Reply #243: Agreed, in part ... [View All]

>> The time to grab the kids and the cats and get the hell out of Germany is when you get the first whiff of Naziism, not when they start rounding people up. The time to take action against any potentially deadly situation is when you first learn about it. Only a fool continues to sit on the railway track once he can see the train coming.

Agree completely -- I am no fool. If you're ever elected to office (which will be a cold day in Hell if this thread ever gets connected to an actual name) -- I'll be on a plane to Australia well before you start rounding people up and sterilizing them. If you're elected to an international office, your goons with scalpels will meet with a deadly-accurate expression of my 2nd amendment rights. I dare say I wouldn't be alone in that reaction. You can pry my "procreative talent" out of my cold dead body ...

>> Hawking is on record that we must URGENTLY solve the problems -all the problems- associated with climate change "if we still can". He's saying we MUST solve the problems, not that we should solve them but only if we can do so without upsetting the ignorant, the stupid, and the uncaring. He's saying do what it takes, and do it *urgently*.

I doubt severely that Stephen Hawking is advocating for the forcible sterilization of the population. And, in the off chance he is (as I cannot claim to have read every word he's written) -- then he's as nutty as you are.

>> only if we can do so without upsetting the ignorant, the stupid, and the uncaring.

If I've upset you, you have my sincerest apologies.

>> Lovelock likens our situation today to 1939, where even many ordinary people can see what's happening but the politicians are still playing appeasement. That seems like a very appropriate simile, given the denial and inaction all around, even here.

Maybe it is appropriate -- maybe not. Maybe we're careening toward the Apocalypse ... or maybe Lovelock's out of his gourd. I don't know (though I lean toward the latter) -- and neither do you, Lovelock, Hawking, or anyone else. Its difficult to say definitively who has accurately predicted the future before the future gets here. I can say that these guesses (even guesses by "brilliant" men) cannot be held out as legitimate justification for granting the ultimate procreative authority to the government.

What I can say definitively is, regardless of whether Lovelock's a prophet or a fruitcake, no government can legitimately seize the authority to forcibly sterilize the population. As I said before, if that minimal limitation on government authority brings about the Apocalypse -- I'll saddle-up the four horsemen myself. My point is, it doesn't matter if you're right or wrong about the coming catastrophe ... you cannot morally justify a seizure of authority which allows the government to sterilize the population against their will.

Z