Afraid of losing liberty to international agreements? Revive the Bricker Amendment.
An idea from two generations ago: an amendment to the U.S. Constitution explicitly limiting the scope of treaties and executive agreements, may improve the discourse over international cooperation, and possibly protect liberty, too. by B. S. Kalafut
(libertarian)
Monday, December 14, 2009
For the past week, representatives of the world's governments have been meeting in Copenhagen to establish a framework for mitigation of anthropogenic global climate change. Cost-benefit analyses that take mitigation seriously tend without fail to find some amount of mitigation an appropriate response to the problem. The scientific case for there being a problem and for business as usual to lead to further problems has never been stronger.
This is not the impression a naïve reader, one who is not familiar with the scientific case for anthropogenic climate change or the Stern Review and other cost-benefit analyses, would have of the state of affairs from reading about the topic on the Web. One might read, for example, that mitigation will "destroy the economy" and that the science is "not settled", or even a "hoax" or a "fraud". Usually these claims seem to be about not the science familiar from the IPCC report and journal articles but rather a made-believe science that depends heavily on paleoclimatology ("hockey sticks), in which deficiencies remedied years ago still exist, and in which physics-based climate models are somehow fit to the data like statistical models.
This make-believe science is often accompanied by a make-believe politics of science which has "smoking gun" contrarian papers being kept out of journals not because of poor quality but instead due to an editorial conspiracy, which has data being made up to suit pre-determined conclusions, and which has those conclusions pre-determined because they supposedly support "government" and supporting "government" supposedly earns scientists more research funding. E-mails and other files stolen from one of the Climate Research Unit's servers were said to be proof that these claims about the science and science politics were both true, but further inspection revealed this to be mostly exaggeration and lies: some of the e-mails indicate that a few scientists may have broken UK Freedom of Information laws but nothing indicated a conspiracy to shut good science out of journals and, more importantly, no information emerged that could lead to the retraction of even a single scientific paper. Steven Novella's comparison of the matter to the Duke Lacrosse "rape" scandal is apt.
"Climategate" shaped up to be yet another of a long line of junk arguments put forth by would-be climate contrarians, but it isn't the most telling. Back in 2007, Rush Limbaugh, Reason Hit-and-Run, and hundreds of other right-wing or libertarian news sources promoted a paper full of obvious nonsense (have a look at the "math"!) written by nonexistent scholars in a fake journal based at a nonexistent university--in other words, a patently obvious deliberate hoax--as knocking the current theory of climate change out of the park. When it comes to climate, the people who call themselves "skeptics" (implying that others aren't good scientists!) often--no, usually--refuse to distinguish between true and false claims or sound and unsound argument. Some are lying outright and some are merely so credulous as to believe the lies and relay them--it's difficult to tell the difference.
A few of these characters engaged in the same kind of behavior when it came to benzene, cigarettes, and the ozone hole, but most of those lying about climate science are ordinarily decent, intelligent people. Spreading falsehoods and junk arguments is never excusable, but evil per se is not an explanation this time around.
My conjecture: People are afraid. Yes, estimates of mainstream mitigation strategies are that they will cost 1% of GDP (that's just the cost, without taking into account the benefits), and yes, market-approaches such as a revenue-neutral carbon tax or tradeable permits are all that's being considered for the U.S., but people who do not stay abreast of the issue hear other equally uninformed people ranting about "socialism" and "economic disaster" and see IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri recommending for mitigation nothing but lifestyle-disrupting personal sacrifices (forget that under 13% of CO2 emissions come from personal transportation!) as solutions and conclude that they can have either individual liberty or a binding agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions, but not both. Put aside that talk of socialism or transition to command economies or disaster is ridiculous: in face of fear of that kind of loss of liberty, lying may seem justified and credulity an understandable reflex.
The tone of a lot of this discussion sounds a lot like the old anti-fluoridation propaganda that gets passed around for laughs, real Bircher stuff. But even with the nonsense stripped away it is familiar to those who know a bit of history. Two generations ago, widespread fear of loss of liberty due to well-meaning international agreements brought about a nearly successful effort to amend the U.S. Constitution.
