Sam Stone - Why do you hate America?

[elucidator]

So, what we do, in this free market solution to the problem… Well, first we build all sorts of nuke plants. Then we’ll have a whole lot of clean energy to sell! Which will get sold, and consumed. That’s what we do here in America, we consume. So, now, on top of the poisonous, destructive energy we got the non-destructive energy. Being consumed.

I believe this will have the effect of making the handbasket we are riding more comfortable, until we arrive at the Destination.

So, to avoid the squamous tentacles of government interference, we say to the people who make a fortune selling black energy, “please stop making so much money, if you would be so kind”. Out of the goodness of their hearts, they’re going to do this? I would renounce all agnosticism, I would spend the rest of my days boring and belaboring passersby with my witnessing, the sign that made me certain of a just and loving Goddess.

And we “incentivize”? Meaning, we give them more money. To produce and use green energy, we must make it more profitable, to “incentivize”. But not with government regulation, oh noes! Well, what then? Prayer? And if you must add incentive to the cost of green energy, doesn’t that have the effect of making it even more expensive?

And whats to stop them from profiting from both green energy and black energy? If there is no regulation to curb their entrepreneurial enthusiasm, whats to stop them? Our stern disapproval, yelling at them from the driveway of their gated community?

Boiled down to a simplistic: you can fight global warming effectively, or you can be a committed libertarian. But you can’t do both.

[The_Flying_Dutchman]

@elucidator

And whats to stop them from profiting from both green energy and black energy?

Are you attempting to coin a new term for conventional energy ?

If so, can you avoid the use of the term “black” ? “Black” has had enough applications towards negativity.

[elucidator]

How about “dead energy”? Sorry if my textual orientation makes you uncomfortable.

[IdahoMauleMan]

@Sam_Stone

I don’t mean you’re lying. I mean you don’t have easy, pat answers to the more difficult questions of what to do about it.

It’s in your best interest to frame the argument this way:

If you don’t believe in global warming, you’re a denier and you are unscientific.

If you are scientific, you will accept that global warming is happening, and therefore should do what we say needs to be done.

That’s your best argument. If you can frame the entire debate as pro vs anti science, you win.

On the other hand, if the argument is, “Okay, accepting that global warming is happening, just how does a carbon tax in the U.S. lower CO2 emissions, if the net result is simply to give a comparative advantage to other countries who don’t impose the tax? How does it help global warming to take actions that will result in the migration of manufacturing from the U.S., where it is relatively energy efficient, to China and India, where it’s much less efficient?”

That’s a very hard argument for you to win. And when you look at the actual numbers for how much carbon taxes will cost, and how much they will actually mitigate warming, the economic argument doesn’t look very good for you either.

Another problem you have, once you get past the basic science, is that the UN’s own projections for future warming range from, “Little to no net economic damage” to, “We’re going to cause trillions of dollars in destruction.” That’s a hard range of numbers to work from.

The uncertainty in the U.N. prediction comes from the fact that it’s very hard to predict carbon consumption 100 years into the future. Hell, it’s hard to predict it five years into the future. Go back and see what the U.N’s projections for carbon emissions in 2010 were five years ago, and compare them to what they actually are today.

And when you apply standard discounting rules to future costs of warming damage, it becomes very hard to justify the kind of spending you want to do today to avoid it.

Green energy is great, but there’s no evidence that we’re not investing enough in it. On the contrary, there are billions and billions of dollars flowing into green energy research. It’s just a very hard problem. There’s no evidence that we can spend our way to a solution.

I can also argue that picking energy winners and losers today and subsidizing them will simply distort the market and ultimately make it harder to get to a real ‘green’ future. For an example of that, have a look at what’s happened to Spain’s heavily subsidized solar industry. They put all their green eggs in one basket, and then crushed it.

I can go on. Once you get past “Global Warming is real”, the problem becomes very, very difficult. So difficult that there may not actually be a good path forward other than to wait, collect more data, and wait for the economy to recover before throwing more taxes at it. Maybe in ten years we’ll be able to reduce the forecasting error bars enough that we’ll be able to make good decisions. That is, if we haven’t shot our wad already by making rash, stupid decisions that wreck our economy.

Sam, I can’t believe you are spending so much of your time defending yourself.

[Boyo_Jim]

The OP would be better titled, “Sam Stone - Why do you hate Canada?” Sam seems to hate just about everything Canada stands for. and have a jones for 19th century America, when the robber barons ruled and people were left to die on the street if they couldn’t afford a doctor, or food for that matter.

