: The doctors in the study gave a variety of reasons, including unsubstantiated fears that patients might commit suicide, and feelings of futility about the prospects of treatment.

What is disquieting is that he makes a case that is, at first glance, quite persuasive. When lay people choose to trust what experts tell them, John argues, they are or their behaviour can usefully be modelled as though they are making two implicit judgments. The emails below quoted in Moore , were full of claims that might — to the unitiated — look like evidence of sharp practice. We can pass on the gridded data—which we do. We have 25 or so years invested in the work.

Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it. Most of the controversy, it seemed, came from lay people misinterpreting the backstage conversation of scientists in light of a misleading image of what good science is supposed to look like. And worse, as he suggests happened in the climate-gate case, it might lead people to reject well-founded scientific claims in the mistaken belief that they did not meet proper epistemic standards within the relevant epistemic community. Transparency might thus lead to unwarranted distrust.

In the absence of such a world, however, scientists need to play along with the folk belief in order to get lay audiences to adopt those claims that are in their epistemic best interests. That is, they should try to bring the lay person to hold the most epistemically sound beliefs, even if this means masking uncertainties, glossing complications, pretending more precision than you know to be the case, and so on. Economists, for instance, face a similar temptation to mask uncertainties and gloss complications and counter-arguments when engaging with political leaders and wider publics on issues such as the benefits and disadvantages of free trade policies.

As a professional economist, as an academic economist, day in and day out I see in seminars and papers a great variety of views on what the effects of trade agreements are, the ambiguous effects of deep integration. Inside economics, you see that there is not a single view on globalization. But the moment that gets translated into the political domain, economists have this view that you should never provide ammunition to the barbarians. Rodrik , at c. It is a strategy that cannot be openly avowed without undermining itself, and thus relies on a degree of deception.

John thus admits that this strategy can backfire if the audience is made aware of some of the hidden complications, and worse, as was case of in climate-gate, if it seems the experts actively sought to evade demands for transparency and accountability John , This puts experts in a bind: When an audience misunderstands what the proper conduct of some activity consists in, then revealing information about the conduct of the activity can lead them to misjudge its quality. Furthermore, to the extent that experts have to adjust their conduct to conform to what the audience thinks it should look like, revealing information about the process can undermine the quality of the outcomes.

By way of example, she compares two ways of monitoring fund managers. One way is to look at the yearly returns. The latter strategy, she claims, produces worse outcomes than those monitored only by their results, because the agents have an incentive to act in a way that conforms to what the principal regards as appropriate rather than what the agent regards as the most effective action.

The point here is that when experts are held accountable — at the level of process — by those without the relevant expertise, their judgment is effectively displaced by that of their audience. To put it another way, if you want the benefit of expert judgment, you have to forgo the urge to look too closely at what they are doing. Of course, part of the problem in the climate case is that the outcomes are also subject to expert interpretation. When evaluating a fund manager you can select good people, leave them alone, and check that they hit their targets.

But how do you evaluate a claim about likely sea-level rise over the next century? If radical change is needed now to avert such catastrophic effects, then the point is precisely not to wait and see if they are right before we act. After all, if experts have already done their due diligence and could not get a better answer, then outsiders have nothing epistemically meaningful to add.

But if expert knowledge is not a finished product, then demands for accountability from outsiders to the expert community can, in principle, have some epistemic value. It is at least possible that the process of engaging with and responding to criticism can lead to learning on both sides and the production, ultimately, of better science. What matters is not whether the critics begin with an accurate view of the scientific process; rather, what matters is how the process of criticism and response is carried out. The march, held in partnership with Occupy Wall Street, included about people.

One of the most attractive features of his approach is that he moves beyond the limited examples, prevalent in the social epistemology literature, of one lay person evaluating the testimony of one expert, or perhaps two competing experts. He rightly observes that experts speak for collectives and thus that we are implicitly judging the functioning of institutions when we judge expert testimony.

