The free market is what the name implies, a voluntary social and economic arrangement. 1984 was not about life in a free society. Turning problems of any nature over to an organization founded on theft, violence, and lies — government as it exists — should give anyone reason to reject the idea out of hand.
Environmental panic is peaking.
Greta has put her face “on the existential issue of our time.” Capitalism, we’re told, is destroying the natural world and only some form of global socialism can save us. Kill the cows, shut down the coal plants, outlaw those 40-milllon methane-emitting gas stoves otherwise we’ll all die. We can no longer tolerate freedom, either among the unwashed or the captains of industry. Unlike physics or artificial intelligence, climate change is settled science, and climate scientists are urging politicians to take real action, since we can’t live much longer given present trends.
To paraphrase Thomas Paine, in the name of saving the planet freedom is being hunted “round the world.”
Let’s get sober. Two plus two really does equal four, and empirical science — which deals with testable hypotheses and outcomes — is never settled. An example of an empirical science that is never settled is climatology, the dictionary definition of which is the scientific study of climate.
Yet not all science is empirical. Scientific conclusions and everyday observations obey certain axioms, or laws, that have proved favorable to understanding reality. These laws had to be discovered, and in this respect could be considered the science of correct reasoning. For more on this topic see Hazlitt’s Thinking as a Science, W. Stanley Jevons Elementary Lessons in Logic, or go to the original source in Aristotle. You might also find deliverance in my article “Too Many Economic ‘Truths’ Are Built on Fallacies.”
Let’s go to court
In dealing with any issue it often helps to think like a defense attorney. The following is from my book, Write like they’re your last words. The scene is a courtroom where a man is being tried for murdering his girlfriend, taken from an old movie.
The prosecution put a male witness on the stand who testified he had sometimes heard the accused and his girlfriend exchanging heated words.
“So, are you saying the accused had woman troubles?” the prosecutor summarized.
“I think that’s fair to say.”
“Thank you.”
He turned to the defense attorney. “Your witness.”
The defense lawyer approached the witness and hit him square on the nose:
“Have you ever murdered a woman?”
“No! Of course not!”
“Have you ever had woman troubles?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever known a man who didn’t have woman troubles?”
“No.”
“Thank you. That’s all.”
Like the prosecution in the scene above, anyone with a weak argument might slip a fallacy into the debate to make their point.
What about the priests of climate change? The argument they want us to accept runs something like this:
- Certain human activities are making our climate life-threatening.
- Since we need a favorable climate to sustain life these activities should be eliminated.
- Therefore, governments, which have the power to control human behavior, should mitigate and ultimately eliminate the aforementioned activities.
How would you go about “trying” this syllogism in court?
Back-door socialism
Be seeing you
MCViewPoint 
