# Sam Stone - Why do you hate America? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 30, 2010, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-why-do-you-hate-america/552037 "2010-08-30T20:07:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-why-do-you-hate-america/552037/61 "2010-08-31T03:42:04Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > > [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > > > Prolly my favorite part of **Sam** ’s schtick is how he will [continually](http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/fronts/HOME?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME) [make claims](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ&ob=av2e) [and post links](http://hawtness.com/2010/04/22/wtf-girl-photos-fact-kittens-love-porn/) [to cites](http://www.doingitwrong.com/) [that](http://www.diesel.pp.net.ua/news/2008-02-10-104) [don’t](http://maddox.xmission.com/) [actually](http://www.blackdevildoll.com/index.html) [say](http://vigilantcitizen.com/) [what](http://failblog.org/2010/01/26/surprise-failers-u-is-fine/#comments) [Sam](http://www.bettybowers.com/homoagenda.html) [says](http://www.geneticanomaly.com/RPG-Motivational/slides/pwned.html) [they](http://www.tarvu.com/index.html) [say](http://www.pinballmuseum.org/). > > > > To Sam, that’s a timeless classic that will never go out of style. > > Hey smart guy, why don’t you actually post the links to some of those threads instead of that glurge which might make people thing you actually had numerous pieces of evidence for your assertion? You realize that you’re holding him to a higher standard than you live by, right? The sad part is you aren’t stupid, Rand is stupid. But you, you’re obviously smart. You just want to believe shit that may be in the minority but agrees with your biases. It’s frustrating, because you appear have a first rate mind constrained by rigid ideology. [/sincere\_for\_once] ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-why-do-you-hate-america/552037/62 "2010-08-31T03:43:07Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > > > It’s just as well, I could only round up money and guns. I don’t know any lawyers. > > Well, there’s **Rand Rover** , but really, with friends like him… It is interesting that enemies are more friendly. BTW I do agree that it is not fair to dump on \*\*Sam \*\*just because he is Canadian. (There are other reasons to get on his case, so lets not lose focus) 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-why-do-you-hate-america/552037/63 "2010-08-31T03:43:22Z")
But Sam, you still haven’t answered the question…why DO you hate America??? :eek: -XT ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-why-do-you-hate-america/552037/64 "2010-08-31T03:45:53Z")
> [@yojimbo](#): > > He’s lost the fight at home. May as well fight it somewhere were a large %age agree with him. I lost the fight at home? I take it you’re unfamiliar with Alberta? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-why-do-you-hate-america/552037/65 "2010-08-31T03:48:12Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > But Sam, you still haven’t answered the question…why DO you hate America??? :eek: > > -XT I think it is the lack of universal health care access in the USA… > **[Primary and Preventative Health Services](https://www.alberta.ca/primary-and-preventative-health-services)** > > The Ministry of Primary and Preventative Health Services was established on May 16, 2025. I keed, I keed. 😛 (On edit: and seeing the last reply from Sam… Yes, so far you lost Sam. 🙂 ) ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-why-do-you-hate-america/552037/66 "2010-08-31T03:51:06Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > I respected \*\*Sam \*\*before but not after he showed support for the coup in Honduras and demonstrated to be just a copy pasta maker for climate change denialists. I’ll give you the Honduras thing. I didn’t want to see another Chavez, and that’s what Honduras would have had. I also didn’t want to see the Honduran people go through what the Venezuelans are going to go through before that clown is out of power. But as for Climate Change, you do recall that A) I believe that climate change is happening, and B) I agree that man is helping to cause it. That’s not ‘denialist’. My real issues with climate change _policy_ is that it won’t work. It’s pie-in-the-sky, it won’t make anything better, and it will simply cause even more economic chaos. I also think that projections of what the climate will be in 100 years, which are necessarily based on economic projections 100 years forward, are little more than guesses. As we’ve seen in the last two years, economic conditions change rapidly. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-why-do-you-hate-america/552037/67 "2010-08-31T03:51:38Z")
