Conservative Revisionism

Today’s Daily Perv Link (TM) is actually a photo. Continuing on a theme:

First, The News:

A scary development is the increasing trend towards courts ordering the release of identities of anonymous bloggers and blog commenters. (Of course, law makers are woefully ignorant of that fact that we can already narrow down a blog comment to tight neighbourhood. Sort of like how I identified a particular miscreant from Yonkers who’s been banned from this site a couple of times. Oh, s/he/it knows what I’m talking about.)

This case in Texas is just the latest. If anonymous blogging is to be a thing of the past, it’s only a matter of time before y’all figure out that I’m actually Ross Perot.

Conservative Historical Revisionism

Where do I start? How is it that US “conservatism” is no longer characterized by a desire for small government, free trade and low taxes, and is now almost entirely about defending the reputation of the White/Notherner/Westerner/American/Bigot? How are these conflated? Well, silly question….

Take this article by supreme turd Michael Medved. He essentially argues that the Europeans did not commit genocide against the Native Americans. His argument boils down to two items: (1) 100% of settlers did not kill 100% of Natives, therefore no genocide occurred; and (2) most Natives were killed by disease, not by pilgrims with guns.

This has got to be one of the most transparently racist and idiotic arguments I’ve ever seen put forth in mainstream media in the modern era. It’s up there with Michelle Malkin defending the internment of American citizens of Japanese ancestry during WWII. Again, what is up with so-called “conservatism” and blatant racist beliefs, policies and revisionism?

For the record, American governments during the age of settlement had conscious policies directed toward the eradication of Native Americans. The buffalo hunt, for example, was organized to remove a vital resource from Native culture. The provision of blankets infected with small pox was meant to kill Natives via bioterrorism. The fact that casual, unintended diseases passed on from the Europeans were the thing that really destroyed Native peoples is irrelevant: the intent to eradicate was present, and the goal was certainly achieved.

In a court of law, would these events result in a guilty finding? Probably not. But that does not innoculate colonial governments and peoples from the judging eye of history. Medved should be ashamed of his supremacist, apologist, revisionist view. In the wake of George Bush’s disastrous wars, it seems the scramble is on to re-establish some sort of ethical high ground for Westerners, however brittle the scaffolding.

The Climate Change Game Continues

Back in my Schlomberg post, I mentioned how it’s interesting that all of the Climate Change deniers with any sort of solid backing are remarkably non-scientists. Indeed, the loudest tend to be economists, statisticians and political scientists. To reiterate, I find it troubling that for a topic that is innately scientific, the voices of non-specialists are given equal –and sometimes greater– weight than the voices of people who have committed their lives to the field.

Anyway, it was only a matter of time before one of the deniers put out a children’s book. Here it is. It’s written by someone named Holly Fretwell. She, unsurprisingly, is yet another economist and political scientist. She is also a senior researcher with the Property and Environmental Research Center. Despite its name, the organization does not sound very environmentally focused. Its Board of Directors is made up of lawyers, venture capitalists, insurers, right wing think tanks, management consultants, investment firms, etc. What part of that list says “science” or “environment” to you? Here’s the skinny on them, which includes their history of receiving funding from the world’s largest oil company.

Sure, they may claim to be publishing their children’s book to combat the “propaganda” of the ultra-Green extreme-Left. But who do you think has the more questionable agenda? A table full of lawyers, investment bankers and venture capitalists doesn’t strike me as the most trustworthy source of unbiased information for children.