Thank You, Barack

By Benjamin Mumma
Originally Published: August 4th, 2008

I just wanted to say that you have changed my life. No brother, this isn’t sarcasm. This is real. I know I’ve dissed you in the past, but give me a chance. I’ve changed, and it’s all because of the hope that you inspired within me.

There I was, just some kid, working hard in school, setting high goals for myself, trying to succeed and be happy. All I saw was the long, tough, and uphill road against me. It was hopeless. What could I do against such odds? Everyone was out to get me – the corporations, the rich, the outsourcers, the speculators, the planet warmers. Then I saw you, Barack. You had fought against not just all that, but all the white men who sought to bring you down, and Hillary Clinton. You gave me hope.

But before long I realized that I am nowhere near as good as you are. I’m not as handsome, articulate, athletic, intelligent, or as God-damn America(n) as you. Seeing you was the first time that I just knew that I could not succeed in life. How could I, when there are people as great as you out there, and with everyone else out to get me. I just knew I couldn’t win.

So I gave up. It was hard, my life had no hope. I needed something – anything – to change. It was at that time that your words gave me hope that change was coming, and my path became brilliantly clear – like solar powered light bulbs were lighting the way through the night. It was a poetic moment in time.

Your words made it clear why I must vote for you. Since I now know that I will never amount to anything, I have to put my fate into your hands. It’s the only way. You’ll take down those bullying corporations, and rich people, and everyone else. You’ll take them down – you said so Barack. Then you’ll give rewards back to me. Now I won’t even have to worry about succeeding. I won’t have to work for health care – you’ll give it to me, just like you’ll give it to the illegal immigrants. All my social security will be in the government’s hands, where I know it’ll be safe. When I want to buy a house, I’ll just take out a loan I can’t afford to pay, then when the bank has to foreclose, you’ll just bail me out. You’ll be so great and powerful that when I sweat, you’ll even stop the planet from warming.

Barack, you’ve made my path clear. Ambition and goals are for fools, I realize that now. All I need to do to be happy in life is vote for you. Doing that will let you take care of everything for me. You were the change that I needed. I don’t have to work so hard anymore – I don’t have to succeed. Success makes you rich. Rich makes you evil. You taught me that, Barack, and that’s not the path I want to go on.

You’ve changed my life Barack. On behalf of myself, and the millions of others who have come to this enlightened conclusion, I just want to say one thing. Thank You, Barack. You were the change that I hoped for. Life’s not supposed to be tough. Your inspirational effect on me has made me a changed man. Voting for you will be a pleasure – no – an honor. For this is the dawning of a new era in my life, and in the life of this country. Thank you, Barack.

In Dependence Day

By Benjamin Mumma
Originally Published: April 2008
http://www.lehighpatriot.com/issues/article.php?id=63

Fireworks, parties, pools, family and friends, a warm summer night, and beer (especially when combined with the fireworks!): all of these combine to represent a holiday that truly expresses America’s greatness. July fourth, Independence Day, is a great holiday. I don’t know too many people who have a problem with it. Who can complain about mixing alcohol and explosives? I’m not going to. But I do have a problem with Independence Day, or more particularly, the hypocrisy that its name is beginning to represent. Can Americans still celebrate Independence Day in good faith? Does the average American still want to be independent? My thesis is no, but I should probably explain where I’m coming from first.

Forget the historical backdrop of July fourth for a minute. What does the word ‘Independence’ mean? Independence is defined as freedom from influence, support, or aid of others. As a college student, I’ve come to understand what it means. While learning is a critical part of college, an equally vital element is learning how to be independent. The freedom of college results in an equal amount of responsibility, but I think we can all agree that this is a good thing. I know sometimes it’s a pain to always be responsible for your own decisions, but think about it: is there anyone you would rather rely on other than yourself? In case you can’t decide, some very brave colonists very considerately made that decision over 200 years ago. That decision maintains its relevance to this day.

On July 4^th, 1776 a large group of America’s founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence. America had finally concluded that running its own show would produce far greater results than someone else doing it for them. We decided to rely on ourselves first and foremost, above anyone else. The rest of that story is history, and we remember that with a celebration on the very same day every year. Is the independence of a state any different than the independence of a person? In some respects it is, but in many ways they are one in the same. Colonists first came here seeking religious freedom, and our initial problems with the British occurred when excessive taxes were placed upon us, and trade was restricted. At the time, it wasn’t just the colonies that were dependent on the British. Every single colonist was dependent on the British government. We, understandably, didn’t like that too much.

Now, 232 years later, we are forgetting this vital lesson. Dependence is a term thrown around a lot – dependence on foreign oil, dependence on drugs or alcohol, dependence on cheap foreign imports – you get my point. But the dependency I’m worried about is different, but much more dangerous and insidious. Americans are becoming dependent upon our very own government. How are most American’s planning for retirement? The government takes care of it. How do many American’s hope to get their healthcare? Why, the government should take care of that as well! The list goes on and on. The great irony here is that the politicians absolutely adore having a bunch of whiny babies at home in need of constant attention. In case you missed it, we are the whining babies.