It’s because we’re soaking up all the \*Liberty \*on the continent. Sorry fellas. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-why-do-you-hate-america/552037/68 "2010-08-31T03:53:17Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > But Sam, you still haven’t answered the question…why DO you hate America??? :eek: > > -XT It’s that fucking Justin Bieber. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-why-do-you-hate-america/552037/69 "2010-08-31T04:03:01Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > > > Oh, Goody. For the second time I’ve been pitted for the crime of posting about American politics while not being American. > > Actually I think you were pitted because you’re a conspiracy theorist bitch who ran away when called on it. > > That you are not an American only partially excuses this. 😃 I was going to ignore this, but you’ve got me curious: Just what conspiracy theory am I pushing? ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-why-do-you-hate-america/552037/70 "2010-08-31T04:04:54Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > [ > > But as for Climate Change, you do recall that A) I believe that climate change is happening, and B) I agree that man is helping to cause it. That’s not ‘denialist’. My real issues with climate change _policy_ is that it won’t work. It’s pie-in-the-sky, it won’t make anything better, and it will simply cause even more economic chaos. > > I also think that projections of what the climate will be in 100 years, which are necessarily based on economic projections 100 years forward, are little more than guesses. As we’ve seen in the last two years, economic conditions change rapidly. I’ll agree with you about the suckitude of the policies (in pretty much every country). One problem IMO, is that until recently, the deniers and those with their heads stuck firmly in the sand (waves at **Rand Rover** ) held sway at the higher levels of political power (hello Republicans). This meant that any policy about climate change was controlled by big business, and was simply lip service at best, doomed to fail, or actively obstructionist at worst. And yes, I also think its great that Canada has embraced debt reduction, which has then resulted in lower taxes and a solid economy. And I’m also very pleased with the soclal liberalism that we enjoy; freedom from religion in government, rights for gays, a decent social safety net, and serious discussions about tackling poverty. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-why-do-you-hate-america/552037/71 "2010-08-31T04:15:21Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > > [@Lobohan](#): > > > > Actually I think you were pitted because you’re a conspiracy theorist bitch who ran away when called on it. > > > > That you are not an American only partially excuses this. 😃 > > I was going to ignore this, but you’ve got me curious: Just what conspiracy theory am I pushing? Austrian Economics, baby. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-why-do-you-hate-america/552037/72 "2010-08-31T04:26:12Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > …But an important factor for me is that the U.S. is the center of gravity for the fight between free markets and central command of the economy. If you want to engage in that debate, that’s where you have to go. And I’ve been engaged in this debate for almost 30 years. You could say I’m passionate about individual freedom. … Or I could say you’re just plain old, down home wrong. There is no such “fight”, fight’s over, it was a draw. Thesis smacked right into antithesis, and then there was a great deal of roaring and screaming, and the synthesis is gradually dawning on us. Pining away for a “free market” that has never existed is nostalgia without history, it never happened. Similarly, state control of demand is clearly not superior to consumer control of demand, so long as economic access can be made reasonably just. And, as I’m sure you know, “free market” hooha has frequently been little more than an excuse to leave money and power in the hands to which it is accustomed. We might have room for you over here on the conservative wing of the extreme left. You could lecture the hotheads, give them a stern talking to, give them the benefit of your age and wisdom. I’d do it myself, but I have too much fun to be a very convincing scold. ---
**Author:** ![Sateryn76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Sateryn76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sateryn76)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-why-do-you-hate-america/552037/73 "2010-08-31T04:29:31Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Oh, Goody. For the second time I’ve been pitted for the crime of posting about American politics while not being American. > > Just out of curiosity, has any other member of this board been subject to that criticism? Even once? We just went though a period of 8 years of Bush bashing on the SDMB, including Bush bashing by a number of non-American posters. Did any of them get called out for it? If not, it seems to me that this is less of a real criticism and more of a way to try to shut up someone who disagrees with you. > > In fact, I seem to remember that when the left-leaning, conservative-hostile nature of this board was brought up in the past, the usual