Re: Reply to Jim Manzi
Andy,
Thanks for your reply. I think that your directness and clarity have helped to isolate the key point of difference between us.
In response to my question – “Put yourself in the position of a senior government leader tasked with making real decisions that affect the lives of millions. What would you do if faced with a matter of technical disagreement on such a quantitative-prediction question among experts?” – you say this:
I’ll tell you what I would do. I would say that, given our finite capabilities and the shortness of life, AGW may not be a problem at all, and, if it is a problem, it is not urgent enough to obsess over.
In my view, you have assumed away the crucial question. How do you know that “it is not urgent enough to obsess over”?
Earlier in the post you said of the global warming debate that you “haven’t taken the time to study it”. Later in the post you say that “If the issue is truly important enough, the experts will sort that out themselves”. But unless you want to do your own armchair climate science, which I think would be a real mistake, the practical questions become who we identify as the experts, and what process do we require for them to “sort it out”.
When it comes to specific technical questions, the experts that I identify are those who have spent years studying the relevant topic areas at recognized universities and research centers, have published peer-reviewed technical articles, and can point to specific scientific results. The narrow process that I support for “sorting it out” is the scientific method, requiring replicated research, peer-review, falsification testing of claims and so forth. The broader process that sits around this must include some NRC-like entity, as I described in my prior post, that has leading scientific experts from other fields to do another layer of review to minimize groupthink and self-dealing. This method, like all others, is imperfect and takes time to work, but is superior to any practical alternative, and has worked out pretty well for America and the Western world across many, many such questions for a long time.
But has this process somehow been hijacked in the case of global warming in the service of a statist agenda?
Let me start to address this by going back to the extended version of how you characterize your preferred policy on global warming:
I would say that, given our finite capabilities and the shortness of life, AGW may not be a problem at all, and, if it is a problem, it is not urgent enough to obsess over. Not if I am a senior government leader of a country trillions of dollars in debt who is also tasked with making real decisions about unsustainable entitlement programs, the high likelihood that states will soon default, 10 percent unemployment, crippling new taxes and inflation on the horizon, a global war against jihadists whose mass-murder attacks — and their catastrophic costs — are impossible to predict, the imminence of game-changing nuclear capability in a revolutionary jihadist state that has threatened to wipe Israel off the map and whose motto is “Death to America,” aggression from other hostile nations, a judiciary that is steadily eroding popular self-government, and a host of other actually pressing problems.
Here is what I said in a post at The Corner this week (echoing what I have written many times in many places):
In the face of massive uncertainty, hedging your bets and keeping your options open is almost always the right strategy. Money and technology are the raw materials for options to deal with physical dangers. A healthy society is constantly scanning the horizon for threats and developing contingency plans to meet them, but the loss of economic and technological development that would be required to eliminate all theorized climate change risk (or all risk from genetic and computational technologies or, for that matter, all risk from killer asteroids) would cripple our ability to deal with virtually every other foreseeable and unforeseeable risk, not to mention our ability to lead productive and interesting lives in the meantime.
We can be confident that humanity will face many difficulties in the upcoming century, as it has in every century. We just don’t know which ones they will be. This implies that the correct grand strategy for meeting them is to maximize total technical capabilities in the context of a market-oriented economy that can integrate highly unstructured information, and, most importantly, to maintain a democratic political culture that can face facts and respond to threats as they develop.
How could I end up with a point of view that shares with yours at least the perspective that in comparison to other dangers AGW does not merit the priority it is given by activists, when I’m so scathing about those who dispute all of the establishment science around global warming? I would put the following in all caps if it didn’t look so crazy: Because the actual science does not support the policies that you oppose. And I don’t mean the “real science” as opposed to the “fake consensus”. I mean that you could take every technical assertion made in the current U.N. IPCC Assessment as scientifically true, and you still couldn’t rationally justify cap-and-trade, carbon taxes, EPA mandates or anything like that. The expected damages from global warming are less than the expected costs of the proposed solutions. This is the central point of the vast bulk of the hundreds of thousands of words I have written about global warming.
If we end up opposing many of the same policies, why, then, don’t I just quiet down? There are two ways to answer that.