But he misses an analogous sociological problem on the side of the lay person. We rarely judge alone. I may not know enough to know whether those climate scientists were not doing good science, but others can do that work for me. I might trust my representatives, who have on my behalf conducted open investigations and inquiries. They are not climate scientists, but they have given the matter the kind of sustained attention that I have not. I might trust particular media outlets to do this work. I might trust social movements. To go back to the AIDS case, ACT-UP functioned for many as a trust proxy of this sort, with the skills and resources to do this sort of monitoring, developing competence but with interests more closely aligned with the wider community affected by the issue.

Or I might even trust the judgments of groups of citizens randomly selected and given an opportunity to more deeply engage with the issues for just this purpose see Gastil, Richards, and Knobloch This hardly, on its own, solves the problem of lay judgment of experts. Indeed, it would seem to place it at one remove and introduce a layer of intermediaries.

But it is worth attending to these sorts of judgments for at least two reasons. The second is that the problems and pathologies of expert-lay communication are, in large part, problems with their roots in failures of intermediary institutions and practices. After all, in the climate-gate case, we are dealing with lay people effectively looking over the shoulders of the scientists as they write their emails. One might have similar concerns about video monitoring of meetings: You lack the context and understanding of the practice that can be provided by observers, who need not themselves be experts, but who need to know enough about the practice to tell the difference between good and bad conduct.

The same idea can apply to transparency of reasoning, involving the demand that actors give a public account of their actions. While the demand that authorities explain how and why they reached their judgments seems to fall victim to the problem of lay misunderstanding, it also offers a way out of it. The initial scandal initiated a process of scrutiny in which some non-experts such as the political representatives organising the parliamentary inquiry engaged in closer scrutiny of the expert practice in question. Practical lay judgment of experts does not require that lay people become experts as Lane and Moore have argued , but it does require a lot more engagement than the average citizen would either want or have time for.

But they can and do rely on proxies to do the work of monitoring and scrutinizing experts. Where does this leave us? John is right to say that what matters is not the generation of trust per se, but warranted trust, or an alignment of trust and trustworthiness. What I think he misses is that distrust is crucial to the possible way in which transparency can potentially lead to trustworthiness.

Trust and distrust, on this view, are in a dynamic relation: Distrust motivates scrutiny and the creation of institutional safeguards that make trustworthy conduct more likely. Something like this case for transparency was made by Jeremy Bentham see Bruno What are we to do when we begin from distrust and suspicion? How we might build trustworthiness out of distrust? Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, A Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Policy 32, no. Scientific Knowledge and the Ethics of Democratic Judgment.

Licht, Jenny de Fine, and Daniel Naurin. Cambridge University Press , MacKenzie, Michael, and Mark E. Deliberation, Democracy, and the Politics of Expertise. Cambridge University Press, A Study of Medical Attitudes. The Wrong Kind of Transparency. The American Economic Review 95, no. A Reply to Alan Irwin. In this short rejoinder, we zoom in on the three main issues Irwin raises. We also use this opportunity to highlight and further develop some of our ideas.

How to understand consensus? The thick sense as enacted in Danish culture suggests that disagreement is an integral part of consensus. Therefore, we would do well to pay more attention to conflict handling and disagreement within consensus-oriented discourse. Why are so many public participation activities consensus-driven? We should question the institutional and political contexts within which consensus-seeking arises and how these contexts urge us to turn away from conflict and disagreement. And, why do public participation activities persist at all, given all the criticism they receive from various sides?

Should we not value the art of closure, of finding ways to make agreements, particularly in view of the dire state of world politics today? These are legitimate questions and concerns, and Irwin is right to point them out. There is stupid, and then there is TeaPublican stupid. But then Conservatives came to power and told American Businesses to send American Jobs overseas, thereby causing mass unemployment in America.