defense was that it was only natural, because so many posters weren’t American, and this is an international board that reflects the leanings of the world as a whole. It’s all very cosmopolitan, don’tcha know? Apparently, being against an American administration is just fine here, so long as it’s a Republican administration. > > I’ve also noticed that you American posters have no problem whatsoever sticking your noses into the politics of other countries. I’m sure you remember the recent posts about Honduras, and there have been plenty of threads about Venezuela, and France, and Britain, and China, and oh, let’s not forget Israel. And I’ve noticed that left-leaning Americans on this board have no qualms about criticizing other countries when they stray towards conservatism. > > > [@China\_Guy](#): > > > > Seriously - Why do you hate America? You’re a Canadian with no dog in the fight yet rant like you fear Hussein’s secret muslim storm troopers are going to kick in your door, hyperinflate your savings and start waterboarding the moment you land in Guantanamo. This ain’t about infringing your right to airing an opinion (asinine or otherwise) but you’re so \*serious \*about politics in a country you don’t even live in. > > As the old saying goes, when America sneezes, Canada catches a cold. In fact, our recovery was roaring right along, but now our papers are starting to talk about an American double-dip recession, and since Canada is so dependent on American trade, it could cause our recovery to stall as well. > > I also work for an American company, and we have suffered layoffs in Canada due to the ‘buy American’ clause in the stimulus. I believe that’s been eased now, but it cost some friends of mine their jobs. Protectionism sucks. > > But an important factor for me is that the U.S. is the center of gravity for the fight between free markets and central command of the economy. If you want to engage in that debate, that’s where you have to go. And I’ve been engaged in this debate for almost 30 years. You could say I’m passionate about individual freedom. > > By the way, did you know that one of Bush’s speechwriters was Canadian? And that one of America’s news anchors was Canadian? And that there are Canadian editorialists on the right and left who write about American politics in American journals and newspapers? There are also several British citizens who write on American politics for left-wing magazines. > > But wait a minute… Why am I even giving you a thoughtful answer? Your criticism is rude, uncalled for, and thoughtless. I should have just told you to go to hell for that. > > God forbid ANYONE would post anything partisan on this board. Why, it’s unheard of! Oh, and for the record, I didn’t read any of that on a blog. I’m perfectly capable of forming my own opinions. > > As for that post, my main assertions were, > > 1. Former Obama supporters have written scathing editorials > 2. Here are the links. Go read them. > 3. They had a point, because this administration has been anti-business. > > As a jumping off point for a debate, it’s certainly anti-Obama administration. Reasonable responses could have questioned the strength of their support in the past, or someone could have politely asked me to quantify the ways in which the adminitration was anti-business. We could have had a decent debate, and perhaps I might even have back-tracked a bit on some of my points. For example, Mort Zuckerman apparently lied when he said he wrote an Obama speech, but I did not know that. Fair point. > > Instead, I was called a joke. I was told to shut up because I’m Canadian. I was told that I didn’t even bother to check ‘basic facts’ (hilariously by a poster who’s ‘facts’ contradicted him and supported my position). And out of that, you got “Sam Stone is a bully”. Amazing. > > What the hell is with the Koch brothers? Have you guys been handed a new script or something? I’d never heard of these guys until a couple of weeks ago, and now every time a liberal opens his mouth he’s got a Koch in it. > > No, actually I wasn’t. And I’m not now. Every time she opens her mouth she causes me to grind my teeth. What I was (and still am), was a defender against the insane, over-the-top attacks against her that came from the usual suspects here. I even warned you all that going so far over the top was just going to cause more people to close ranks around her. And that’s exactly what happened. Ask any conservative about Palin, and you’re likely to hear, “Hey, I don’t want her to be president, but I like her because I hate her enemies.” > > Had you limited your arguments to the substance of Palin’s speeches and writings, I would have been right with you. But no, you’ve got to attack her family, dismiss any accomplishment she’s ever had, accuse her of being a book-burning Nazi, and all the rest. You’re her best weapon. > > Allow me to correct you, then. You’re mistaken. You’ve got a bad case of confirmation bias. I’d see a doctor about that if I were you. I had NOTHING good to say about Bush’s spending. I criticized his economic policies