I loved your article. We too are stocking up on the light bulbs and I had our plumber take out the flow regulator on our shower!!! I put the cans in the correct bin, if I don’t drink all of the bottle water I put the rest in the dogs dish. I bundle my errands so I’m not heading out in the car a bazillion times a day. And I’ll get a smaller car, when I’m darn good and ready cause I WANT to (and the kids are all out of the house!) I try, but I won’t have my freedom taking away from me! No way, no how!

For surely, it should make a thinking man (not necessarily an intellect) realize just how small man is on this planet.

I read something interesting the other day in that if we see as much super volcanic and earthquake action as we did in the 19th century (and we are overdue for at least one volcano), we won’t be so worried about light bulbs.

I cannot control the weeds in my little tiny garden, much less the cubic feet of air above it.

I always thought that those that bought into the global warming theory liked the idea of controlling others most of all. It is a perfect hangout for intellectuals of any political persuasion because it suffers from setting up an experiment in real time. The projections are made to happen years after the current players are dead.

Maybe I have a dumb way of looking at this debate, but as a Christian, the parable of the oil in the lamps teachesus to be prepared for Christ’s return, not to manipulate his return. I would rather be prepared for the climate than try to manipulate it.

…he was not reaching out to the intellectual community. If he had, he’d have sold 200 copies.
WFB, above all, was able to not only make the handshake with the masses, but understand the significance of it. A mark of true leadership, among many other things.

I think your note is a good reminder about what it’s all about. Besides, getting invited to Brook’s house isn’t quite the same as cocktails at the Buckley manse. Never will be, either.

among the activists on the Right that is too much like the litmus-testing Left–if everyone doesn’t agree with the latest trend, discovery, philosophizing, yadda, that person, group, movement should be ostracized, demonized, or voted out of office.

If we are truly a “broad tent,” then we all have to take a deep breath on some issues or practices and be united against the true enemy–the ultra-liberal wing of the Dems. who are producing the ideas and themes for the Dems. and all Dems. currently in office, as they have the leaderhip and administrative positions of power for being in the majority nearly everywhere.

Instead, we have a trememdous amount of noise about print media v radio (and tv), net v magazine, moderates (RINOS) v conservatives, even conservatives v cons. Opinion should be aired and debated but not imposed or extirpated.

The Conservative Ascendancy needs more leaders like Mark Levin and pseudo-intellectuals like Manzi (who I never heard of before) to get out of the way.

http://libertyatstake.blogspot.com/
[For a light hearted take on our present peril]

National Review is the preeminent conservative magazing out there. I read the Corner daily and will acknowledge SOME (mainly Derbyshire) of the contributors say things I disagree with. However, National Review is a lot more wonky than a place like Redstate. I love both and both have their place, but National Review tends to have people disagree with each other a lot more frequently than sites like Redstate, so I would be loathe to attribute Manzi’s opinion of Levin with the official editorial position of NR. I’d also be careful of comparing National Review to The New Republic and especially the NYT. Natioanl Review is heads and shoulders above both. Sorry to quibble, but one has to stand up for friends and allies.

On the left or on the right, whenever people set themselves up in plush ivory towers, disconnected from the realities of day-to-day life, they have no justification in adopting an intellectually superior position over those laboring in the trenches.

I’m not sure that is happening here (Manzi’s ivory tower may have leaky plumbing for all I know) but it certainly seems like there is an element of it at work.

Remember the more folks who may have read these guys in the past learn and grow in terms of real conservative ideas the smaller and smaller these guys market becomes.

Many of these guys are going the way of MSNBC, CNN, Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report.

As the light shines brighter and brighter on these clowns the more and more we see they are no different than leftist elitist who think they are the only ones qualified to run our lives because left unto ourselves we conservatives will all have gun racks in our trucks, go to KKK meetings and keep our women bare foot and pregnant.

Its quite sad actually.

But don’t forget these clowns see what’s coming and what’s coming for many of them is having to get a real job or be unemployed.

They can both be effective in their respective areas.

I was caught by Manzi’s criticism of Levin’s book, as were most of the folks on the Corner (given the relative silence of others and the note from Kathryn Lopez).

Not sure what’s going on here, but it is evidence that we don’t all think alike — which should help deflate the MSM’s ‘mind numbed robots’ line.

but the truth is they couldn’t imagine a single use for baling wire if their lives depended on it.

is a common malady for people working as professional writers and commentators. In some ways, Manzi is an example of that.

That being said, the climate chapter in Mark’s book was pretty weak. I agree with the conclusion, but the analysis on global warming was superficial and shallow.

That being said, Manzi went over the top in his criticism—totally out of proportion. Moreover, the book as a whole was excellent.

he accuses Mark.

“Epistemic Closure” occurs where:

“P and Q are propositions, if we know that P, and know that P logically entails Q, we know that Q.”

http://www.philosophyprofessor.com/philosophies/epistemic-closure-principle.php

Following that rule, Mazis’ reasoning is like this.