From 1952 to 1957, several similar amendments that would have required treaties to only be internal United States law by legislative acts of Congress, collectively known as "the Bricker Amendment" after their primary sponsor, were introduced to Congress. These amendments were motivated by a fear that participation in the United Nations would bring about an increase in the powers of the Federal government without amendment of the Constitution or deliberation at home, subject Americans to foreign jurisdiction for domestic crimes, and possibly require the U.S. to adopt socialist or social-democratic policy. This was not total "crank" worry; the Supreme Court's decision in Missouri v. Holland that treaties give Congress powers to enact laws it could not otherwise enact was a clear step in the "wrong direction".
The dispute over ratification brought about heated infighting between "East Coast" or "interationalist " Republicans (including President Eisenhower) and "Old Right" isolationists (the intellectual and political ancestors of Ron Paul-style paleoconservatism.) At its zenith, the Bricker Amendment came within a single vote of the two-thirds majority needed to send it to the States for ratification.
Eisenhower was, perhaps, right in the end; the Bricker Amendment was never ratified, yet Americans did not see socialism imposed, find themselves subject to foreign jurisdiction, or otherwise lose their liberty to the U.N., and the President has yet to use treaties to run around Constitutional restrictions on executive power. The Supreme Court's decision in Reid v. Covert affirmed supremacy of the Constitution, especially of the Bill of Rights, over treaties.
Treaties, in general, are not "gotcha!" propositions, nor are they magical in the sense that a party must obey the terms of a treaty that will infringe the liberties of its citizens. None of this, however, is spelled out in the plain text of the Constituion. Even if it is akin to fear of the bogeyman under the bed, however, fear of Rajendra Pachauri and an international conspiracy between environmentalists, socialists, and scientists is having a detrimental effect on public discourse in the U.S. and on the environmental health of the planet. To silence those who scream about "socialism" and use such worries as an excuse to lie about science, necessary or not, passage of an amendment clarifying the treaty power and requiring acts of Congress for treaty provisions to become domestic law is in order.
Those who disagree, who think that the fears are well-placed, that an international climate agreement will impose a planned economy and restrictions of individual behavior on the people of the United States, have even more reason to support a new Bricker Amendment. Instead of lying or refusing to distinguish good argument from bad to prevent the iminent loss of liberty, the loss of liberty could be prevented directly, not just this year, and not only when this issue is in question.
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Here in Europe (including Russia and its former allies)' its the fluoridation propaganda that gets passed around for laughs because this scientific fraud is recognised here for the hoax that it is. A pity you spoilt an otherwise challenging piece with this load of North American 'health' nonsense that owes its survival to the usual commercially-driven agenda that fools the unwary. As long as you keep taking the fluoride medicine B.S. , you'll never taste the coffee !
Perhaps as a European the reference to anti-fluoridation propaganda is lost on you.Â
The most famous example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Unholy_three.png
Regardless of the merit of water fluoridation as a public health measure, that sort of argument is ridiculous--as is yours. "Hoax"? "Fraud"? Those aren't synonyms for "something I think is a bad idea."
I must be one of those well meaning, but totally deluded fools that have been taken in by AGW skepticism.
As far as I see it (and I could be wrong), the whole AGW theory is corrupt from a basic science POV. The theory actually contradicts what we know about physics in its fundamentals, the basis of its factual and allegedly empirical 'proof' is arbitrarily tweaked computer simulations of weather predictions - the inception and original attempts at produced the rigorous science of chaos theory (showing the unpredictability of non-linear dynamical systems, e.g. weather), the very measurements and trends that the 'theory' predicts are contradicted by actual measurements, the religious fervor intolerance by which its adherents respond to the 'theories' criticism belies their impartiality as scientists, and suggests they doth protest too much.
There isn't even the consensus in the scientific community that they so hotly tout to silence criticism. There are hundreds of scientists that flatly reject or seriously question the AGW theory.
There is just so much institutionally sick and unclean with the AGW theory, inside and out, that it reeks with ideological partisanship, irrespective of political leanings. It is a theory that the proponents of it "just want it to be" sooo badly, like any religious nut, they will argue for its viability no matter what argument or fact is posed against it.