all the time. I savaged him because of the steel tariffs. I criticized the Harriet Miers nomination. I lambasted all Republicans for the Terry Schiavo mess. I criticized Bush heavily for the prescription drug entitlement. I was opposed to the Republicans on gay marriage, and opposed to Bush’s stance on stem cell research. I could go on with the very long list of things I disliked about Republicans. > > But all that skips right past you. But when you see me defending Bush over something, your little “A-HA!” light goes on, and you remember it. > > I’d go and dig up a few dozen messages where I attacked Republicans in general or Bush in particular, but A) this board’s search engine sucks, and B) you don’t deserve it. Look it up yourself. > > Do you want me to kiss his ring, too? The guy’s an economist (and a good one when he restricts himself to trade policy, for which he won the Nobel Prize), but he’s a partisan liberal hack when he writes op-eds. He’s also mean and snarky to people who attempt to honestly debate him, and he dismisses evidence and papers by equally qualified economists with a hand wave. I think he’s an ass. > > But if you want me to defer to his Nobel Prize and never speak disparagingly about him again, I demand the same. From now on, you will refrain from criticizing the following people on MY side who have Nobel Prizes, and you will refer to them as “Dr.”: > > Dr. Hayek > Dr. Friedman > Dr. Smith > Dr. Becker > Dr. Lucas > Dr. Coase > Dr. Stigler > Dr. Buchanan > > Furthermore, if I write anything based on their works, you will refrain from accusing me of ‘uttering partisan drivel’ if I’m no longer allowed to refer to Dr. Krugman as a liberal. > > > [@](#): > > > > You’re actually a reasonably interesting poster and debater when you turn off the partisanship. That’s all. > > You mean, you like what I have to say when you agree with it? > > I’m not really as partisan as you think I am. Or maybe you’re misusing the term ‘partisan’. I’m an ideologue, in the real sense of the term. I’m driven by ideas. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass who’s actually running the government, or even whether it’s an American, Canadian, or Zimbabwean government, so long as their actions are aligned with what I think is the proper role for government. I had plenty of good things to say about Bill Clinton. I had plenty of bad things to say about both Bushes. I had plenty of good things to say about Obama, when he was doing things I agreed with. > > A partisan is someone who takes the party line, regardless of what it is. If you see me attacking Obama for cutting regulations just because he’s a Democrat, feel free at that point to call me a partisan. Well done, Sam. Not everyone ignores your arguments 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-why-do-you-hate-america/552037/74 "2010-08-31T04:31:30Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > > [@GIGObuster](#): > > > > I respected \*\*Sam \*\*before but not after he showed support for the coup in Honduras and demonstrated to be just a copy pasta maker for climate change denialists. > > I’ll give you the Honduras thing. I didn’t want to see another Chavez, and that’s what Honduras would have had. I also didn’t want to see the Honduran people go through what the Venezuelans are going to go through before that clown is out of power. The problem with that point of view is that indeed it leads one to support coups at the drop of a hat. As I said before\*\* the peaceful change of the government in Chile\*\* (from socialist government to a conservative one) **demonstrated how misleading that point of view is**. It is the people that has to decide when silly guys like Chavez should go, **not the military.** > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > But as for Climate Change, you do recall that A) I believe that climate change is happening, and B) I agree that man is helping to cause it. That’s not ‘denialist’. My real issues with climate change _policy_ is that it won’t work. It’s pie-in-the-sky, it won’t make anything better, and it will simply cause even more economic chaos. > > I also think that projections of what the climate will be in 100 years, which are necessarily based on economic projections 100 years forward, are little more than guesses. As we’ve seen in the last two years, economic conditions change rapidly. Well you really fooled many then. 