The off-shoring policies of the Republicans came from direct from Libertarian think tanks during the Greed is the ultimate good era of the 80's and 90's. Some dare call this Libertarian economic policy, "treason". Why don't you RyggTard? It is also what all Keynesian economists say. Of course, they said it first. Mises just parrots them on this point. That's was Mises said, " - RyggTard Odd isn't it how every government policy that has come from Libertarian Economists has turned out to be a complete disaster for America.

He is so ideologically programmed that he can't even accept the acceptance of guilty by the principle disciple of his own Liedeology. You have to understand RyggTard's thougth processes. One aspect of his Randite ideology holds that government regulation always produces the opposite effect it was intended to mitigate. So if there are regulations that prevent buildings from falling down, and one falls down then it is the Government's fault.

His solution is to vanquish building codes so that the lack of government regulation will cause businesses to build better buildings that won't fall down. Let's blame the government" - dir It is complete idiocy of course. But Idiocy is what Randism and Libertarianism is all about, as you are rapidly learning. You have offered no evidece let alone proof that they can't build better.

And that comes from the fact that not all of the buildings in Bangladesh are falling down. This one did, and did because Capitalists decided to maximize profits by putting the lives of it's workers at risk. The Company owner didn't lose his life. Neither has the building contractor. But of their wage slaves did. But what is the life of a slave compared to that of the slave master? According to RyggTard's Libertarian "logic" the government is therefore responsible for every murder and all laws prohibiting murder should be repealed. It is pure idiocy of course. But that is what Libertarianism and Randism is.

Send a message to Businessmen that such crimes will not be tolerated. AGW fabrications, which the Cult call science, have all been thoroughly debunked. AGW Alarmism has failed. Remember the Polar Bears? Well, you don't have to, they are doing fine. You can still go and see them in the wild. The Convenient Lie has failed. It, however, did make the Cult's Vicar, Gore, a multimillionaire. So with the globe cooling and the AGW Cult out of lies, they have now come full circle. Abstract of the article that anti-goracle references that relies on a small survey of petroleum engineers.

Abstract This paper examines the framings and identity work associated with professionals' discursive construction of climate change science, their legitimation of themselves as experts on 'the truth', and their attitudes towards regulatory measures. Drawing from survey responses of professional engineers and geoscientists, we reconstruct their framings of the issue and knowledge claims to position themselves within their organizational and their professional institutions. In understanding the struggle over what constitutes and legitimizes expertise,. By linking notions of the science or science fiction of climate change to the assessment of the adequacy of global and local policies and of potential organizational responses, we contribute to the understanding of 'defensive institutional work' by professionals within petroleum companies, related industries, government regulators, and their professional association.

No science in that article. It is pure intellectual faggotry. And even here the Denialists are misrepresenting the data in the article. The denialists claim that this report shows that only 35 percent of scientists agree with the fact that the global warming is occurring. In fact, the article only uses a tiny subset of scientists - petroleum geologists and chemists - and even here, the Denialists misrepresent the article by excluding subsets of scientists who agree that anthropogenic CONT. Only the percentage from the Comply with Kyoto group is reported by the Denialists, and the petroleum scientists in the other groups who accept the science of anthropogenic warming in the other groups are not counted.

It is pure dishonesty of course. But that is what Conservatives and Denialists are all about. Your convenient lies have never succeeded, Tard Boy. No, dumdum, what you quoted is called a deliberate misrepresentation. A conspiracy is when someone say againstseeing or your own self suggests that everyone involved in a study that is peer reviewed and reported in a scientific journal is paid to lie, and are part of a global group "they" that are trying to steal your money, or liberties, or first born child or something. Of course, you don't understand that because you are the guy who claims he didn't claim a conspiracy because he didn't use the word "conspiracy" while describing the conspiracy he sees all about him.