[Lobohan]

@IdahoMauleMan

@Sam_Stone

I don’t mean you’re lying. I mean you don’t have easy, pat answers to the more difficult questions of what to do about it.

It’s in your best interest to frame the argument this way:

If you don’t believe in global warming, you’re a denier and you are unscientific.

If you are scientific, you will accept that global warming is happening, and therefore should do what we say needs to be done.

That’s your best argument. If you can frame the entire debate as pro vs anti science, you win.

On the other hand, if the argument is, “Okay, accepting that global warming is happening, just how does a carbon tax in the U.S. lower CO2 emissions, if the net result is simply to give a comparative advantage to other countries who don’t impose the tax? How does it help global warming to take actions that will result in the migration of manufacturing from the U.S., where it is relatively energy efficient, to China and India, where it’s much less efficient?”

That’s a very hard argument for you to win. And when you look at the actual numbers for how much carbon taxes will cost, and how much they will actually mitigate warming, the economic argument doesn’t look very good for you either.

Another problem you have, once you get past the basic science, is that the UN’s own projections for future warming range from, “Little to no net economic damage” to, “We’re going to cause trillions of dollars in destruction.” That’s a hard range of numbers to work from.

The uncertainty in the U.N. prediction comes from the fact that it’s very hard to predict carbon consumption 100 years into the future. Hell, it’s hard to predict it five years into the future. Go back and see what the U.N’s projections for carbon emissions in 2010 were five years ago, and compare them to what they actually are today.

And when you apply standard discounting rules to future costs of warming damage, it becomes very hard to justify the kind of spending you want to do today to avoid it.

Green energy is great, but there’s no evidence that we’re not investing enough in it. On the contrary, there are billions and billions of dollars flowing into green energy research. It’s just a very hard problem. There’s no evidence that we can spend our way to a solution.

I can also argue that picking energy winners and losers today and subsidizing them will simply distort the market and ultimately make it harder to get to a real ‘green’ future. For an example of that, have a look at what’s happened to Spain’s heavily subsidized solar industry. They put all their green eggs in one basket, and then crushed it.

I can go on. Once you get past “Global Warming is real”, the problem becomes very, very difficult. So difficult that there may not actually be a good path forward other than to wait, collect more data, and wait for the economy to recover before throwing more taxes at it. Maybe in ten years we’ll be able to reduce the forecasting error bars enough that we’ll be able to make good decisions. That is, if we haven’t shot our wad already by making rash, stupid decisions that wreck our economy.

Sam, I can’t believe you are spending so much of your time defending yourself.

Given the shaky ground he’s on he needs to put in the extra time, only a giant page of text obfuscates his ideological blindness.

[Rand_Rover]

@Boyo_Jim

The OP would be better titled, “Sam Stone - Why do you hate Canada?” Sam seems to hate just about everything Canada stands for. and have a jones for 19th century America, when the robber barons ruled and people were left to die on the street if they couldn’t afford a doctor, or food for that matter.

I’ll be in my bunk.

[Lobohan]

@Rand_Rover

@Boyo_Jim

The OP would be better titled, “Sam Stone - Why do you hate Canada?” Sam seems to hate just about everything Canada stands for. and have a jones for 19th century America, when the robber barons ruled and people were left to die on the street if they couldn’t afford a doctor, or food for that matter.

I’ll be in my bunk.

No one here is praying that bedbugs crawl up your urethra.

[Sam_Stone]

@Boyo_Jim

The OP would be better titled, “Sam Stone - Why do you hate Canada?” Sam seems to hate just about everything Canada stands for. and have a jones for 19th century America, when the robber barons ruled and people were left to die on the street if they couldn’t afford a doctor, or food for that matter.

You might want to go back a page or two, Sparky, and have a look at what I actually said about Canada.

[Sam_Stone]

@IdahoMauleMan

Sam, I can’t believe you are spending so much of your time defending yourself.

What can I say? It’s a character flaw.

[Muffin]

I can’t imagine Sam hating either Canada or the USA. He usually has a right wing perspective, but he is usually well spoken and a credit to right wing thought. Although I am a left wing Canadian, I enjoy Sam’s posts and I very much respect Sam. Often he makes me carefully think through his points, rather than let me simply jump on the obvious, which has led me to a better understanding of not only his world view, but of my differing word view as well. And for that, I thank him.