The first is that we all have our jobs to do. The job of a writer is to do his best to write things that he believes to be correct. This has been my motivation (as far as it is possible to know my own mind) in writing what I have on the topic. One implication of trying to reason forward from facts to conclusions in this specific case is that the current scientific evidence about the level of climate change threat does justify some actions: primarily, in my view, investing in “break-glass-in-case-of-emergency” geo-engineering technologies, so that we have options available to us in the unlikely event that climate change turns out to be much worse than currently anticipated. Another is that if future scientific evidence of a more severe threat from global warming comes to light, then one should respond to that information rationally by changing policy preferences, and not view this as some kind of philosophical defeat.
The second answer is the more tactical. Though this has not been my motivation, it is my view that by attacking the scientific process, conservatives have needlessly disadvantaged themselves in achieving their desired policy outcomes. First, it has prevented conservatives from rolling the ball downhill from widely-accepted scientific findings to the policy conclusion that the costs of emissions mitigation don’t justify the benefits – which would put climate policy advocates in the position of arguing that the science is wrong, or that it is suddenly changing, or that we ought to do give up trillions of dollars for what is in effect a massive foreign aid program, or whatever. And second, it takes away what seems to me to be a position in reaction to proposals for new carbon taxes or cap-and-trade that normal voters would see as natural and believable coming from a Republican / conservative politician: Problem exists; solution costs too much.
[Cross-posted at The Corner]
McCarthy’s “shortness of life” comment is telling: AGW may not be a big problem, but if it turns out to be one, hey, we’ll be dead by then and our children and grandchildren can deal with it. It’s only “urgent” if it directly affects me, now.
This is one of the several ways in which some (many? most?) of the people writing for NR have simply abandoned modes of thought that could meaningfully be described as “conservative.” Because if “conservative” means anything, it means conserving and passing along good things and sustaining values to the next generations.
— Alan Jacobs · Apr 26, 03:07 PM · #
I’m really afraid that what Levin and others are saying, by default, is: “I agree the science demands massive climate intervention, that’s why I’m against the science.” I think your distaste for this argument is good, because if you lose the science argument (as they have in the minds of most Americans) then you’ve lost the war.
I say this as someone who was definitely in the “the science is wrong” camp about 20 years ago, (when the science itself was more uncertain) but have subsequently been convinced in the meantime by people offering the same argument as you.
Anyway, thanks for fighting the good fight here. Though I guess I was on your side already, you’ve been making the case in the most persuasive and eloquent way I’ve seen.
— Brian Moore · Apr 26, 03:17 PM · #
Though this has not been my motivation, it is my view that by attacking the scientific process, conservatives have needlessly disadvantaged themselves in achieving their desired policy outcomes.
Bravo!
But I think Dr. Manzi understands completely the danger to conservatism engendered by embracing anti-scientist populism. Understandably, conservatives endorse skepticism of scientists and the scientific process so they can pretend solidarity with their anti-rational religious base on GW denialism, ToE denialism, IDT/creationism, ensoulment of diploid oocytes and oppression of homosexual citizens.
But only 6% of scientists are republicans….94% of scientists are NOT republicans.
To preserve the true nature of a loyal opposition dedicated to Dr. Manzi’s stellar principles, policies must be rooted in scientific empirical analysis, and not in emotional populist tropes.
Going forward, the GOP needs a scientist cohort.
— matoko_chan · Apr 26, 03:23 PM · #
“It’s only “urgent” if it directly affects me, now.”
Well, yes. For centuries now we have been reading about the growing problem of horse manure in New York, the coming shortage of whale oil, the “population bomb,” the “closing parenthesis” of democracy, etc. I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about how to protect my daughter from these things, or from asteroid strikes, the Yellowstone supervolcano, etc., because I have only a finite amount of time, energy, and money, and because experience has taught me that most of the problems people foresee at any particular moment don’t in fact materialize. That doesn’t mean I hate my daughter or intend to sacrifice her welfare to mine.
— y81 · Apr 26, 04:22 PM · #
“experience has taught me that most of the problems people foresee at any particular moment don’t in fact materialize.”
Experience clearly hasn’t taught you anything, because most of the problems people forsee usually don’t come to pass because something is actually done to prevent them.
Mike
— MBunge · Apr 26, 04:42 PM · #
“. . . give up trillions of dollars for what is in effect a massive foreign aid program . . .”
Oho, look! We found a source of actual policy disagreement over domestic carbon reduction that neither relies on economic diputes nor discredited science nor simpleminded sophistry! Huzzah!
It’s a damned shame that it should be such a rarity.
— Folderol and Ephemera · Apr 26, 04:56 PM · #
Your claim that the “expected damages from global warming are less than the expected costs of the proposed solutions” is inconsistent with your observation that you rely on established, peer-reviewed research.