And there's againstseeing, quoting from the Heartland Institute's own favourite denier, James Taylor. The claim is, of course, a deception, or more likely total incompetence, on the part of Heartland's favorite "environment" denier. He uses cherry-picked data from a survey of largely industry engineers and geoscientists from Alberta tar sands based companies. My my, how desperate the denier camp has become! Everyone involved in the subject is aware of Heartland's bias and Koch brothers funding.

It's only a conspiracy when it's convenient for you, delusional rubes! No, dumdum, its not a conspiracy at all! You just THINK it's a conspiracy because you are an apparent paranoid and delusional individual who believes almost anything put onto a website, as long as it has pretty graphics and good writing, and "appears" to go against "the mainstream".

You never learned to use the simple logic and critical thinking skills that allow you to avoid being duped by pseudo-scientific nonsense. It's kind of sad, actually, such a waste.

Absolutely not - do you? Why do you always answer a question with a question? Maybe cuz you can't think for yourself. I don't know - you will have to ask them wont you?.. And MORE govt regulations will fix it, according to dj. And a fact admitted in the article body that was misrepresented to by the Deniallist. That would depend on the regulation. Some regulaions fail because they are designed by Traitors to sere the purpose of failing. Without virtue of citizens and this elected to govt, govt must become totalitarian.

Which is what most here seem to prefer. It is a pure Capitalist Failure. Another murders by blood soaked business men. What created the dark ages was religious based virtue. Vendicar shows up and RyggTard's puts his balls in his mouth and sulks back to his place as a vile bridge troll.

Only a clueless idiot would expect to get away with pawning this off as being authoritative. This is true of all global warming denialists, and TeaPublicans. As someone who is trained in science, I believe that lying and the misrepresentation of data is the greatest crime that can be committed, since all other crimes stem from this distortion of truth.

Since Antigoricle, his denialist brethren and TeaPublicans are invariably congenital liars, I hold them with the greatest contempt humanly possible, for they continually commit the greatest crime possible. Survey of Peer-Reviewed Scientific Research You will be shown the title and abstracts summary for 10 randomly selected scientific papers, obtained from a search of the ISI 'Web Of Science' database for papers matching the topic 'global warming' or 'global climate change' between to Please read each title and abstract then estimate the level of endorsement that is expressed in that paper for anthropogenic global warming e.

Which explains why you believe that AGW is a conspiracy. This is what I would expect from a very religious society. What is needed for any society to follow written and unwritten laws is virtue. Communists, by definition are atheists and murdered millions. The dear leader of North Korea executes those who fail him with mortars.

Virtue can come from the consideration that each of us is equally important, and we can build a system of virtue around the respect for the rights of all. How HAVE atheists instilled and promoted virtue? Looks like govt failed to enforce the law to protect private property in West, TX. The liquid gas can be used to cook methamphetamine, the addictive and illicit stimulant. Though the DHS has the authority to carry out spot inspections at facilities, it has a small budget for that and only a "small number" of field auditors, the person said.

I see a lot of people planting bombs, and committing atrocities in the name of god Not according to the Obama administration. Like the Clinton admin, Obama refuses to acknowledge the role Islam plays in attacks upon the west. But the current regime does attack Christians in the military. Islam has a similar need so the 'liberals' are simpatico to Islamic law. This highlights anther example of how 'liberalism' is a mental disorder.

Similar authors to follow

Islamic law requires the stoning of homosexuals and restricts the liberty of women. But the 'liberals' don't mention this. BTW, Planned Parenthood was founded by an atheist and supporter of eugenics. By calling for an end to religion, and to all evil deeds that are done in the name of this, or that god. Put your money where your mouth is, prove your assertion by: Stand up and proclaim your atheism at Oral Roberts U.

Do the same at the Vatican. Do the same at the Western Wall. Do the same in Mecca. If you are still alive, publish your results. I don't ignore evil, regardless of the motivation. You spend your life spamming physorg and probably other sites with attacking 'liberals'. You constantly rail against the 'left' But you don't mention the evil being done by the 'right' On this very thread you have attacked Islam for the evil that it does - but fail to mention the evil being done in the name of the christian god check out Westboro Baptists.

