I AM A WINNER? — PART 3

With this post, we have our first winner, the winner in the Democrat Category.  However, before I get into that, I would like to mention a post at the SkepticalObservor, In The WaPo?!?!?!  Jim cites an article in the Washington Post that purports to describe in detail the characteristics of Liberal condescension towards Conservatives.  It begins thus:

Every political community includes some members who insist that their side has all the answers and that their adversaries are idiots. But American liberals, to a degree far surpassing conservatives, appear committed to the proposition that their views are correct, self-evident, and based on fact and reason, while conservative positions are not just wrong but illegitimate, ideological and unworthy of serious consideration. Indeed, all the appeals to bipartisanship notwithstanding, President Obama and other leading liberal voices have joined in a chorus of intellectual condescension.  (continued here)

There is nothing new about someone being proud and arrogant.  Most of us do in fact have too high an opinion of our own wisdom.  Because our pride is so often a stumbling block, one that trips us headlong into sin, the Bible calls upon us to be humble.  Yet few recognize their own pride and arrogance.  We easily see only the pride of others.  Thus, we can even pray pridefully.  Consider this passage. 

Luke 18:9-14 (Today’s New International Version)

The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: ”Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

The frightening thing about this parable is that Jesus intended that each of us see our self in the Pharisee, not the tax collector.  For example, when we say, “I am a good person,” we are that Pharisee.  Compared to example we should follow, none of us are good.

The Winner in the Democrat Category

The blog Blue Virginia wins in the Democrat Category.  This post, I AM A WINNER? — PART 2, describes the criteria.

Why Blue Virginia? 

Politics involves debate.  Because Blue Virginia is a diehard, adamantine Democrat blog, that blog often serves as a foil to my own arguments.  I don’t have to invent a strawman.  I just visit Blue Virginia and use the real thing, a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat. 

Lowell leaves little doubt that he is a true believer.  Lowell, the resident blogger, makes his party affiliation abundantly clear in his welcome statement.  Here is an excerpt.

Along those lines, I want to state categorically that, even more than a Democrat, I consider myself a Progressive in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Tom Paine, Teddy Roosevelt, JFK, RFK, and Jim Webb. As such, I believe in expanding opportunities to all, utilizing government as a tool to promote the general welfare and the common good, protecting the environment for ourselves and for future generations, and expanding the rights promised in our Constitution and Bill of Rights to all Americans.

Tradition of Thomas Jefferson?  I read that statement in wonder. Does he really think all of these men believed in a “Living Constitution” or in the huge expansion of Federal powers he advocates? I can only guess. All I know is that he and others advocate a ”Living Constitution” and a huge expansion of Federal powers. So wishing I did not have this “better alternative,” I contrast Blue Virginia‘s “Progressivism” with Conservatism.

What Blue Virginia too well illustrates is the naiveté that underlies the Democratic Party.  Because Democrats believe in the perfectability of men by a man, they feel it is proper to peddle Utopian solutions at the polls. Their noble end justifies the means.  If the right leader can make all well — make earth heavenly — then we should give the right man enough power to make the earth heavenly.   We should give the right man enough power to run our lives “for us.” 

The Founders; including Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine; knew better. The knew enough to fear any man so proud he demanded the right to run the lives of his fellows. That is why they wrote the Constitution.  They had no intention of giving anyone such power to run either their own lives or the lives of their fellow citizens. 

Because of its “Progressivism,” Blue Virginia provides a brilliant contrast for plain and seemingly dour Conservatism.  Conservatism makes no bold claims for “government solutions.” Because mere men lead us, Conservatives believe we must insist upon humble government.  That is, we should use government just to keep us from interfering in each other’s lives. 

Conservatives uphold the belief that no man has the right or the wisdom to run the lives of others. No mere man can make of government anything other than a clumsy instrument that too often employs force with excessive brutality. We should seek our salvation in God, not government. Government is best used only when we can find no other alternative.

A Review of a Blue Virginia Post

Which post?  Since the winners of this contest are restricted to Virginia, it seemed appropriate to pick a post about Virginia politics.  So here we have a post about our new governor, Bob McDonnell, making fun of a Democrat sacred cow, Bob McDonnell Jokes About Global Warming.  How does Lowell respond?

McDonnell is from the same bunch of know nothings – the Republican Party of Virginia – that has a video out right now implying that one snowstorm in one specific location in the middle of winter negates the vast amount of scientific/empirical evidence that’s been collected for decades in support of climate change science.

Side note:  Here is that RPV video Lowell mentioned:  12 inches of Global Warming.

Our new governor is a “know nothing”? The snow is setting out there on the ground. 

Left unchallenged, Democrats will use the theory of global warming, now called climate change, as an excuse for another huge government expansion and power grab. The evidence for global climate change is paltry, but let us give Lowell credit. He does attempt to cite a credible source that supports the case for global warming.  Here is how that source begins.

2009 was tied for the second warmest year in the modern record, a new NASA analysis of global surface temperature shows. The analysis, conducted by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City, also shows that in the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the warmest year since modern records began in 1880.

Although 2008 was the coolest year of the decade, due to strong cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean, 2009 saw a return to near-record global temperatures. The past year was only a fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the warmest year on record, and tied with a cluster of other years — 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2007 1998 and 2007 — as the second warmest year since recordkeeping began.  (continued here)

Is this global warming thing something we need to take seriously?  Do we actually have global weather data that goes back to 1880?  No.  (See also A COLD DAY FOR OUR NEW PRESIDENT.  That post also deals with this sort of “science.”).  Even the article Lowell cited admits that the instrumentation needed to monitor temperatures precisely did not become available until 1880.  Nonetheless, the article still fails to mention two pertinent facts. 

• Even with the instrumentation, we did not have a system to collect reliable data until very recently.
• We have no baseline.  We do not know what constitutes ”normal.”  Fossil data and geologic data indicate that the earth has had both cold and warm periods.  These obviously occurred before we started burning fossil fuels.  Without man’s “interference” in the environment, what would the global average temperature be now?  Would it be warmer or colder? Nobody really knows. 

What we do know is that lots of money and politics are involved and that some people have already been caught fiddling with their data.  See THE STRANGE BUSINESS OF “CLIMATEGATE”.

Other Contest Winners

See I AM A WINNER? — PART 1 for a list of winners and contest rules.