The saddest part of the story though, is that we weren’t always like this. It was only 40 some years ago that John F. Kennedy told all Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Today, his self-proclaimed protégé, Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama, is calling for the government to provide health care for everyone. In fact, he’s calling for the government to intervene in almost every aspect of the economy that you can imagine. This isn’t conservative propaganda – just take a look at his own website, ignore the rhetoric, and ask yourself, “If we implement what he suggests here, will the government be in charge of more, or less?” Overwhelmingly, the answer to that will be more government run programs, funds, and regulatory commissions. John McCain isn’t free of guilt either, since he’d love to have the government be in charge of more aspects of American’s everyday lives as well. However, he does earn some points via his proven record of fighting against pork-barreling. Still, all we get from our leaders are promises of how the government is going to help us. Isn’t that an ironic turn from JFK’s attitude just over 40 years ago? The worst part is, we are gobbling this up. We love it! And why shouldn’t we, right? We’ll get all this cool stuff, and we don’t even have to pay for it!

Well, just like all those free laptops and ipods that you always seem to win on the internet, this is too good to be true as well. The first lesson that I learned in life is that nothing good ever comes free. But it’s true. It applies to those laptops and ipods, and it most certainly applies to all these government programs too. Even worse, the cost of government programs for us isn’t flat. As everyone knows, increasing taxes places a large burden on the economy. So too, as we’ve seen, does a monstrous deficit, rather like the one we have right now. That’s just the flat cost.

The real harm comes in the future. When kids are given everything they ask for by their loving parents, is there an incentive to work hard for something they want? Why work hard? They know with a little bit of whining, or sweet-talking, or another persuasion method, they can get whatever they desire without lifting a finger. We, as Americans, are becoming these spoiled kids, as we are ‘given’ more and more by our government. That is the real problem with the government ‘giving’ us more and more. We will lose our incentive to work. Human beings are rational creatures, and we will work for what we need to be happy, and not much more. So when we give people most of what they need for basically nothing in return, the incentive disappears. With lost incentive comes lost productivity. Look at the fall of all the other great civilizations in history – it seems to be the fate we are destined for.

So here is the hypocrisy I alluded to at the beginning. How can we continue to celebrate Independence Day in good faith, when all we do is ask for more and more from our government? We hear promises from our politicians, and we just give them our votes. When was the last time you ever heard a politician saying ‘no’ to expensive ‘solutions’? America’s celebration of Independence is becoming a celebration of being In Dependence. Foreign oil, foreign goods, and alcohol – sure, we can celebrate those. But our new idol of dependence will be our government – there to solve all of our problems. Uncle Sam has decided it’s time for him to play Daddy Sam. Thank God too, because we’ve got a lot of problems. But seeing what our government has done in the past to fix Immigration, Social Security, and our Education system, makes me feel so much better.

My point, basically, is this: America is the greatest country in the world today because we have had a government that DID NOT solve our problems for us. We had to figure things out for ourselves. Just like a child needs to learn to do things on their own so do the citizens of a nation. We need this to be the attitude of every American. But it’s not, and we are moving further and further away from this ideal. So this Independence Day, before the beer and the fireworks, take a few steps back to ensure that you won’t be forced to be dependent on our government. Write a letter to your local Congressmen and your esteemed Senators, wish them a happy holiday, and tell them politely to stop making a bunch of new programs, and that you can, and would rather, handle these problems by yourself. Maybe even remind him of what JFK said a while back, and tell him that THAT is what you want.

A Hot Topic

By Benjamin Mumma
Originally Published: May 2008
http://www.lehighpatriot.com/issues/article.php?id=77

Apocalypses have always been cool. It’s just a fact of life. Would Will Smith be as cool as he is without his many apocalyptic thrillers such as Independence Day, Men In Black, and I Am Legend? I think not. The point is, if you are a group of people desperately in need of some popularity and attention, the best way to fix that is to start an apocalypse theory. It is with this fact in mind that our journey begins.

We will start with two groups of people who no one ever really paid attention to: climatologists and environmentalists. Climatologists have the difficult job of modeling and predicting the results of a system with no controllable variables. Environmentalists have the equally difficult job of convincing everyone around them to act with regards to possible future effects as opposed to definite immediate effects. Looking at what both groups are trying to do, it’s no wonder they’ve both been shunned in the past.

Environmentalists and climatologists are smart people, and they didn’t like the fact that no one was paying attention to them. Far off, in a remote forest in Oregon, they decided to team up and hatch their world domination plan. They collaborated for hours, pondering the best way to make sure that the world would listen to what they had to say. The two groups seemed to be a perfect match, and about nine months later, Global Warming was born.

Global Warming, GW for short, was a great kid. He was much cuter and warmer than all the other celebrity babies, and he was universally loved. But with Global Warming’s fame and fortune came the inevitable rise of its parents into the mainstream media spotlight. Climatologists shouted out the news that GW was the fulfillment of a prophecy which stated that as soon as a child was born out of two androgynous entities that a great heat wave would melt all ice, and force everyone to drink warm lemonade. Oh, all that ice melting would also flood the costal regions of the world, where 90 percent of the world’s population resides. Then, the Environmentalists appeared with their well-crafted answer of what everyone could do to prevent this prophecy that GW had brought with him. Finally, the whole world would be compelled to heed the predictions of the climatologists, and follow the environmentalist’s Ten Commandments. Their diabolical plan had worked.