The Yale economist, William Nordhaus, estimates the economic impacts of different climate change policies with his DICE model. He finds that the optimal carbon emission reduction policy has a NPV of $3.4 trn in 2005 dollars, approximately 6% of 2005 world GDP. 6% of global GDP isn’t an enormous benefit, but nor is it trivial, and it most certainly isn’t negative.
Nordhaus uses a real discount rate of 4%. That’s controversial; other economists (notably Stern) have argued for a much lower discount rate, on the grounds that we should value the well-being of our grandchildren as highly as we do our own. Using a lower discount rate both changes the optimal policy bundle, and results in a higher NPV.
Nordhaus’s figure of $3.4 trn, in other words, is at the low end of current estimates of the NPVs of alternative climate change abatement strategies.
If you, as you say, are relying on the same data as everyone else, how do you manage to come up with a negative NPV estimate?
— Oliver Rivers · Apr 26, 05:01 PM · #
“The job of a writer is to do his best to write things that he believes to be correct.”
To me, that is the core of the matter, and the reason a “scathing” tone was more than justified in the initial post — the most profound disrespect shown to rank and file conservatives these days is the way they are treated by people like Mr. Levin when he writes for them, and all that his approach implies.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Apr 26, 05:04 PM · #
“most of the problems people forsee usually don’t come to pass because something is actually done to prevent them.”
Sometimes, but the “something” that is done is almost never the governmentally or internationally sponsored action that is being urged by the people who talk about the problem.
I mean, to take an example, with Jean-Francois Revel and the “closing parenthesis” of democracy, I was just reading a history of the Reagan years, and what struck me was the almost complete irrelevance of all the geopolitical issues on which people spent so much time and ink. Would the world really be a whit different if Reagan and Gorbachev had signed one arms control agreement more or less, or if Reagan had made one statement more or less about Soviet dissidents? Communism was going to collapse no matter what, and minor incremental actions by politicians were not very important to the historical scheme.
— y81 · Apr 26, 05:15 PM · #
This was cross-posted at the Corner? Huh. I thought people over there weren’t allowed to read such things. Weird.
At any rate, good show, Dr. Manzi. You are schooling them, one post at a time. And because someone needs to say it, kudos to the Corner for hosting the initial post and the subsequent exchanges. It all seems so… open. Which we all know it can’t be. But it sure seems that way.
— Sam M · Apr 26, 05:21 PM · #
I don’t see this cross posted at The Corner. Did the editors spike it?
— Brick60 · Apr 26, 05:27 PM · #
“This was cross-posted at the Corner? Huh. I thought people over there weren’t allowed to read such things. Weird.”
We get it, Sam M. As long as life is not an exact mirror of Orwell’s 1984, there’s nothing for anyone to worry about.
And by the way, you should always include a paean to boot licking sycophancy in all your posts. It makes them much more entertaining.
Mike
— MBunge · Apr 26, 05:39 PM · #
Mike, are you saying if Manzi were not welcome to post at The Corner, then life would be an exact mirror of Orwell’s 1984? Because if you are, then maybe that’s another book you should (re)-read.
If the leading lefty commentators would just agree that the Corner tolerates disagreement without silencing it, and that the problem with the right is not so much that it is monolithic as that it is largely wrong, then Sam could shut up and we could move on to that argument.
The problem is that after all the arguments that the right is lockstep, that Manzi would be booted from the Corner, that his cross-posts would mysteriously fail to appear there, etc., it would be nice to see some lefties processing data that contradicts their assumptions.
Of course, as we have been discussing, it’s pretty rare for any of us to process data that contradicts our assumptions, and therefore something to be treasured.
— J Mann · Apr 26, 05:58 PM · #
Lately I have heard a rash of ignorant opinions along the lines of y81’s. Having recently started my career working for a local government, its been eye-opening the amount of problems we keep from happening. Thats basically 75% of our job. But of course, you never get credit for the bad things that you stop from happening.
To respond to y81’s examples: horse manure and whale oil were both solved by the invention of the gasoline-powered automobile, and that government took up the responsibility to maintain a system of publicly-financed roads. Now, did government invent gas and the car? No. But govt made it possible for the masses to use them, thus eliminating the need for horses and whale oil. To claim that alarmism over global problems always turns out to be the Boy Who Cried Wolf is historical malpractice. But of course without such malpractice the far-right worldview would simply collapse. The more common historical pattern is….problem hyped….social awareness and policy action….problem solved or at least reduced(although often with unintended consequences that must be addressed later. such is life)
Remember acid rain? Remember the hole in the ozone layer? Haven’t heard much about those problems in a while. In y81’s world, these problems just solved themselves, government had nothing to do with it.
