Dominion Post – letter writers
Ban the Nats from voting letter to the editor in today’s Dominion Post.
I have come to the conclusion that someone at the Dominion Post has a sense of humour. How else can the consistency with which they, the Dom Post, publish letters from devotees of the cargo cult of climate change, calling for those with contrary views to theirs be banned from doing something, be easily explained.
Not so long ago they published a letter from one devotee demanding that they publish no more letters from climate change deniers. Such tolerance and acceptance of peoples’ rights by these ideologues of others to have opinions of their own.
Today they have published an absolute gem of a letter from a reader. I have reproduced it at the reference above.
In this letter the writer demands that anyone who does not accept that climate change is the major issue facing the Earth be banned from voting in elections.
Now this gentleman is entitled to his view, but to seriously suggest that anyone who does not agree with his view should be prevented from voting!!
It could be the case that the writer was being humourous, but then again perhaps not.
If he was serious would anyone wish to live in a state where your ability to think freely was restricted.
Indeed should we accept the writers proposition then where will such prescription end.
Accepting that the writer was serious then it is yet another example of how those who wish to deal with climate change are in many cases developing such closed minds that they are guilty of becoming intolerant and countenancing actions and attitudes that are a real threat to our society. They are on a par with the attitudes expressed by relgious zealots and perilously close to advocating the approach taken by such as Al Quaeda.
Thanks for taking an interest. If you actually read my letter, I didn’t ask for a ban on people voting National, that was the headline manufactured by the Dominion Post’s editor. I was pretty scathing about National’s supporters, I admit, in regard to their unconcern about global warming. but in fact I wrote: “that anyone who still considers that global warming is not the biggest issue facing every single individual….should be exluded from voting”, which is not quite the same thing as “banning National voters”.
I thought it would be evident that my last paragraph is a rhetorical flourish, a means to an argument, not my personal vendetta against democracy. If we seriously considered banning anyone from voting we didn’t agree with, there wouldn’t be many voters left. It might be a good idea from my point of view, but I could see you mightn’t be so happy. I checked with my family, who are almost as intelligent as I am, and they could see this was merely a rhetorical device, but then they know me as the strong advocate for participatory democracy that I am.
I think those writing later in reply to this letter deliberately avoided the point of my letter and latched onto this last paragraph and the mischievously misleading headline, rather than the substance of the argument, that there really is something grotesquely absurd about humanity’s wilful disregard to the health of the planet that sustains us.
It might be worth directing you to a recent article that appeared in the UK Guardian the other day, entitled Climate change not radical enough. In it Dr James Hansen explains the urgent need for huge reductions in CO2 emissions, much greater even than the reduction that climate change sceptics or deniers already react so strongly against.
I find the position of climate sceptics not only bizarre, but downright anti-evolutionary. It’s as if such people are determined to show that mankind exists despite his intelligence, rather than because of it. Here we have a real and imminent threat to our entire existance on this planet, and all these people can do is to retreat into a primitive, almost catatonic state – I can’t see it, ergo, it can’t be happening
For goodness sake everyone, take this seriously. Even if thousands of climate scientists are guilty of the greatest case of self-delusion in history, all of you spend lots of money in insurance premiums and have concerns about much lesser threats that are much less likely, like your dropping dead of a heart attack or your house burning down. That climate change sceptics consider their planet less important and worth less investment than their homes is parochialism gone psychotic.
Here’s Dr. John K Monro’s homepage if you’re interested in the musings of such a character.
http://homepage.mac.com/j.monro/