Mark’s *Proposition P*, that we’re living in an era of soft tyranny and statism, is not enough to claim that the religion of environmentalism/global warming controversy is being run by statists, therefore equaling Enviro-statism, *Proposition Q*

What Manzi essentially did with his NRO article is entirely discredit Mark’s book, Liberty and Tyranny by establishing his own “Epistemic Closure.”

Manzi attempts to establish his own *Proposition P*: Mark has it all wrong on Enviro-Statism and assuming *Proposition Q*, “This is Wingnuttery.”

In other words, Manzi says since Mark’s wrong on enviro-statism, his entire book is flawed (P = Q).

By attempting to discredit Mark’s Envirostatism, Manzi’s direct assaulting Liberty and Tyranny:

If you think that’s debatable, consider his title: “Liberty and Tyranny and Epistemic Closure.”

Manzi should have named his piece “Enivro-Statism and Epistemic Closure” and not lead others to believe, with this stature as an NRO writer and the prominence of NRO in Conservatism, that Mark’s Liberty and Tyranny is filled with “wingnuttery.”

Manzi’s a punk and seeking prominence by attacking a Big Gun. Calling Mark an “entertainer” isn’t even the half of it.

What’s next? Attacking Mark’s Presidency at the Landmark Legal Foundation?

http://www.landmarklegal.org/

Can someone help me out here? I gather from context and some googling that “epistemic closure” just means closed-mindedness, an unwillingness to entertain arguments and evidence against the view you hold. I also assume that this phrase, with this meaning, was coined fairly recently. But why? Isn’t “closed-minded” a perfectly good phrase? Who is the pinhead responsible for this desperate attempt to introduce a technical sounding phrase to describe a simple phenomenon that already has a perfectly good name? This is the heinous crime of a pathetic pseudo-intellectual.

Furthermore, as I confirmed before posting (took some epistemology a long time ago), and hogan no doubt discovered when he looked up “epistemic closure”, the phrase already means something different in (fairly) common parlance. It refers to the principle that an individual’s knowledge is closed under entailment, that is, if S knows P, and P entails Q, then S knows Q.

So, for goodness sake, if you want to accuse someone of closed mindedness, do it; but let’s leave the epistemic closure to the epistemologists.

To the guilty party: Remember, gratuitous use of technical phrases, though it may seem to you display your spectacularly agile mind, makes your writing worse, not better.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

ANY one who wishes to become a good writer should endeavour, before he allows himself to be tempted by the more showy qualities, to be direct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid.

This general principle may be translated into practical rules in the domain of vocabulary as follows:—

Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched.
Prefer the concrete word to the abstract.
Prefer the single word to the circumlocution.
Prefer the short word to the long.
Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance.

– H. W. Fowler “The King’s English”

http://www.redstate.com/vladimir/2010/04/20/global-warming-what-are-the-chances/

I don’t know of a single individual within my circle of acquaintances that would oppose SENSIBLE legislation aimed at maintaining a clean environment. At the same time, I cannot find a single sensible such suggestion in any of AlGore’s drivel about how we are doomed if we don’t cease all economic activity TODAY!

The nail-biting, bed-wetting liberals posing as conservative writers are more concerned with what their other liberal friends think about their associations than they do about actually addressing REAL problems. In other words, they want to be liked by their enemies. We all know how well that worked for Dubya when he sidled up to Ted “The Swimmer” Kennedy.

People like Mark Levin, Jim DeMint, the people of AZ, the gov of NJ……THOSE are the people that are sticking up for the ‘average’ Americans like me - they give us hope and remind us that we really are the majority. I think most people want to get back to the Constitution and get back to what our founding fathers meant for this country. Please stay in the fight! Keep the faith and stay the course!!

True conservatism is rising. RINO’s & other faux conservatives are gasping for a last bit of the spotlight. Liberty & Tyranny is well written & easy reading. Perhaps Mr Manzi thinks if it isn’t complicated or confusing or eco-friendly, it isn’t factual. Oh yeah, I too am stocking up on my Thomas Edison incandescant lightbulbs. The EPA won’t be pestering me about putting mercury tainted CFL’s in a landfill.

Between the false global warming hysteria created by “academic” manipulation and liberals attempt to regulate C02 one might think- Manzi would ask: What is the goal of such actions? Accordingly, when government conspires with so-called “science” to enforce legislation/regulation that limits or diminishes your individual rights vis a vis powers of the state- that is called Enviro-Statism. How you frame the aforementioned with Mr. Levin’s entire enviro-statism argument is beyond basic intellectual reasoning.