— Nathan Lindquist · Apr 26, 06:04 PM · #
lawl.
the Highlander gets it at least.
“It was the scientifically oriented Jim Manzi at NRO/The Corner who drove the discussion furthest, not by either attacking or supporting Sanchez, but by conducting a demonstration, almost in the manner of an experiment. After analyzing a chapter from Mark Levin’s Liberty & Tyranny on global warming, Manzi summed up his verdict with a word that’s easier to process than “epistemically closed,” but that one suspects he wishes he hadn’t used: “wingnuttery.”
Admit it Dr.Manzi….it was a field test the conservosphere pretty uniformly failed. Only a few points of light, like Conor and Colin……lol….I knew exactly what you were doing, and so did the MacLeod. You should invite him to post at the Scene….hes usually halfway scient, except for being pithed by the Palintasp.
Since everyday is science fiction day for me, I would like to point out that Palin deeply resembles a Ringworld vampire…..her skullcase is only filled with beautiful hair.
I do finally understand our oft discussed differences on Palin, sempai-sama ….you think Palin is a symptom…but I think Palin is a disease.
<3
— matoko_chan · Apr 26, 06:15 PM · #
“If the leading lefty commentators would just agree that the Corner tolerates disagreement without silencing it, and that the problem with the right is not so much that it is monolithic as that it is largely wrong, then Sam could shut up and we could move on to that argument.”
So, your argument is that as long as The Corner doesn’t censor Jim Manzi, everything is hunky dory with conservative thinking? Seriously? Nothing else matters? That’s how low you’re going to set the bar? If that is the pathetically weak standard you set, then it’s been met. I hope you’re content with such gutter intellectualism.
Mike
— MBunge · Apr 26, 06:19 PM · #
okfine …for the scifi challenged…Ringworld vampires are exquisitely evolved predators, relying on pheromones and physical appearance to attack prey….they are actually non-sapients.
Interplanetary adventurer Louis Wu is cued to that by the extemely small size of their brainpan…I should have said…Palin’s skullspace is filled with beautiful hair.
:)
— matoko_chan · Apr 26, 07:52 PM · #
Mike,
Do you really want to know what I think about conservative thought? If so, why not just ask me instead of creating propositions? Alternately, why don’t you just say what you specifically think, and we can talk about that.
I think conservative thought is about on par with most other human thought, with all of the frailties that implies. I think that the vast majority of people with conservative opinions have examimed their opinions less than you or I have, but I also think that’s reasonably defensible under what the social choice people like to call “rational ignorance,” even thought it’s not ideal. I agree that conservative thinkers, like liberal thinkers, tend to distrust fact sources that disagree with their existing conceptions and tend to trust fact sources that agree with their existing conceptions. I agree that, like liberals, most conservatives hold their nose and form common cause with people who have come to what those conservatives believe is the correct conclusion, even if it was for what they believe to be the wrong reasons. Also, as an opposition movement, contemporary US conservatism is necessarily more fractured, diverse, ground-up and non-led than current US liberalism.
I definitely believe conservative thought could be improved, and I hope that it is. With that said, I don’t think conservative thought is worse than liberal thought, and I think that the conclusions that the conservative movement reaches are more often right than those the liberal movement reaches for the present conditions and movements.
— J Mann · Apr 27, 01:41 PM · #
“it is my view that by attacking the scientific process, conservatives have needlessly disadvantaged themselves in achieving their desired policy outcomes.”
Mr. Manzi: Your writing is very thought provoking, well written (from a comprehension point of view), and laid out usually in a logical manner that helps the lay-man understand the point.
However, what I quote above from you I don’t understand. Is it not the man as the definitive primary causal factor of Global Warming believers, the ones who are trying to stop the scientific process?
Who talks about scientific consensus, blocking papers from being peer-reviewed, controlling the peer review process to block dissent, trying to get editors fired, won’t debate, ruin scientific careeers, won’t release their data backing up their claims, saying the debate is over, saying that those who don’t “believe” in man-made global warming should be arrested and executed, etc., etc., etc. ???
Please remind me again about which side is against the scientific process?
