No Place For Skeptics at the Govt Table

Sometimes I hit a link. It looks vaguely interesting, but something in the first few sentences doesn’t “click” immediately, so I let it lay and move on. Sometimes I come back later (in a ‘clean up sweep’ where I prune out the large number of open pages that ‘might’ be interesting and look just a bit more to make a final ‘keeper or tosser’ decision) and find something WAS interesting in that page. Often, by then, I’ve forgotten where I first ran into that page. So I think I saw this one on WUWT, but I’m not sure. (I look at dozens of pages a day – sometimes dozens an hour – and it’s not possible to hold ‘attribution’ for all of them for weeks. So the ‘sits a long time’ pages tend to lose the attribution link / memory).

It’s a bit from the “be afraid they are out to get you” school. Yet, what I know of education matches what they assert. ( I’m accredited to teach college level and the spouse does K-12 with almost all credentials possible including Special Ed in a few variations.) So what first caught my interest was the focus on how Education is being perverted into a propaganda machines. As I’ve seen some of that shift from “pass on specific knowledge in a field” to “whole person swallow the dogma”, I was curious what they had to say.

http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/if-reality-is-ignored-or-disregarded-when-do-we-become-a-state-against-its-people/

There is a link in the top paragraph to an official US Government document. That link is broken (it has an extra “HTTP:” at the front of it, so you end up going to one of those sites that captures mal-formed URLs and tries to capitalize on it). I chopped out the broken bit and went to the original site. Where I downloaded their PDF about what they are to do.

It’s “All Climate Change All The Time”.

Which would not be all that much of a bother, were it not for who runs the agency involved and the scope of their reach. This is the agency that is to “inform” other agencies, the President, et. al. about “Global Change”…

http://library.globalchange.gov/u-s-global-change-research-program-strategic-plan-2012-2021

The National Global Change Research Plan: 2012-2021

The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) is pleased to release the new National Global Change Research Plan 2012-2021: A Strategic Plan for the U. S. Global Change Research Program. The development of this plan is mandated by the Global Change Research Act of 1990 (GCRA, P.L. 101-606) and will serve as the guiding document for USGCRP for the next decade.

http://downloads.globalchange.gov/strategic-plan/2012/usgcrp-strategic-plan-2012.pdf

About the Office of Science and Technology Policy
The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) was established by the National Science and Technology Policy, Organization, and Priorities Act of 1976. OSTP’s responsibilities include advising the President in policy formulation and budget development on questions in which science and technology are important elements; articulating the President’s science and technology policy and programs; and fostering strong partnerships among Federal, state, and local governments, and the scientific communities in industry and academia. The Director of OSTP also serves as Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and manages the NSTC.

NATIONAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COUNCIL
Chair
John P. Holdren
Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy

It looks like this “Global Change” agency of the US Govt was originally formed for the purpose of propagandizing Climate Change. And not just some minor “inform congress” kind of role, either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Change_Research_Act_of_1990

The Global Change Research Act 1990 is a United States law requiring research into global warming and related issues. It requires a report to Congress every four years on the environmental, economic, health and safety consequences of climate change; however, the first of these, the National Assessment on Climate Change, was not published until 2000.

The law codified the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), set up by presidential authority in 1989, and mandated the creation of the Global Change Research Information Office (GCRIO), which began work in 1993. The act requires extensive reports to be updated and distributed every four years.

To date the 2000 report was the only one produced, and there were accusations that information was being suppressed, leading to complacency around public works, such as New Orleans flood defences. Greenpeace, the Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Earth challenged the delay in federal district court on August 21, 2007. A judge ruled that an updated national assessment must be produced by May 31, 2008

That would put the time of creation as under President Daddy Bush. (And folks wonder why I’m not cheering Republicans as our Saviour…)

OK, I’ve not gone through the whole thing in detail (it’s very large). But on a first scan, it’s pretty dismal. All the usual canards. Ocean Acidification. Sea level rise. etc. etc. ALL written in as official dogma to be “researched” and promoted.

Not a single peep of skepticism in the whole thing. (At least, none I’ve found.)

A Good Pruning

IMHO this is a great example of a Federal Agency that has no reason to exist. At all. Looking for some reason to exist and latching on to the current hot button de jour. (Or having it force fed from the TOTUS / POTUS).

So we are borrowing money from the Chinese, to make propaganda agencies, who’s purpose is to promote a dogma that will destroy our economy and result in an indentured public, devoid of their natural rights. (Overstated? Nope. There is a giant push to remove private property rights and individual freedoms. To raise dependency on the State.)

It is looking more and more to me like the “Fiscal Cliff” is just what we need. It’s not a cliff, it’s a Pruning Axe. A very aggressive tool that starts lopping off some of the worst bits.

Yes, it would be far better to do a careful pruning aimed at the best outcome. But once something is clearly heavily parisitized, or so overgrown as to be a threat to everything around it; well, out comes the axe…

There are, now, a couple of $Trillion worth of such agencies that are NOT helping. From perpetuating their own existence, to flat out working hard against the Private Enterprise System, to functioning as enablers of National State Propaganda. They ALL must go.
No, I have no expectation that they will.

The public is now locked up in a ‘feed back loop’ with the agencies that are driving the process. Dependency is over the threshold that creates a permanent voter block and “folks with power” have throughly parasitized our government and have no intention of pulling out their feeding tubes.

I’d love to think there was some way out of this, but unless and until our Congress (or in a very long shot, The Several States) get this monster of a Federal Government cut down to a manageable size, it isn’t going to get better.