You definitely are very selective in the evil that you are aware of. I am more complex than you So you say, but never demonstrate. You chose to ignore that if you are an atheist in a Muslim state you would be executed so you wouldn't survive Mecca but you would survive every other location. But dj claimed ALL religion is morally equivalent.

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A very simple, and false, observation. Why is 'liberalism' evil? It denies that individuals have an inherent right to life, liberty and property and therefore any majority can proceed to deny life, liberty and property to any minority. The atheist Ayn Rand said when you compromise with evil, evil wins. You would consider Obama a liberal correct? No, I consider Obama a Marxist. And 'liberal' is the term the socialist FDR used in his campaign against the 'progressive' Hoover.

A more complex analysis shows an understanding that people are complex - some liberals are evil, You then believe that some people who would put a gun to your head, or hire someone to do so, and take your property, your life are good? While they publicly state that their mission is to save the world from prejudice, patriotism, racism, greed, and inequality, they are, in fact, hostile and resentful towards anyone who has achieved self-made success through American values. It is in this cesspool of intolerance that Obama and his Marxist cronies hatched a secret plan to destroy our country.

They openly hated America- calling it racist. They hated capitalism- and vowed to bring "the system down. Do you only think that libertarians can have notions of virtue without god - but others cannot? To repeat, Rygg, you're long on straw men and short on substance. RyggTard quotes from "Wayne Allyn Root" who discribes himself as "a Capitalist Evangelist, serial entrepreneur, and Libertarian-conservative media commentator". In other words he is a nobody who pays homage to pure greed and pure immorality, and pure evil, as does RyggTard. We see this also in RyggTard's personal hero - Ayn Rand - who befriended a child murderer and rapist and referred to him admiringly as a "moral superman".

There are many options to keep socialists at bay and the most significant option is the law of nature. Socialism will always fail as it violates laws of nature, but not without weeping and gnashing of teeth. Pick one or admit that you're a Gordian Knot of contradictions. Pick one or admit defeat. Is that who taught you to speak BS? In short, you are trapped and seek to evade by pretending that the question is not a valid one.

You then believe that some people who would put a gun to your head, or hire someone to do so, and take your property, your life are good? No - and I never said such a thing. I believe that many people who would be put in the category of 'liberal' by limited thinkers such as Rygg - are very good people. Some very religious people - who are also 'liberal' - such as my friend Jane - who is a church pastor - and a 'liberal' - are very kind, generous, loving people.

See how complexity works - I did not think you would. Your pastor wants the govt to confiscate wealth and redistribute to people SHE thinks should have such stolen wealth? These people are very generous with other peoples money. It really is quite simple. The complexity enters in when dj and Jane compromise with evil, or overlook evil, to justify their 'good' and soothe their conscious. What do you mean by' the law of nature? Parasites die when their host dies.

Would you deny that America is a racist country? Do you know the history of slavery? Are you aware that the KKK is alive and well here in Oklahoma. Do you know nothing? Slavery has a very long history. Modern slavery was banned in the British Empire because of he actions of Christians.

Christians in the US also opposed slavery. Arab Muslims and other African blacks captured and sold slaves to the Western slave traders. Saudi Arabia banned slavery only a few decades ago and a Saudi official in Washington is accused of keeping slaves, NOW. Blacks are racists among themselves judging each other by how dark or light their skin is.

Ever hear of the Black Panthers? How about La Raza the race a racist Mexican group. Or how about CAIR? The US AG is a racist. He won't prosecute black on white crimes. I am here - and there are many others here with me. There must not be very many and you are all VERY quiet. If a black or Latino or woman or homosexual is not a 'liberal' they are no longer considered to be black or Latino or a woman or a homosexual. Here is a black conservative coming out of the closet. BGdlfbfI "But as Parker suggested, some black Americans still think they have to act, speak and behave in a certain way that conforms to the identity that a white, liberal media has created.