[The_Flying_Dutchman]

@Boyo_Jim

The OP would be better titled, “Sam Stone - Why do you hate Canada?” Sam seems to hate just about everything Canada stands for. and have a jones for 19th century America, when the robber barons ruled and people were left to die on the street if they couldn’t afford a doctor, or food for that matter.

You do realize that Sam’s province has been led by conservative leaning parties unobstructed by liberals for 75 years and Canada is currently governed by a conservative party. He, and most of the rest of us Canadians, conservative or liberal seem to have very little to bitch about compared to what’s going on south of the border.

[montag01]

I don’t know a lot about Canadian politics, but what you write seems accurate to me, Flying Dutchman. The thing is, America’s conservative party feel so completely different than conservative parties in Canada and Europe, at least how I read about them. I particularly enjoy reading Andrew Sullivan’s blog, and I find his form of conservatism–I guess it would be Toryism–to be extremely compelling, and I guess closer to what is found in Canada and the UK today. (Would this be correct?) But the Republican party in the U.S. feels almost wildly superstitious. For example, it seems like the main reason Republicans won’t support gay marriage is because there’s a large subset of their party who feel like it will cause God to literally smite us if we do. I just don’t sense that vibe at all when I glance at conservative governments in other countries, and I think it is really hurting the United States.

So I get the sense that sense that Canadian and European conservative parties are more reasonable and sensible than what we get in the US, and I generally feel I could be a conservative if I lived in Canada or England. But not really knowing either country’s culture, I can’t say how big a difference there is between America’s Republican party vs the foreign equivalent.

There’ll be times when I read Sam Stone’s posts and think that he’s viewing our version of conservative politics through the glasses of a Canadian conservative and not seeing any difference. I’ll try to dig up some examples. And maybe since we’re neighbors with far more similarities than differences, the two nation’s notions of conservatism aren’t that far apart. But it sure feels like they are.

[elucidator]

So, do you guys really have a plan to close the border if Palin becomes President?

[Sam_Stone]

Yeah. We’re putting up a big fence with a voice-actuated gate. All she has to do is speak a single coherent paragraph without clanging and she’s in.

I think we’re safe.

[elucidator]

Make a great slogan. “Canada! Our conservatives aren’t barking mad!”

[Muffin]

Actually, there already is a fence at the Pigeon River crossing, but if you ask the Border Services people nicely, they will loan you the Key to Canada for a few hours. As odd as it sounds, I’m not putting you on about this.

[Sam_Stone]

But if you get the key to Canada, you have to promise not to speed, and you have to have it home by ten. And no open liquor while you’re driving.

[Cat_Whisperer]

Funnily enough, for all the sturm and drang that goes on about it on the boards and elsewhere, the US American conservatives and liberals look an awful lot alike to me.

[foolsguinea]

There’s a certain type of Canadian who romanticizes the USA. Some of them move here. Mark Steyn now lives in New Hampshire (which is culturally almost Canada, but in the Low-Tax Promised Land or whatevs) & writes about [del]Canada in a sort of reversal of cousin Sam Stone[/del] whatever he wants, really (usually a Did Not Do the Math paranoid fantasy of Islamicized Europe), but for Canadian magazine* Maclean’s.*

@An_Arky

I reckon. Also, if the US is getting too durn librul, where the hell are you going to go? We pretty much define the right edge of yonder.

I was going to say Pakistan, but I don’t think they accept very many of whatever Sam’s religion is.

@Rand_Rover

Sam Stone is the best poster on this here smorgasbord. I don’t know why he does it either, but he argues the shit out of everyone who crosses his path. I mean, he really embarrasses you guys, reduces you to sputtering and moaning morons. It’s a beautiful thing. I sure as hell don’t want to take the time and energy to respond to your drivel in detail, but I like watching when Sam does it.

No, what you’re seeing is that Sam is dogged, & a lot of us are more snarky than serious. If you saw someone actually match Sam in seriousness, it would be angry walls of text until someone gave up, & possibly pretty ugly.

I rarely take the time to prepare a strong counterargument against Sam, & he’d just take refuge in his faith in “Austrian” economics anyway. It’s tiresome.

Also, I’ve hit the point, Rand Rover, that whenever I see your posts, I visualize you as Li’l E from Sinfest. So yeah, that’s about how seriously I take you.