Tuesday
Surely it's time for climate-change deniers to have their opinions forcibly tattooed on their bodies.Not necessarily on the forehead; I'm a reasonable man. Just something along their arm or across their chest so their grandchildren could say, ''Really? You were one of the ones who tried to stop the world doing something? And why exactly was that, granddad?''
Dear Mr Glover,
I once lived next door to a lady who was tattooed at Auschwitz. I was outraged, as I suppose you intended, by your glib call for people who think differently than you do to be tattooed. But the outrage came from the smug assumptions you made. I bet you feel very "radical chic" after writing your article, a bit like the gay people who wear Che Guevara T-shirts, not realising that he used to enjoy killing people for being gay.
You want to tattoo me for doubting the claims of such people as Michael Mann, the fabricator of the "hockey stick" graph, which among other lies, denied the existence of the European medieval warm period and the mini ice age of the 16th and 17th centuries. I note that the hockey stick has quietly been abandoned as a model by the UN Climate Change campaign's official documents. Does that mean the tattoo could be lasered off when what you think is true today, turns out to be inaccurate or plain wrong? I hope that at the very least you might say sorry and offer to pay for the tattoo's removal. But as they say, Socialism means never having to say 'Sorry.'
David Evans worked for what is now the Australian Department of Climate Change from 1999 to 2005, and part-time 2008 to 2010. Should he be persecuted for writing this?
I have changed my mind more than once about what to do about global threats to the environment. I have never taken a payment from an energy company and would welcome viable clean energy, but the carbon dioxide scare is as bogus as propaganda movies that depicted people like my former neighbour as rats spreading the plague across Europe. For one thing, I find it extremely unlikely that fluctuations in the Sun's radiation has less influence on the Earth's climate than humans do. I'm open to persuasion that I'm wrong about sun spots, but not by threats of torture or death.
If your ideology requires the extermination - or at least for now - the branding of all who opposes you, one might wonder just what principles you stand for. It is shameful that a reporter would advocate the terrorising of people based on their opinions. That does not seem compatible with freedom of thought, or of expression.
Once you get your police state, what are the odds that an opinion YOU hold will be deemed thoughtcrime and you get branded for holding "unhelpful" opinions on homosexuality, torturing prisoners, freedom of religion, or abortion rights? And what sort of person thinks that tyranny is fine provided that the "right" people are being tortured and killed? I usually take the view that any call to expand government power should be met with caution, even for causes I might privately support.
My concern is not the profits of oil firms but that environmentalism, as a political ideology, threatens the principle of science as an arena for competing ideas to be tested without prejudice, when its advocates demand the silencing of critics.
One final thought. If anyone attempts to tattoo or brand me or anyone else for their non-conformist opinions, anywhere in the world, I shall hold you personally responsible and to be an accomplice of evil men. If you call for people to be harmed, even in jest, you cannot hide from responsibility when your call gets acted on.
Kind regards,
Antoine Clarke
Neuilly-sur-Seine,
France
This came across to me as being in the same category as the old "stupidity tax" canard. Not actually intended seriously, just a wistful comment about how it'd be kind of amusing if the world could work that easily.
At least, I hope so...
Posted by Alsadius at June 7, 2011 04:47 PM
A classic example of why I am not a pacifist.
Were I an Australian and were this to ever come to pass, after using a knife/gun/hammer or whatever other suitable tool came to hand on the people who came to tattoo me with my politically incorrect opinions, I would go seek out a telephone directory to find Mr. Glover's address and go pay him a visit. It would not be his opinions I would be placing between his eyes but rather a suitable expression of mine.
Violence must be replied to with violence. The only time I would suggest turning the other cheek is when firing off the left shoulder with a rifle after taking cover in a doorway.
Posted by Perry de Havilland at June 7, 2011 04:48 PM
Well said. Very well said. I hope this reaches not just the foul and foolish Mr Glover, but all those 'environmentalists' who have been taking advantage of their new found dominance of governments and of countless agencies, charities, and NGOs, in order to promote not compassion and improved understanding of nature and how we might affect it, but rather to attack humanity itself and scorn our highest values.
Posted by Frank S at June 7, 2011 04:53 PM
"I usually take the view that any call to expand government power should be met with caution, even for causes I might privately support."
Yeah, like the "stupidity tax" meme, as cited by Alsadius above, I try to allow myself to no more than 3 hours
of blind self adoration before I'm obligated to a cautionary "sheesh", followed with an immediate smacking on the forehead for my own "deep thoughts".
THAT hand is promptly more effective than any self- serving reconstruction/ co-option of the "Invisible" one, for shifting back into "Lest we forget..." mode.
Posted by CaptDMO at June 7, 2011 05:40 PM
Violence must be replied to with violence. The only time I would suggest turning the other cheek is when firing off the left shoulder with a rifle after taking cover in a doorway.
I LOL'ed. QOTD pls
Posted by Alicee S. at June 7, 2011 05:56 PM
I'll take the tattoo so long as this dickhead agrees to me doing a bit of brain surgery on him with an ounce or two of lead. Fair deal?