That is OK, because we consider you to be mentally diseased. Ben Carson said on a Tuesday talk show that critics won't shut him up and that among the most vicious of his attackers were white liberals. Carson said, as reported in Newsmax. And what about white liberals — how do they treat you? Or, it is the case that we decline to engage in the fool's errand of trying to engage in rational discourse with a sophist such as yourself. That is mental illness talking. Ben Carson appeared on Sean Hannity's Fox News show to insult the LGBT community by comparing same-sex marriage to bestiality and pedophilia, he announced on Wednesday that he was withdrawing as commencement speaker at Johns Hopkins' School of Medicine after a majority of the graduating class of signed a petition asking the administration to un-invite the neurosurgeon.

Sounds like a "Conservative rising star" to me. I will fight to see that vicious beast go down into the lake of fire prepared for him from the beginning, that he never rise again to give any innocent black man, woman or child the hell that he has delighted in pouring on us for years. I mean, that's a storybook, man. RyggTard never answers questions. Doing so would require thought and expose his inabiltiy to think for himself. Give an idiot the means and ample opportunity and he will eventually hang himself. Which, is precisely what Rygg has done by championing the "Law of Nature.

So, the real question becomes one of what sort of hierarchy Rygg prefers. And, this is the question that he truly avoids, for the answer does not flatter him but rather demeans him. Rygg's preference is, simply put, for a hierarchy in which all is subordinate to his own selfish desires. I'll come visit and show you some anarchy and how the "law of nature" works up real close. Perhaps then you won't be such a parasite on mankind. Since you declined to define your terms in context, I had to research.

If you chose the Law of Nature then anarchy is a lie. Either way, you are a liar. I respect Farrakhan for his blunt defense of his beliefs, although they are mistaken. I would share dinner with him, even though he is wrong, simply because his views come from a moral center. Your views come from a woman who called a child molester and murderer a "moral superman".

I would not share dinner with you, as you are too loathsome as an individual.

The politics of climate change

Since Sandy won't define terms, I will. Sociologically it is the modern theory which proposes to do away with all existing forms of government and to organize a society which will exercise all its functions without any controlling or directive authority. I state that it exists. Socialism tries to wish away physics. Which is why it fails. RyggTard remains blissfully unaware that he is constituted from a collection of single celled organisms that cooperate for the common good of the entire organism, even to the point of giving their own lives for the benefit of the whole.

RyggTard's mental disease is keeping him ignorant. You said "the most significant option is the law of nature. Furthermore, to claim that anarchy would "organize a society which will exercise all its functions without any controlling or directive" is logically contradictory, as 1 anarchy involves the total absence of organization, which is the essence of society, and 2 no society can function as such absence a controlling mechanism, which perforce requires a hierarchy.

So you choose to live without any legal framework to protect yourself and your property from theft and destruction by others. Your choice is the destruction of society and humanity so that your personal greed and your ability to that which rightfully belongs to others is not impeded or limited by law. Tea-Baggers like you are a perfect example of the Intellectual and Moral Cancer that has all but destroyed America. You need to be flushed. Hundreds and hundreds of times over the last 30 years. RyggTard fits the pattern perfectly. I therefore conclude that you are representing the interests of Lucifer.

There are only three fundamental forces Tard Boy. You can't even get the fundamentals right. What is the hierarchy of the four fundamental forces? As your cousin Vinny would say, that's a BS question. A society does not "implicitly" exist just because your definition so claims. A society is defined by the rules that govern the relationship between its member. The Latin word societas joint pursuit, enjoyment, possession; society; alliance, partnership. Why must there be rules to govern societas? Whenever a person feels that a society no longer meets their needs, they can exit it — choosing another one to replace it or even going without.