The preceding story is obviously not real, but it does serve a very important purpose. The essence of the story is that the motives of the architects behind global warming need to be looked at. Sure, science is supposed to be above this. Science ought to be impartial and unbiased. But Scientists are human beings, and just like the rest of us, they are prone to pushing agendas without regarding the integrity of the claims behind their agenda. A perfect example of the attitude that is held by not all, but not just a handful of people in the global warming arena can be seen in the following quote of Stephen Schneider, the lead report author of the 2007 UN IPCC report on climate change:

“To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective and being honest.”

Look at it this way. If climatologists predicted that the world would be in good shape over the next 100 years and that everything would remain relatively stable, what do you think would happen to their funding? My guess is that their work would continue of course, but some funding would very likely be directed to many other branches of research. The problem with climatology is that it is not as precise, testable, or as promising as most other fields in science.

Global warming has been treated as a scientific fact. All three presidential candidates have talked about curbing emissions to reduce the warming, and a vast majority of the scientific community treats global warming as a fact. But sadly, nothing in science is a fact. All throughout history, science has had to update its theories. There was a time when spontaneous generation was an accepted scientific principle. The world was flat. The sun rotated around the earth. Light in space traveled through the ether. Just as we are sure that all of those ideas are wrong, we can be sure that there are scientific theories today that are blatantly false. This is why open discourse is needed on subjects, and those who challenge established ideas must be heard.

My rationale for questioning global warming mainly hinges upon how precise a science such as climatology can be. The main problem with climatology is that it is not testable. By that I mean that climatologists do not have at their disposal a way to control inputs and predict the results. Climate change models on computers mainly rely on historical data to predict future results. While this definitely has merits, it is impossible to test and verify data and relationships. You cannot state ideas as scientific fact when the only evidence is historical trends. History holds thousands of variables, and so while there may be a correlation, it does not necessarily mean dependence. Both variables could be dependent on a third variable, or on both a third and a fourth variable, and so on. That is why science designs experiments with only two variables.

Obviously, there is a scientific connection between emissions and the greenhouse effect. But in a system such as the earth where there are, again, thousands of variables, predicting the future is very difficult. In an article in 21^st Century Science and Technology in 2004, Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski asserts that solar cycles are the main factor in determining climate. This makes sense to me. Surely no one can assert that solar cycles don’t have any affect on our climate. Dr. Jaworoski’s conclusion is that we are heading into the next ice age, and that “This disaster will be incomparably more calamitous than all the doomsday prophecies of the proponents of the man-made global warming hypothesis.” He cites a fair number of other scientific articles which also speak of another ice age approaching. Read his article, and then read a piece on global warming and you will have no idea what the temperature change will be over the next 100 years.

The conflict between these two ideas is what brings me to my final point. If we don’t know for sure which way we are headed, then why are we looking to radically curtail economic growth in the name of preventing global warming? Should we waste less, recycle more, and provide incentives to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases through innovation? Absolutely. The problem is, environmental activists don’t just want that. They want us to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and even take more drastic measures. According to a 1999 study by two Yale economists, ratifying the Kyoto Protocol would result in an economic loss of $400,000,000,000 for the United States alone.

That’s a lot of money for us to simply give up on in the name of preventing something that may or may not happen. Furthermore, we don’t even know what climate would be best for earth. Warmer weather could result in longer growing seasons, allowing for more food to be produced. More importantly though, eventually we will have another Ice Age like the one we had 14,000 years ago, which covered all of modern day New York in ice. Such an Ice Age will devastate food production, and will, as Dr. Jaworoski concluded be much more dangerous than whatever humans can do through emissions. We may need some extra food saved up from a few years of very warm weather.

My point, basically, is this: global warming should not be blindly accepted as completely truthful, apocalyptic, and a need for action. Indeed, if it is true, and the most dangerous change in climate that we may face, then we should act. But for the reasons outlined here, as well as others that won’t quite fit into this article, I don’t believe that global warming is. Is the current warming trend going to continue? If it is, is this a bad thing? If it is, can we even hope to reverse it? If we can, is the damage prevented worth the costs? My answer to all of these questions is no, but I can understand the rationale behind answering yes to any of these. Look through these questions, do some research to find both sides of the issue, and then answer these four questions for yourself. But think about it, if you answer ‘No’ to any one of these questions, then you should not support the radical actions of all the remaining presidential candidates. We should care for the environment, but we cannot do this at the great expense posed by the current options. Giving Americans the time to come up with an innovative solution is a much more appropriate action given everything we truly know at this point. It is a shame that our next leader as President will not share this point of view.

Sources

Schneider quote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Schneider

Jaworoski article: http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202004/Winter2003-4/global_warming.pdf

Kyoto Economic article: http://www.econ.yale.edu/~nordhaus/homepage/Kyoto.pdf