— WJ · Apr 27, 01:46 PM · #
J Mann:
Your prior point was that the Corner magnanimously posted Manzi’s replies. Fine. But you go a lot further with these statements, which actually do get more to the issue about the increasingly “purified”, discourse-free state of the conservasphere. The problem is that these statements are wrong – or at least, increasingly inaccurate.
Making common cause for the larger good? How about, declaring war before the topic has even been decided, or committing to the president’s failure before it’s even clear what the fulcrum for success or failure is?
Fractured, diverse, ground-up? Fractured, yes, in the sense of a shrinking iceberg with huge chunks breaking off. But not in the sense that facts are out to the test through debate. Not diverse in the sense of accepting variation within the ranks. McCain, Bennett, Frum, etc. The message is simply “you’re with us or against us.” A recipe for mediocrity, whatever adjectives you want to attach.
— Anselm · Apr 27, 02:11 PM · #
Anselm,
Mike was asking whether I thought that everything was hunky-dory with conservative thought, which is a big question, so I summarized what I thought. I think I understand your point, and I disagree to the extent you believe that conservatives are different from anyone else on those areas. I think it will be hard for us to make progress on our disagreement, but I’m open to discussion. To go more to the specific, it’s a little frustrating to hear nearly simultaneously: (1) that the problem with the conservative movement is that it does not tolerate dissent and purges people who disagree with the dogma (i.e., that it purges its Manzis); and that (2) that the problem with the conservative movement is that it has too much dissent, and that it has failed to purge people (i.e., that it doesn’t purge its Levins). I appreciate that it’s a big internet, so it’s possible that there is no overlap between the people arguing (1) and (2). Still, while the Corner flap doesn’t disprove (2), it is a data point against (1), which was the argument of the day a few weeks ago.— J Mann · Apr 27, 03:06 PM · #
Thanks for your response J Mann. We don’t need to hash this out all the way :) but your position seems to be that it’s just too messy and hard to look at the merits of the argument. Yes, I’m framing that in a provocative way. But you have to admit that simply observing that one side says (1), the other side says (2) doesn’t get you far. It basically just identifies the premise of the debate, and no more.
That debate is ultimately about whether anti-science, anti-intellectual positions have become the conservative default (it seems to have been largely conceded that they are); whether that’s even bad for conservatives; and whether dissidents on these points have any place in the movement. If the fact that there is a debate at all is too frustrating, then no one is requiring you to participate. I’m sure you would not be alone.
And maybe that’s part of the problem for conservatives. Quite simply, how much shrinkage can you tolerate for the sake of purity? How much empiricism can you discard for the sake of ideology? These debates happen on the left, of course, but usually in the context of shifts in a generally established equilibrium. The speed and visibility with which the conservative tent has shrunk is something else, and is leaving behind a fairly illustrious pool of refugees.
— Anselm · Apr 27, 04:19 PM · #
Thanks, Anselm.
Mostly, my position is that we probably won’t make much progress in the comments thread to this post, because it’s hard to hold conversation to a single topic. Also, I’m too lazy to take this to e-mail. We could both start blogs and create a dialog, though. :-)
Still, I’m game.
Resolved: “anti-science, anti-intellectual positions have become the conservative default.”
Against: (anti-science) Based on my observation, most people deploy science where it meets their preconceptions and reject it otherwise. I have plenty of liberal friends who are all for mandates requiring insurance companies to cover acupuncture, and who seem to have a force field that repels stuff like John Lott’s work on the role of guns in preventing crimes, or recent studies indicating the possibility that abstinence-only education has positive effects. I have lib friends who can discount the studies showing lack of effectiveness of HeadStart or African aid in one breath because “those studies have been criticized” and then complain that cons are anti-science for even proposing that abstinence be prioritized in sex ed. (Most people I know who are sympathetic to the autism-vaccine link or the dangerous effects of cell phones tend to be libs – their argument is usually a Levin-style “some scientists agree with me” or “the scientific consensus has been wrong before” argument).
None of this is to say that anti-science (or selective science) is excusable in cons just because it also exists in libs; just that it’s something I see in almost everyone, and therefore don’t find remarkable, only regrettable.
Let’s save anti-intellectual for another day, if we can – that’s distinct, and I want to do it justice.
— J Mann · Apr 27, 07:37 PM · #
“None of this is to say that anti-science (or selective science) is excusable in cons just because it also exists in libs; just that it’s something I see in almost everyone, and therefore don’t find remarkable, only regrettable.”
this simply is not true.
anti-science is far more endemic on the right because their core ideologies often require supernatural belief.