What do you think the word "joint" means? What do you think the words "alliance" and "partnership" imply? What do you think the word "voluntary" implies? Not only are you a sophist, but a very bad one at that. Your attention span and vocabulary are rapidly shrinking. Your history of slavery is terrible - you need to do some reading. The Christian church was highly complicit in the evil of slavery. One must do a bit of research to see how the slave trade started in the Americas. From the arrival Columbus financed not by Queen Isabelle, but Luis de Santangelo a "converted" joo with the capture and subsequent sale of natives by Columbus' "christian" converted joos passengers, to the ownership of the slave ships by jooish men in Newport and New Amsterdam, the slave trade was enabled by a duplicitous "race".

Many of these same men were largely responsible for the "freedom of religion" portion of the Bill of Rights, a large portion of the early joos in America had been exiled from their countries of origin due to their destructive behavior and used their finances and influence to coerce the framers.

The likelihood of a ship owner or a slave owner by joos was nearly 5 times higher than that of a non joo.

Slavery predates the Christian church by thousands of years. Maybe its too simple for dj to understand, but any church is an organization. Members of that organization may not support everything the organization supports. Some like Martin Luther stood up, stated his objections and led to Protestantism who for the first time had the opportunity to read the New Testament.

Wilberforce and others were a part of that Protestant group and were able to ban slavery throughout the British Empire. British ships blockaded many African ports until they closed their slave markets. Slavery still persists in Africa, Europe, and in the rest of the world in spite of regulation banning the practice.

Time will tell - right? Republicans and Libertarians tell me that they owe future generations nothing since they get nothing in return from future generations in return for their consideration. Your "In other words" interpretation is faulty. If you understood the libertarian point of view, you'd be one. Those Libertarians are speaking in terms of actual natural mechanisms that play out in actual fact,. The masses are not going to be motivated to adjust there behavior away from an egoistically based one, on a theory or conjecture wrt future states.

Survival of the fittest which implies competition, and egoism which implies profiting in seeking to improve ones own condition, and freedom of choice, are natural and necessary survival mechanisms intrinsic to all life on this planet. These natural mechanisms are, not by coincidence, fundamental to capitalism. In fact, capitalism is a result of them existing as a nature of man. Freedom and capitalism work because they work WITH the intrinsic nature of man, rather than against them.

Affiliation

Socialism and communism fails because they have to oppress these natural instincts of man,.. And BTW, none of this has a rats ass to do with selfishness. The natural state of man is a moral one, while its oppression is counter to morality. Earlier you quoted Rand - "when you compromise with evil - evil wins" Do you see the contradiction in your position? I thought not - it would require critical thinking. Sufficient to point out that you call evil out when it suits you evil liberals, evil moslems , but compromise with evil when it suits you.

Just one more example of dj's classist pov. If an individual is a Christian, then according to atheist dj, that individual supports everything any organized Christian group and done, or not done. Fortunately for Christians, they can refer to the New Testament for reference if they disagree with the Church.

This is what Martin Luther did along with translating and publishing a Bible for his fellow Germans to read for themselves. The USA has a Constituiton and source documents that show what motivated the authors and those who ratified the Constitution. The 'progressive' Woodrow Wilson attacked that Constituion and led the 'progressive' movement to destroy the Constition.

They oppose this concept because it destroys their promotion of state power to enslave the popultion. Atheists seem to have a problem in their ranks. Being 'anti' something does not easily promote a 'for' something proposition. Atheists are not anti-religion per se. I may be foolish for thinking you know better. I could procure a list of far more than 5 Protestants to embarrass you, but you would endlessly dance around a No True Christian fallacy. Here is an interesting critique of Keynes. Because he was a homosexual, his contemporary critics point out has no persona interest in children or his posterity.