Posted by John K at June 7, 2011 06:05 PM
Did you ever notice that when people like Mr. Glover open their months with their fine ideas about tattooing the nonbelievers, or sending people they disagree with to reeducation camps, or put them on trains to the ovens, they never actually volunteer to be the guy who kicks in the door? They are perfectly keen on the idea of sending other people's husbands, fathers, or sons to get shot at to enforce their will on the people who simply disagree with them, but their ideas never end with them actually fighting to get me and mine into that tattoo parlor or onto that train.
To steal from Andy Rooney, "why is that?"
Posted by Steven Rockwell at June 7, 2011 06:16 PM
Perhaps he could first show everyone his tatoos - DDT, over population, new ice age, nuclear winter, ozone, ....
Posted by cranston at June 7, 2011 06:45 PM
Godwin's Law doesn't apply when the argument ad hitlerum is really about Hitler.
Posted by Ellen at June 7, 2011 07:12 PM
Bravo, Antoine. Expressed a tad gently for my taste, but the sentiment is precisely mine. minus the bullets.
Posted by Kim du Toit at June 7, 2011 07:17 PM
I don't share your present opinions on climate change, but we are absolutely at one about the way in which such opinions should be formed:
I'm open to persuasion that I'm wrong about sun spots, but not by threats of torture or death.I know this chappie is engaging in furious hyperbole, and in a similar spirit I think it is only fair to recommend the forceful return-to-sender of his policing theories anent solar irradiation, by way of those channels which Sol irradiateth not.
For one thing, I find it extremely unlikely that fluctuations in the Sun's radiation has less influence on the Earth's climate than humans do.On the other hand, I really can't buy the logic behind this. Consider the following parallel:
I find it extremely unlikely that fluctuations in the weather have less control on the ambient temperature than the thermostat does.Stable ecosystems are, necessarily, homeostatic - possessed of negative feedback loops. Whether they are loudly blessed as 'natural' or damned as 'artificial' is not to the purpose. But the ability of structured feedback systems to outdo raw power in the long run is no more mysterious than the effect of compound interest or inflation. Now, human beings and human economies are pretty damned good at doing structured adaptive information systems. For good or ill or no special tendency at all, we are working on the level of the thermostat circuit - not the heater, or lack thereof, blazing away in the corner.
I don't claim, or believe, that this entails a need for a Great Good Authority to set the thermostat for everybody's best benefit.
Posted by Gray Woodland at June 7, 2011 08:12 PM
I welcome statements like this. It shows the water melons in their true light - authoritarian, dictatorial, fascist bully boys (and girls). More statements like this mean more of the mass population will realise what the AGW crowd really stand for, and what is at stake.
It also shows the desperation, as they know time and tide are turning against them. They know if they do not make genuine concrete inroads into controlling the public's use of energy within the next 5-10 years, that AGW will be a bust. Reality will show no warming, possibly even cooling. Then they will lose their livelihoods and be subject to ridicule, possibly even legal sanctions for their actions.
We in the UK are one cold winter from killing AGW stone dead. We have had two on the trot, another would make up most peoples minds I think.
Posted by Jim at June 7, 2011 08:13 PM
Counting Cats has had a go at this guy too and is a little more forceful with his use of language.
http://www.countingcats.com/?p=9943#comments
Posted by Stonyground at June 7, 2011 08:58 PM
Very well put, Antoine, that was excellent, and ought to lift our hearts.
Posted by David Davis at June 7, 2011 09:05 PM
"This came across to me as being in the same category as the old "stupidity tax" canard. Not actually intended seriously, just a wistful comment about how it'd be kind of amusing if the world could work that easily."
Sorry, but I don't buy that. If the tattooing idea had been an off-the-cuff one-liner, dropped and then discarded, I might have accepted it. But this moron drones on and on with his revenge fantasies, talking about slow drowning of the apostates and forcing them to purchase of flooded property. He's serious about this, however much he might protest that he's "just kidding".
A sensible person would have enjoyed writing those first few paragraphs, maybe shared them with a friend or two, and then laughed and discarded them as crazy talk. The fact that he developed the idea, expanding it into an entire article, and actually submitted it for publication, tells us that Glover has absolutely no internal governor, let alone a moral compass. He has Tourette's of the Keyboard. This is a man with real mental problems; he needs to be incarcerated and forcibly medicated, not given a newspaper column.
Posted by Laird at June 7, 2011 09:19 PM
I had thought that perhaps he was clumsily making a "modest proposal." I would have given him the benefit of the doubt, but he's a journalist.
Posted by LS at June 7, 2011 10:24 PM
Ill have my tattoo if he will have the same ending those who started the tattooing got at the end of WW2.
A 6' drop with a short sharp stop at the end.
Posted by thefrollickingmole at June 8, 2011 02:34 AM
Ah, I'd wear an "AGW Denier" tattoo on my forehead if I could brand his forehead with the symbol of those who did the tattooing.