🙂 There were very, very long pieces posted by you that supported many denialists points. Specially when they criticized the conflicts of interests of the scientists. What do we have now? [http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/northgate\_another\_retraction.php](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/08/northgate_another_retraction.php) > [@](#): > > Hey, remember how the Sunday Times retracted that bogus Jonathan Leake story which was based on “Research by Richard North”? Now the Sunday Telegraph has retracted and apologized for a bogus story by Christopher Booker and Richard North alleging that Rajenda Pachauri was making millions from his links with carbon trading companies. George Monbiot has the details. Retractions and apologies, to him and exoneration to the ones implied in “Climategate” As for economic chaos, My point has been that even I can identify several stupid efforts going on, but it is silly to assume most will create economic chaos, unfortunately many politicians here (specially the Republicans) deny that there is any AGW going on, and therefore \*\*ALL \*\*efforts are being opposed to. That is criminal IMHO. The climate blogger at “Only in it for the gold” (the title is making fun of one of the most misleading points of the denier media) points out that the ones demanding that nothing should be done are not understanding how researchers actually see the current and future risks. (The writer is making fun at the guys of “Red vs Blue” that use Halo characters in their sketches.) > **[The Red and Blue Show, Episode 2](https://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2010/08/red-and-blue-show-episode-2.html)** > > Yo, Blue! Hey Red, How are things? Not too bad, but didn't we leave off in the middle of something important a few days ago? I guess so, r... > [@](#): > > OK, so this brings us back to the big question. How much warming is dangerous? > > ``` > Or, really, how much warming will correspond to a dangerous level of climate disruption? > > ``` > > Yep, that’s the real question alright. We know how to connect CO2 to warming, give or take a factor of two. We know that 5 C or 6 C on a global scale is huge. But we don’t know where the danger point is. > > Wait, wasn’t everybody saying 2 C is the “limit posed by science”, just last fall before the Copenhagen blowout? > > ``` > A lot of people were saying that, and some of them were scientists. I'm not sure they should have, though, because we don't really know where that danger point is. > > ``` > > So it could be 3 C or 4 C, giving us way more time? > > ``` > Yes, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, a man I admire greatly, was one of those talking about the 2 C limit, and he admitted as much in a recent article. > > ``` > > > [@](#): > > > > SCHELLNHUBER:From today’s scientific perspective, we could possibly live with a warming of two to three degrees. … The overwhelming majority of climatologists assume that a global temperature rise of four degrees would be an immensely dangerous route that we should avoid at all costs. > > > > ``` > > DER SPIEGEL: Why then have you, as one of the creators of the two-degree target, imposed such a magical limit to which all countries must slavishly adhere? > > > > SCHELLNHUBER: Politicians like to have clear targets, and a simple number is easier to handle than a complex temperature range. Besides, it was important to introduce a quantitative orientation in the first place, which the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change managed to elegantly wangle its way out of. And let's be honest: Even if we aim for the two-degree target, we'll end up somewhat higher. Whenever there's a speed limit, most drivers tend to go a little faster. > > > > ``` > > ``` > Hans von Storch objects vehemently: "I would say, this is pretty shocking, and clearly non-Mertonian: Scientific assertions taylored according to political utility." > > And here we see the rock and the hard place yet again, the dilemma between clarity and effectiveness that the late and lamented Stephen Schneider was the first to discuss publicly. In this case, trhough, von Storch has a strong case. I felt all through the run-up to Copenhagen that this claim needed some sort of caveat. > > The truth is, 2 C is the lowest we could possibly have gotten, and 2 C is already possibly dangerous. > > The reason, again, is not that 2 C of warming is an issue. It is that 2 C of warming will be accompanied by many other changes. 2 C is a measure of the problem, but is not actually the problem. > > We don't actually know the threshold of dangerous human interference in climate. > > ``` > > Aha, so you guys really are alarmist chicken littles, right? We have decades to get our act together! > > ``` > Again, again, and yet again. We have to say it until it bores us to tears, and then maybe the message will get through. **Uncertainty cuts both ways.** > > **Uncertainty cuts both ways**. It's possible that the threshold of dangerous climate change is lower than 2 C. Suppose it were around 0.7 C for instance? > > ``` And the 0.7 C rise is what we have right now. Economically speaking it seems to me that not doing the proper thing will be more disastrous to the world economy than doing something about it now. > **[Peer reviewed impacts of global warming](https://skepticalscience.com/Peer-reviewed-impacts-of-global-warming.html)** > > If the IPCC's mistaken prediction that the Himalayan glaciers would be gone by 2035 taught us anything, it's that we should always source our information from peer reviewed scientific literature rather than media articles. Consequently, I've spent... ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-why-do-you-hate-america/552037/75 "2010-08-31T04:34:35Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > I’ll agree with you about the suckitude of the policies (in pretty much every country). One problem IMO, is that until recently, the deniers and those with their heads stuck firmly in the sand (waves at **Rand Rover** ) held sway at the higher levels of political power (hello Republicans). This meant that any policy about climate change was controlled by big business, and was simply lip service at best, doomed to fail, or actively obstructionist at worst. I should clarify my position a little: I believe that the best evidence we have is that man-made climate change is happening. However, I believe there is more uncertainty around that conclusion than you probably do. I’m still open to evidence proving otherwise. I think the basic science is solid. I think the mechanism for heat retention is pretty obvious. I’m not so convinced that we understand the feedback mechanisms of climate well enough to project our measured trends particularly far into the future. I think climate change models suffer from the same problem as our current economic models - they’re only as good as the assumptions you bake into them, and the climate, like the economy, is a complex system with feedback loops and millions of variables. Iterated over time, small changes in assumptions or missed variables can cause huge changes in output. So I am skeptical of their accuracy as you project farther forward into the future. In addition, the estimates for carbon consumption over the next 100 years require estimates of economic output, and that’s a pretty hard thing to pin down. It also ignores technological change and discontinuities like breakthrough technologies. So I’m not convinced of the value of the forecasts, either. This doesn’t mean climate change isn’t happening. It means it’s very hard to get from there to being able to figure out how much it’s going to cost us, and therefore how much we should spend to prevent it. > [@](#): > > And yes, I also think its great that Canada has embraced debt reduction, which has then resulted in lower taxes and a solid economy. And I’m also very pleased with the soclal liberalism that we enjoy; freedom from religion in government, rights for gays, a decent social safety net, and serious discussions about tackling poverty. I agree with everything you just said. I love Canada. I think we swung too far to the left in the Trudeau years, and we’ve been recovering from that for a long time, but since then we have had relatively steady economic leadership from both parties. We have slowly reduced our size of government in the most sensible way - by just not growing it quite as much as GDP over a period of a decade and a half. Credit to Liberals and Conservatives both. Even the NDP in Manitoba has run a tight ship. The result is that we have the most stable economy in the world, a deficit that’s only 2.5% of GDP in the middle of a recession, and we’ve positioned ourselves to attract business and investment in the 21st century. Not only are our taxes low, but they’re structured very well. They’re less progressive than they are in the U.S. because we have a 5% sales tax, while our overall tax burden is roughly the same or slightly less after next year. We have low corporate taxes, dividend taxes and capital gains taxes. We have no inheritance tax, but instead we sensibly tax inheritance income like other income. I also agree with our social policies. Alberta was the model for welfare reform in Canada, and was also the model for welfare reform in the U.S. Since then, I think our welfare policy has been about right. I’m a firm supporter of gay rights. I even think our health care system is preferable to what the Americans just concocted. Especially since we give our provinces more control and allow them to adapt to their own economic conditions and we allow a significant amount of private services. I think we can do better liberalizing our drug laws - it’s entirely possible that the U.S. will get legalization of marijuana before we do. And I am a big opponent of our hate speech laws. Canada’s not perfect. We could drop our provincial trade barriers and shipping subsidies and farm price supports, for example. But the big picture looks pretty good. There was a time when I seriously considered moving to the U.S about 20 years ago. That was partly because I was running a business and at the time our city had an NDP mayor who hated business and I had offers to take it south. But we got rid of her eventually, and Alberta under Klein moved to the right, and I was happy. I’m not so thrilled with the Stelmach government, but that problem looks to be fixing itself. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-why-do-you-hate-america/552037/76 "2010-08-31T04:38:24Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > > > I was going to ignore this, but you’ve got me curious: Just what conspiracy theory am I pushing? > > Austrian Economics, baby. 