So, borrow and spend and live for the day was his essential economic theme. He could have explained how he and friends did not believe in self-denial or consider that they had any obligation to posterity. An historian has pointed out that Keynes's famous remark, "In the long run we are all dead," is easy to make if you have no children and don't want any. That's not what I have observed. And elsewhere in Bangladesh: This is an atheist government, we will not allow them to live in Bangladesh.

Ryggesogn2, aren't you anti-Islam? So you are saying because some Muslims say their government is atheist because it didn't enforce regulations How are you able to completely suspend your worldview in order to make a point that doesn't even make sense? This has to be an act.

We are on the right side of history. All previous and present anti-God societies and govts created misery and tyranny. Rygg's point is and I agree with it not all Christians support every position of the Christian church. But you are very quick to tar all Christians for slavery. I have many friends who are theists - we tolerate each other - often have a fairly playful discourse about our beliefs At least you recognize that your atheism is also a belief, and cannot attain any higher standard of knowledge than that, as with theism.

Lol you only said that because djr was forced to answer his own question. You don't even understand the difference. You are clearly living in a world of your own making. At least you recognize that your atheism is also a belief, and cannot attain any higher standard of knowledge than that, as with theism. There is an exception. Theism can be a distraction. He spent most of his time trying to calculate the end of the world based on the Bible. He attributed to God things he certainly had the intellect to figure out. That is why the proper stance to take is to be anti-religious.

The question of the existence of god is ludicrous and immaterial. Science has proven that the books all describe things which did not happen. Therefore we can conclude that the gods who allegedly wrote them do not exist. And so as djr points out we are left to address all the wrongs committed in the name of these non-existent gods, under the aegis of religion. It's unfortunate And his deference to religious authority is probably what kept him from being burned as a heretic.

Which is why he chose to do it while knowing better. Take a long long at the abortion trial in Philadelphia. State health officials refused to inspect any abortion clinics for years because they knew they would have to close many. So one clinic in Philly was hiring teenagers to administer anesthetic.

I am adamant that I do not have faith. No, you are adamant that you don't want to acknowledge you have faith. Women died from botched abortions. Not if you're being scientific about it. As a matter of a concrete fact, discoverable by investigation of the world around us, there are people who are scientists and religious, and there are likewise many religious people who embrace science.

COLOR-BLIND RACISM AND THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF IGNORANCE

The idea that there's an intractable, inevitable, necessary struggle to the death between the two abstractions, "religion" and "science," is not supported by any evidence that can be discovered by an empirical investigation. I prefer to substitute 'liberty vs tyranny' paradigm as it better describes the effects upon the individual. It's interesting that many software companies promote their near anarchical corporate atmosphere, yet the product they are creating and selling demands a strict hierarchical structure to function.

The more structured an organization, the more hierarchy, the more levels of management the less liberty and responsibility any individual has and the more prone to tyranny from anyone at a higher level in structure. This liberty unleashes creativity and innovation in individuals and reinforces independence. And this is the precise reason 'liberals' hate such liberty. Individuals don't need to be dependent upon the 'liberal' tyrant for his life or liberty.

Back to the building collapse in Bangledesh: When regulations ran ahead of industry practice, they were largely ignored. Govt then steps in and assumes the credit. As an atheist, and a supporter of science - I use the metric of evidence for deciding what is. There is a lot of confusion over terms such as belief, and faith [.. I accept things as fact when there is evidence to support such facts. The standards are exactly equivalent between atheism and theism.

Both put forward metaphysical positions, 'god exists' or 'god does not exist'. Science cannot help you escape this either. Metaphysics cannot be a source of knowledge, whether it be positive or negative. The correct logical position, to avoid evoking the standard of belief, is to be Agnostic, and regard the question as unknowable in principal. Prefer what you will, but yours remains a false equivalency.

The fact is that you now submit such preference only because you are on the horns of a dilemma from which you desperately seek to escape. Governments have done nothing to promote safety in the work place - You assert businesses only want to kill and maim their employees.