That is not science, settled or otherwise, it is extremism.
As far as I see it (and I could be wrong), the whole AGW theory is corrupt from a basic science POV. The theory actually contradicts what we know about physics in its fundamentals,
The "whole theory" is founded on two things: radiative balance and fluid mechanics., with some things added on top for additional realism. It hardly could be said to "contradict" fundamental physics.
the basis of its factual and allegedly empirical 'proof' is arbitrarily tweaked computer simulations of weather predictions
Factually incorrect: (1) The simulations are not of weather/"weather predicionts" (I'm trying to read between the lines and figure out what you mean by "computer simulations of weather predictions") and (2) What little tweaking happens is not arbitrary. See these FAQ for a plain-English explanation:
Note that there's no fitting to the temperature data.
I wonder (btw) why people who take your position on this make a big deal about these simulations being run on digital computers. Models of this complexity--and with real world shapes and such involved--cannot be integrated any other way.
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the inception and original attempts at produced the rigorous science of chaos theory (showing the unpredictability of non-linear dynamical systems, e.g. weather),
Again, the object of study is not weather. That is readily apparent and it's a common point of confusion that has been addressed over and over and over....
But if you are arguing that nonlinearity implies chaos, that is incorrect, not only incorrect but obviously incorrect.  And if you are arguing that chaos means one cannot say anything about a system, that's irrelevant here but also incorrect.
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the religious fervor intolerance by which its adherents respond to the 'theories' criticism belies their impartiality as scientists, and suggests they doth protest too much.
An outright smear, to accuse scientists of "religious fervor" for merely re-stating and clarifying, over and over, what is in the literature--and "doth protest too much" is a BS tactic. If people are misrepresenting science, especially science with such deep practical implications as climatology, then it is incumbent on scientists to clear the matter up. But you would have that if they do this too forcefully--and forcefulness is to be expected when the crapflood of specious arguments (such as your bit about "chaos") is incessant--that this somehow discredits them. "Even if you know it and know it well, pretend like you don't. Let the deceivers deceive." Is that your position?
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There isn't even the consensus in the scientific community that they so hotly tout to silence criticism. There are hundreds of scientists that flatly reject or seriously question the AGW theory.
I don't care about "scientists"--whoever that is--and you shouldn't either. I care about the people working on this and the state of the literature. A "scientist" without an argument is worthless.Â
The consensus is reflected by the state of the literature. End of story.
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There is just so much institutionally sick and unclean with the AGW theory, inside and out, that it reeks with ideological partisanship, irrespective of political leanings.
Trying to infer what you "mean" by that mushmouthed statement--how can "a theory" be "institutionally sick and unclean, as theory is not institution?: How can scientists arguing for truth not sound "partisan" when their opponents refuse to distinguish good argument from bad. It is people like McKittrick, Michaels, Plimer, and Singer who set the tone.
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It is a theory that the proponents of it "just want it to be" sooo badly, like any religious nut, they will argue for its viability no matter what argument or fact is posed against it.
That is not science, settled or otherwise, it is extremism.
So far every "argument or fact" has fallen short, and that some of the characters making those "arguments" don't always immediately understand it doesn't change it.Â
Nobody "wants" AGW (or ocean acidification) to be true. It would be nice to not have a problem. But we do have a problem. Some shameless people make bad argument to pretend that we don't have a problem, perhaps out of fear of the solution. Others--like yourself--go further and try to smear the scientists who found the problem. "Well-meaning", my ass!
While very dated, the Unholy Three cartoon still reflects today's paranoia of much state-inspired propaganda. You only have to look at the countless contradictions of the CDC, EPA excuses for fluoridation as well as the FDA for whom the fluoride chemical added to drinking water is classifed as an 'unapproved new drug' to realise something about this 'health measure' is seriously amiss. And when these same fluoridation promoters (CDC EPA) still assert in defiance of the science that all fluoride forms are the same in drinking water, then a scientific fraud has been perpetrated. You only have to follow the money B.S., in this case the huge sums saved by the US phosphate and aluminium producers who can dump their waste product into the drinking water instead of making it safe at source. And the unwary millions of Americans -- including you B.S. -- can not see the hoax in all of this!
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