😃 Austrian economics is a conspiracy theory? You lost me on that. I’m not a pure Austrian anyway. I think they were right about information, complexity, and the impossibility of efficient centralized decision-making. I think they’re right to reject the modeling of production, demand and labor as aggregates for modeling purposes - too much information is lost that way. I think they are right to put their focus on the ‘real’ underlying economy and what happens when monetary and fiscal policy create distortions in the real economy. If that’s a conspiracy theory, I guess I’m guilty. I still don’t get the conspiracy, though. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-why-do-you-hate-america/552037/77 "2010-08-31T04:43:05Z")
Shit, I did this mild pitting because your OP was a crap partisan hack job. And still waiting for those cites where you were bashing Bush for being fiscally irresponsible (that whole cutting taxes and skyrocketing spending). Ya, and called Bush out for simply taking the whole Iraq costs off the government balance sheet. And where do you blog all at Austrian economics from? You’re new to that meme on the boards? You can call Krugman a liberal all you want. Calling him a librul economist is fucking dishonest bullshit. I’ve called you on this before. And by the way, I spent about 10 minutes trying to find the Palin stuff I remember. The search doesn’t work well enough to do so and I’m not going to waste more than 10 minutes on such drivel that stank the first time around. However, I did find this really nice gem [Circa March 2008](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9600883&postcount=35) but first a disclaimer. Ya, sure, you can cherry pick any poster with 20,000 posts and make 'em look like an ass. This was just happenstance, but ironically appropriate now. “First, the assumption that things are horrible and going to get worse is not not necessarily valid. The economic problem the U.S. faces right now is somewhat transitory - the financial crisis will pass eventually. Structurally, the U.S. economy is in better shape than most. The U.S. has lower taxes and higher productivity than most other countries. The population isn’t as old as it is in Europe and Japan. It’s somewhat isolated from radical Islamic extremism, which I think is going to be a huge problem for Europe in the next decade.” ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-why-do-you-hate-america/552037/78 "2010-08-31T04:56:55Z")
It’s interesting to me how we Americans are supposed to be intimately familiar with all the internecine goings on in countries far across the sea, and we get roundly excoriated when we don’t. Now without regard to the fact that the average person in England, France or Spain most likely doesn’t know any more about, say, Australia, than we do about them (and really, how many people in other countries keep up with what’s going on in other counties across oceans and thousands of miles away?), we have **Sam** being criticized and Pitted for doing the very thing that so many of the board’s liberal intellectual-wannabes insist that Americans should do: become knowledgeable about what’s going on in countries other than their own. I’d wager that **Sam** knows more about more aspects of American economics and government than at least 95% of Americans do. I’d also wager the everyone here could learn a lot from his posts - if not on one subject, than most certainly on others. But no. As soon as the board’s liberal posters see that a conservative poster has made some assertion or observation, the SDMB hive mind dictates that it has to be shouted down at all costs - with the result, in this case, that the conservative poster in question is getting flamed for the very behavior that many of the board’s American and foreign posters claim they should be engaging in the first place. Perhaps it would be more honest if the board’s American and foreign posters were to assert that stupid, ignorant Americans are notoriously lax in learning about the superior leftist aspects of European counties and failing to adopt similar points of view themselves. Because that’s what the complaint that Americans don’t know enough about the rest of the world is really all about. So I have to say it’s most amusing to see conservative posters get criticized around here for being “partisan” their views. This board has a bad case of Dan Ratheritis (explained by Bernard Goldberg in his book _Bias: How the Media Distort the News_) - it’s members view everyone in the country (and on this board) as being either reasonable, right thinking American citizens…or right-wing nutjobs! There’s no room for dissent or disagreement in the liberal mind. No consideration at all given to the possibility that someone might simply see things differently and have different concerns or beliefs about the right way to approach things. Nope, it’s the liberal way or the highway when it comes to the left in this country, and to the majority of posters to this board. And it’s this ideological rigidity that leads to the hypocrisy that shows up time and time again around here, and which leads to such amusements as Americans being criticized for not knowing enough about foreign countries, and then being criticized for knowing too much about foreign countries if they happen to be a conservative. I’ve been accused more than once by **elucidator** of being a “_conservative gadfly who delights in pricking the hypocrisies of the left_” and I really need to work on that. The pickings are too easy. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-why-do-you-hate-america/552037/79 "2010-08-31T04:57:12Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I should clarify my position a little: I believe that the best evidence we have is that man-made climate change is happening. However, I believe there is more uncertainty around that conclusion than you probably do. I’m still open to evidence proving otherwise. I think the basic science is solid. I think the mechanism for heat retention is pretty obvious. I’m not so convinced that we understand the feedback mechanisms of climate well enough to project our measured trends particularly far into the future. What I understand is that most of the predictions by the IPCC \*\*remove \*\*feedback mechanisms that are not clearly understood yet. This is the reason why many researchers criticize the IPCC for being too **conservative**. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I think climate change models suffer from the same problem as our current economic models - they’re only as good as the assumptions you bake into them, and the climate, like the economy, is a complex system with feedback loops and millions of variables. Iterated over time, small changes in assumptions or missed variables can cause huge changes in output. So I am skeptical of their accuracy as you project farther forward into the future. The much criticized CRU in England actually uses a model that is also used in weather. I can tell you that they are becoming more confident on it as it is improved. > [@](#): > > What the science says… > > While there are uncertainties with climate models, they successfully reproduce the past and have made predictions that have been subsequently confirmed by observations. > > There are two major questions in climate modeling - can they accurately reproduce the past (hindcasting) and can they successfully predict the future? To answer the first question, here is a summary of the IPCC model results of surface temperature from the 1800’s - both with and without man-made forcings. All the models are unable to predict recent warming without taking rising CO2 levels into account. Noone has created a general circulation model that can explain climate’s behaviour over the past century without CO2 warming. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > In addition, the estimates for carbon consumption over the next 100 years require estimates of economic output, and that’s a pretty hard thing to pin down. It also ignores technological change and discontinuities like breakthrough technologies. So I’m not convinced of the value of the forecasts, either. The problem here is that there is no mechanism or system that would make this assumption possible, IOW this is wishful thinking. I would be happy if that was so, but CO2 and other greenhouse gases continues to rise. > **[Are CO2 levels increasing?](https://skepticalscience.com/co2-levels-airborne-fraction-increasing.htm)** > > \Currently, humans are emitting around 29 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere per year. Around 43% remains in the atmosphere - this is called the 'airborne fraction'. The rest is absorbed by vegetation and the oceans. While there... > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > This doesn’t mean climate change isn’t happening. It means it’s very hard to get from there to being able to figure out how much it’s going to cost us, and therefore how much we should spend to prevent it. But that is the problem I see, you are trying to ignore the bigger point that I’m making here. The point is that your concerns are coming from denier media and blogs that repeat those items repeatedly, so many times that there are several sources and databases set up to answer those repeated to death points. There was a reason why I said that your positions are copy and paste regarding this issue, and the evidence is that most of your concerns were dealt already even in published science journals. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2010, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-why-do-you-hate-america/552037/80 "2010-08-31T05:04:06Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I’ve been accused more than once by **elucidator** of being a “_conservative gadfly who delights in pricking the hypocrisies of the left_” and I really need to work on that. The pickings are too easy. Ok, if it so easy then maybe you can find the climate modelers that report that there is no AGW. Even a caveman could do it.. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-why-do-you-hate-america/552037.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sam-stone-why-do-you-hate-america/552037.md?page=5)