It is the religiousity/rationality axis.
There is far more rejection of empirical data on the right.
Large swaths of the right engage in conspiracy theory that scientists are either corrupt grant grubbers or megalomaniacs intent on world domination.
I would say that irrational conspiricy theory is far more prevalent on the right….there is some demonstrated linkage between religiousity and conspiracy theory.
For example….58% of republicans believe Obama is not a native-born US citizen.
And….only 6% of scientists are republicans (PEW).
— matoko_chan · Apr 27, 08:31 PM · #
The implication seem to be that McCarthy doesn’t need to know how he knows what he knows, because he already knows deep down that there’s nothing he could learn that would alter his priorities anyway – world with or without end, amen.
Any sign of his replying again? Seems the post wasn’t cross-posted after all. We’re left to suspect that McCarthy’s stated willingness at least to consider GW among other issues is dissimulation – that he and Levin are fully prepared to go down fighting and take us all with them anyway, and always have been, on this issue as on others: Better THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW or FIFTY DEGREES BELOW or some other super-alarmist nightmare come true than empower a virtual world government to set your thermostat.
They could even be right. At the very least, in the spirit of “openness” shouldn’t we be willing to concede that sometimes, on some fights, you need people like that?
— CK MacLeod · Apr 28, 02:06 AM · #
And actually m-chan, the numbers I’ve seen are 32% of Rs, 40% of VERY Conservatives, who “believe the Big O’s a furrener, not 58%.
— CK MacLeod · Apr 28, 02:18 AM · #
As I said, Matoko, I don’t believe that’s true. My lib friends are staggeringly anti-science when it suits their preconceptions. Similarly, the “truther” numbers among Democrats during the Bush years were similarly staggering. I appreciate that your perception is different, but I’m not sure how we can convince each other.
— J Mann · Apr 28, 02:39 AM · #
because you are wrong.
anecdotal data is non supportive.
Saying the left is just as anti-science is like saying the left is just as christian or just as white.
Demonstrably false.
i don’t think true epistemic closure exists on the right…..it is just conservative bunker mentality (that makes it ok to cheat) and the time-honored exploitation of the proles by conservative elites.
The conservative elites dont really share the low information base’s crap beliefs like ensoulment of diploid oocytes and creationism…… they just pretend solidarity to scam the base’s votes.
Consider statistical data…..a persistant conservative meme (like the scientists are evil screw ups meme) is that statistics are WRONG.
So the right side invents their own fake statistics…..like Strategic Vision
Like the FOXnews fakememe “Fair and Balanced”.
Like Nate, I am increasing suspicious of Rasmussen.
— matoko_chan · Apr 28, 03:09 PM · #
Colin, It looks to me that still over half of republicans believe that O was not born here, or are unsure or non-responsive. (DK/NR)
It looks like question bias, and the numbers don’t add up.
— matoko_chan · Apr 28, 03:14 PM · #
pardon, correction….
The conservative elites dont really share the low information base’s anti-scientific beliefs like ensoulment of diploid oocytes and creationism…… they just pretend solidarity to scam the base’s votes.
— matoko_chan · Apr 28, 03:16 PM · #
Here’s the question:
And I say, Feh! The blogger seems to misreport the results, but they’re NOT the ones you stated either. I could try to ferret out the truth, but I don’t care: I hate questions like this anyway, since epistemological ambiguity frees the respondent to answer politically, and the set-up further encourages political answering (you’re a Very Conservative and the questioner has just given you a chance to “stick it to Barack.”) No one “knows” where BO was born. If polled on the question, BO himself would likely rest on his belief that he was born in Hawaii, but, if it suited his purposes to highlight the existence of birtherism, he might say he didn’t know, and would be telling the truth. Who is BO? Maybe he’s a grasshopper dreaming he is BO. What is the United States? What is birth? What is what? ?
— CK MacLeod · Apr 28, 07:33 PM · #
I’m pretty sure this post isn’t cross-posted at The Corner. I think you need to either remove that last line from this post so that folks don’t waste their time looking for it at The Corner, or (in case I overlooked it & it IS cross-posted) provide a link or web address to it on The Corner.
— keatssycamore · Apr 28, 08:39 PM · #
Yes, this was not cross-posted at the Corner.
— J Mann · Apr 28, 10:04 PM · #
so good!
— juicy couture · May 4, 06:59 AM · #
thanks for sharing!
— sanber · May 10, 06:31 AM · #