But worse, NEITHER side wants to do any pruning. Each sees these bloated mindless agencies as a lever of power THEY can pull, should they end up in control. There is no constituency for “shit can the works”.

The Future

The only reasonable thing you can conclude is that this process of unchecked growth and Central Authority Feedback to more centralized politicized control will continue until it can’t. That’s a collapse of either the economy or the society (or both).

I don’t know why people are so stupid about it, but they are. We’ve seen this movie in thousands of examples, over thousands of years and cultures. The center grows, a feedback loop starts, the “out of touch” center migrates to “crazy talk” ideas, and eventually they reach a point where the “Average Joe and Jane” just don’t care about things anymore. Then just about any external event causes the collapse.

THE one system that has not had this outcome is a “Self Organizing System” of free individuals. It has failures, but they are individual enterprises. The society as a whole doesn’t collapse. The Roman Republic thrived until it mutated into an Empire that was no longer a Republic. The Egyptian Empires grew and spread, and had some very fanciful ideas; then eventually fell when their center was out of touch with the world. (Different external causes each time. One, a severe drought. Another, the arrival of the Roman Republic, then the arrival of the Greek Empire, then a final fall of that version when Islam arrived. Oddly, Islam is now pushing the envelope in Egypt and likely to ‘hit the wall’ itself. They look to be having a ‘Jump The Shark” moment with a Sharia constitution…)

Through the last few hundred years of The Enlightenment, a decentralized Self Organizing System of free thinkers, Republics, and capitalism have held off that “Urge to Central Power” that is the road to ruin. It is abundantly clear that those forces of liberty and freedom are in decline and a new push to Empire is underway. Like all such, it will work OK, until it fails catastrophically. When? Who knows. Could be a decade. Could be 500 years. Tyranny can run a very long time. (It doesn’t need to be optimal for all, only for a small central elite.) Tyranny is one of the stable forms of government. It just isn’t one of the good forms.

In Conclusion

Other than my ‘dismal rant’ at the bottom, the major point here is just to take a look at that official planning document of the U.S. Government. Yes, it’s full of that particularly mind numbing kind of prose that is in such things. Between the platitudes and the “weasel words” so that it can imply what it can’t outright say, it’s a bit thick. I could quote bits of it here, but it’s better to just look for yourself.

What I see in it, is a whole lot of what I call “Ego Puff”. An agency infatuated with it’s “Global” importance. Overreaching and pushing of “meaning” and “importance”. There are echos of self importance and desire for more power (i.e. money) and influence. A desire to control that unfortunate rabble out there ( that is, not recognizing their proper roll as servants to the people, not masters). Overall the tone is that of a Social “Sciences” class. The “we know better and we want to improve you” attitude. Though muted a bit by the need for an official government to not openly offend anyone, at least not anyone with political connections.

It is that window into “What does our government think it ought to be doing” that I find most disturbing. Waste? Happens all the time. Fad Of The Day? (FOD?) Happens all the time. Self aggrandizing agency? SOP. No, it’s the general tone of “We matter and need to change you.” The “negative space” of no place at the table for freedom, individual choice, distributed decision making in liberty. Those are missing. Also missing is any hint of skepticism about Climate Change nee Global Warming.

Now think about that for a minute. For at least the next 4 years, the OFFICIAL planning guide for many other agencies has the requirement that you embrace Climate Change as dogma. It’s the only choice. Talk about “Big Funding”…

So I’m torn.

Part of me wants to just find a hole in some tropical country that’s too small to matter, and park myself on the beach with enough interest payments to cover the beer and wine bill.

Part of me wants to keep on ‘fighting the good fight’.

Part of me hopes there is still a way to turn this Titanic Government away from the rocks and icebergs so clearly ahead, and to keep on searching quietly to find it.

And Part of me is just thinking about ways to ‘hold on to what you have’ and plan a way for the kids to make it past this dreck.

I’d like to be positive about it all. I’d like to be all up beat and Rah Rah… I really would. Folks like “happy talk”. Folks like to hear soothing things and have upbeat motivationals. But I’m trapped in a reality centered value system. “Reality just is. -E.M.Smith”.

Frankly, part of what makes this so dismal is just that the True Believers in AGW will read that document as one of uplifting inspiration and Our Saviour!! (thus indicating their complete indoctrination). I’ve read enough history to know that a Dynasty can take a lifetime to slowly slide into naval gazing irrelevance and fall. Sometimes even longer. The insanity of believing what can not be true can last against incredible levels of deprivation (just look at North Korea… and before that the China of Mao). North Korea has lots of state sponsored motivationals. Marches, parades, parties for Dear Leader. That’s what happens when Central Control starts to “Believe their own Bull Shit”. The fantasy of the Center can last a long time. People love that “Positive Messaging”.

In the end, I guess I mostly am still hoping that there can be a turning of this ship. That perhaps a short drive off the “Fiscal Cliff” into a modest swing or two of the Pruning Axe Of Discipline will result in a delay of a couple of years for the worst of it. Perhaps enough time for the winter snows to make in impression. Perhaps enough for the destruction of small businesses and private enterprise under excessive taxation to cause a shift of voter attitudes. Perhaps.

So I’m not yet on that “Slow boat to somewhere”, I’m still “Hoping for the best”. But I’m just not seeing much on which to hang that hope. “Hope is not a strategy. -E.M.Smith”

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