No. Not at all.
There is a great deal of speculation as to how and why this is possible. Some say that the level of embarrassment one must feel in admitting that one was duped makes this extremely unlikely to happen.
Here at 2GreenEnergy, we talk a great deal about “externalities,” a term economists use to mean costs or benefits (usually costs) that affect a third party not directly involved in an economic activity.
The first thing that comes to mind when we think of our dependence on oil is the fact that the fossil fuel industry is immensely profitable, but only because they are able to use the Earth’s atmosphere as their own private sewer. The costs of reversing climate change, as an example, are overwhelming, but they’re being completely ignored.
Suggested at left is the concept that another important externality of Big Oil is war. The U.S. defense budget is nearing $1 trillion annually, which enables us to destroy anyone or anything that may impede ExxonMobil and the rest from accessing oil anywhere in the world.
To answer the question at left, I wouldn’t say “all” respect.
Trump supporters have profound intellectual and moral defects, and so I’m saddened to learn that an acquaintance lives in that space.
But we all have defects, just as we all have virtues.
I’m also sensitive to the fact that, to a large degree, a great deal of the way we see the world around us is out of our control; it appears that our brains are somehow “wired” in certain ways that force us to interpret certain signals in pre-scripted ways. At this point, science believes that epigenetics plays a huge role here.
Just as we don’t hate people for being left-handed, or red-headed, or gay, it’s not right to hate Trump supporters for their inability to process the world the way most of us do.
The United States seems to be unique in the world for the way it rejects science and thus makes political issues out of factual matters.
The Earth actually is getting hotter, and the consequences will be horrific if we can’t bring a halt to this process.
Vaccinations actually are safe and effective.
Our educational system actually is failing, and ignorant people make very poor citizens.
The list goes on …
When I first came across the click-bait garbage at left, I was reminded of an earlier post I wrote on the subject of the history of this form of energy storage.
Various countries in Europe began using the potential energy of masses that have been lifted against the force of gravity to generate electricity since the 19th Century. Michael Faraday discovered the relationship between electricity and magnetism in the 1830s, and the commercialization of electricity started in the early 1880s.
Interestingly, this form of energy storage started long before electricity came on the scene. Perhaps a thousand years before, the folks of the day converted this stored potential energy into mechanical energy to grind corn, pump water, mill wheat, etc.
In a way, we could say that astrology was the precursor to all the anti-science conspiracy theories of today, including climate denial, anti-vax, and the flat Earth.
That wouldn’t be a problem if these people couldn’t vote, but sadly, this isn’t the case.
This ignorance is what gave us Donald Trump, with all the destruction of our health, educational system, environmental stability, and so forth, not to mention the lies, corruption, and other forms of criminality that have made the United States regarded with such disdain and ridicule by the other nations of the Earth.
At left are the observations of Barbara McQuade, an American lawyer who served as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan from 2010 to 2017. As part of President Donald Trump’s 2017 dismissal of U.S. attorneys, she stepped down in March 2017.
I would say that she’s nailed this. Trump and his thugs are tearing this country to shreds. It will take decades to repair the damage–if it can be done at all.
There is a certain sense in which today’s version of America is a fair and just one. That is, this regime of hatred and stupidity is exactly what our voters asked for.
As much as decent people, here and around the globe, are sickened by what the United States has become, many of us accept that we live among people who are profoundly defective intellectually and morally, and that democracy has spoken.
It’s good to hear this from the lady at left. If nothing else, what she voices is the founding principle on which the foundation of America lies.
Of course, now we’re demanding that our schoolchildren learn in classrooms displaying the Ten Commandments and be forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, affirming we are “one nation under God.”
250 years ago, our Founding Fathers explained very clearly why they created the U.S. Now, stupidity and power politics reign supreme.
This is illustrative of how screwed this country is. Tens of millions of us have no regard for the most obvious, provable facts shaping our lives.
Our president clearly tried to overthrow the federal government of the United States, and we eagerly offered him a second term in the White House.
Is there another country on Earth whose people believe that 2 + 2 = 5? If the French or the Japanese or the Bolivians were faced with overwhelming evidence that their president was a psychotic criminal, would they defend him–and then re-elect him?
Brazil finally figured out that their equivalent of Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, was a sociopathic felon, and sentenced him to 27 years in prison. Up here in the U.S., we seem to be entirely incapable of anything resembling criminal justice for our country’s wealthiest and most powerful people.