Manzi might do well to consider empirical evidence not even cited in Mark’s book that support the very real existence of enviro-statism. Notwithstanding the frail argument he makes against it, his failure to fully consider all the evidence reveals his attack as nothing more than a contra-intellectual, ad hominem disquised as a pseudo intellectual exercise. In the end, it simply discredits Manzi using his own ill-reasoned “arguments”- if you can call it such.

and have done so for quite some time. The conservative movement is well past the point where we are in dire need of a sharp mind who can appear in the media and argue our case. The WFB time has come and gone, an era where there were no conservative think tanks and only 3 or 4 outlets for news. Today, we have thousands of outlets and thousands of sharp minds.
To continue to cling to an outdated model of war is to plan to surrender. We don’t need intellectuals to explain our ideas to us any more, that foundation has been laid, re-laid, buttressed, reinforced, etc.–we have 30+ years of intellectual foundation, we don’t need a centralized core leading the way.
What we need are leaders who don’t have to worry about an out-dated faculty room bull session sniping from the rear about “true” conservatives and “true conservative ideas” and whether such are acceptable to the enemy.

Look, we could replace a whole plank of the GOP platform with the script of Al Gore’s movie and books followed by “We agree 100% with the above” and the left is STILL going to call conservatives “mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging, anti-science morons.” It’s who they are, it’s what they do and no amount of nicey-nice or “we got smart guys too” is going to change that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBimZPBdgoc

Just thought I would share this…

I would like to inform you that I will not be renewing my subscription after reading the following article.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTMzMTY2ZmU2ZGY1YzQ3N2Q0MWY4M2M4OTMyZGRjMjY=

The way that this article defamed the entire book has done a disservice to Liberty & Tyranny, Mark Levin, The Corner, and National Review. The main reason I chose to subscribe to National Review was the balanced reporting and opinions your writers give. Jim Manzi has completely thrown that to the wind with this piece. He has concluded that they entire book is nothing more than “comfort food” that us poor drones just suck up and spew out at the water cooler the next morning. I would beg to differ with that notion.

One line is this whole piece sums up what I have been trying to explain…

“It was awful. It was so bad that it was like the proverbial clock that chimes 13 times — not only is it obviously wrong, but it is so wrong that it leads you to question every other piece of information it has ever provided.”

With that said, I will not be renewing my subscription. In fact, I will use the money instead to purchase another copy of Liberty & Tyranny. You have Jim Manzi to thank for that.

Now that Manzi has outed himself as a clown, I don’t have to waste my time reading his stuff any more.

It is not up to the skeptics of AGW to disprove the theory, but the responsibility of the proponents to provide proof. Instead, the advocates of AGW have spent the last decade and more not merely failing to provide that proof, but also mounting a public relations campaign to denigrate and destroy the reputations and lives of any who had the gall to question the acknowledged wisdom of our betters. Tthe Left and its willing accomplices in Media, Government, Academia, Entertainment, and Education sought to stifle intellectual dissent as “inauthentic and unscientific” and to present a de facto “Consensus” that brooked no contradiction. Mark’s book smashes that assumption and returns us to where scientific inquiry begins and ends: questioning all known “facts”.

Climategate showed that it was the proponents of AGW that were contemptuous of science and scientific method. As a base, scientific method involves starting from original data, protecting that data, making it available to all along with your methods and reasons for adjusting that data. East Anglia and other AGW proponents did none of this. They zealously guarded, withheld, and destroyed their data. They provided little to no information on how they modified their original data, much less the reasonings behind those modifications. Consequently, the entire house of cards on which their theory was built has come crashing down, and rightfully so. It is now up to those same acolytes of AGW to abandon the religion of AGW and start providing some scientific foundation for their theory (if any exists). It may be possible, but the onus is on them, not the skeptics. That’s scientific method in a nutshell, but something that’s been absent from this process from the beginning.

As Mark points out, before we abandon our fates to a massive government intrusion in our lives based on the theory of AGW, science must show that:
1) The world is warming in ways previously unheard of in the hundreds of millions of years life has existed on this planet
2) This warming is entirely or mostly blamed on human activity
3) This warming is adverse to future of the planet and/or human life
4) Human activity can be modified in such a way to prevent or reduce the effect of the expected warming
5) The cost and effects on human liberty that result from (4) would outweigh the costs/risks associated with (3)
AGW proponents have not even accomplished (1), much less any of the other items. And based on their prior contemptuous treatment of scientific method, they have a long way to go to earn our trust. Jim Manzi seems entirely too willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Mark Levin is not. I’m also in Mark’s camp.

Anti-intellectualism on Right should be deplored not celebrated. Hogan is flat wrong for saying that he doesn’t care if his allies are telling the truth or not, but just that they’re on his team. We should care. We should police our own. Hogan is happy to call out other self-professed conservatives in pissy terms; there’s no reason why Levin doesn’t deserve the same treatment from conservatives who are actually interested in learning the relevant subject matter. If you look at Levin’s response in NRO, he basically says he was not. He never should have written the chapter at all.

Just because Mark Levin yells the loudest on his radio show, putting Savage to shame, doesn’t mean we should pretend that he isn’t a blowhard.

Our ideas are right. Our policies are superior. But we aren’t perfect. We don’t have to tolerate half-assed analysis from people spouting off outside and beyond their expertise. Some things are actually hard and call for some thinking that goes beyond just capitalizing Liberty. You drive the Jim Manzis away and all you’re left with is …. nothing but words.