Let him wear it with pride. Bastard.
Posted by Dishman at June 8, 2011 03:53 AM
Noting with approval Ellen's clarification of Godwin's Law above; Glover is neither joking, nor engaging in a pitiful attempt to match Swift's Modest Proposal.
The imposition of tyranny implies convincing the mass of a people that resistance will bring a bad end. This generally requires exemplars to bring the truth home. The initial part of that process is the creation of a class of designated scapegoats who are dehumanized as a meme, and any subsequent violence is therefore justified.
The Left is creating a series of memes to justify violence. Mr. Glover is working in the Anglosphere. Here in this country we have Leftists actively threatening violence and death to conservatives. Just yesterday, "comedian" Christopher Titus publicly promised to assassinate Sarah Palin on a nationally syndicated television show. And is doubling down on it today on Twitter. For which he is praised as being 'edgy'. In Wisconsin, members of the Legislature, the Governor, AND THE MEMBERS OF THEIR FAMILIES, received written, telephone, and verbal death threats at their homes and offices; because they opposed the will of the government employees' unions. Leftist demonstrations are rife with death threats to those who oppose their projects. Is there any doubt that if circumstances allowed, they would be glad to be signing death warrants?
The only way to stop them, is to use exactly the same tactics against them. They have been given a free ride for far too long, and think they can do anything with impunity.
Subotai Bahadur
Posted by Subotai Bahadur at June 8, 2011 04:18 AM
I'd be perfectly willing to get a tattoo that says
"Fuck Eco-religion"
Posted by ManikMonkee at June 8, 2011 07:29 AM
A tattoo that in 30 years time will effectively say: "i was RIGHT-official!"
Count me in ;-)
Posted by wh00ps at June 8, 2011 01:34 PM
These people need to be put on an "eco-island", for rather a long time. Perhaps 25 or 35 or 40 years may not be long enough, for they may, just possibly, manage to produce one or two children who may, possibly, just possibly, survive them. On these islands is the stuff of pre-capitalist suffering and subsistence. Nothing more, nothing less.
Posted by David Davis at June 8, 2011 03:53 PM
Hi Alsadius, how about this for another exapmle of the stupidity tax canard?
"Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?"
Just a joke.
Right?
Posted by peter Melia at June 8, 2011 07:30 PM
It'd be sort of hard to work a tattoo machine with one's fingers all broken and stuff. Just sayin'.....
Posted by Mike James at June 8, 2011 07:50 PM
Anyone who chooses to behave like a National Socialist should be identified and treated as such.
Posted by Leslie Bates at June 8, 2011 09:57 PM
A very good letter.
Both very well written.
And TRUE.
Mr Glover is a totalitarian.
His present justification is the theory of man made globel warming - a theory that may or may not be true.
But if it was getting colder and colder Mr Glover would still be a totalitarian - he would still support tyranny.
He would just find some other excuse.
Sadly Mr Glover is not alone - "they are Legion".
The left is dominated by these Devils.
Posted by Paul Marks at June 9, 2011 01:13 PM
There's only one group that believes in tattooing "undesirables", and I don't care what they call themselves today. They should be treated the same way as the last batch.
Posted by SiGraybeard at June 11, 2011 12:28 AM
Hi all, I like Richard Glover am Australian. Whether I believe in man-made climate change or not is irelevant for the what I am about to say.
Richard Glover is a comedian, the idea of tattooing people was a joke. He doesn't actually believe that. Irony plays a rich part in the Australian sense of humour. You have all over-reacted.
This article explains it.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/a-climate-change-wave-of-hate-20110609-1ftix.html
Posted by Mike at June 13, 2011 03:02 AM
I appreciate irony as much as anyone, and I fully understand that attempts at humor can fall flat.
I also don't believe a word of his "explanation". (Well, that's not entirely fair: I do believe that he received a lot of vituperative hate mail.) Likewise, I don't believe the "Note from the Author" which he has now appended to the original article.
There was nothing remotely amusing in the piece, no evidence of any attempt at humor whatsoever. It was rank stupidity, pure and simple. Glover floated a trial balloon which went over quite badly and now he is in full-scale recovery mode, backpedaling as fast as his legs will move. That you accept his facile "justification" at face value speaks rather badly about your powers of critical thought.
Posted by Laird at June 13, 2011 05:58 AM
Laird's reply says it all:
There was nothing remotely amusing in the piece, no evidence of any attempt at humor whatsoever. It was rank stupidity, pure and simple. Glover floated a trial balloon which went over quite badly and now he is in full-scale recovery mode, backpedaling as fast as his legs will move. That you accept his facile "justification" at face value speaks rather badly about your powers of critical thought.
Posted by Perry de Havilland at June 13, 2011 10:25 AM
Hey Mike.
Mr Glover should have his head blown off - after first being force fed his own children, one bit at a time.
JUST JOKING.
Why are you not laughing?
Have you not got a sense of humour?
Posted by Paul Marks at June 13, 2011 02:16 PM
