REPUBLICAN MALPRACTICE ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Beating on the drum once again and ready to be disappointed if need be.
The apparent cliff of which we are approaching with increasing extreme weather events each year is on my mind often. So is the Republican mindset to it all, and all I can witness from these people is chronic malpractice on their approach or non-approach to this growing problem. The Republican leaders are probably behind most of their constituents on having open eyes to this issue, primarily because they are paid to not act in any way to hasten any kind of green revolution which we must soon put into action. There certainly are many within the Republican base who cannot accept the reality of an increasingly warming planet with all that will come from it, but the primary problem is in the leadership of this party. They are still the only political party in the industrialized world who will dispute the whole phenomenon, because they are paid to do so. The Democratic Party is the only moving force in the nation on this issue, and most likely will remain so into the near future. It’s only political malpractice in my estimation, nothing more, and nothing less. So to get out out of my system today I wrote this verse.
Here are some postings from X regarding the Inflation Reduction Act. Generally, the specifics aren’t generally found on this platform. But the following do address it directly, in terms of climate change legislation.
I had to take a look at Truth Social also on the Inflation Reduction Act to see what might be found. Generally it appears that there are vague negative references to the legislation. I think these postings generally support my assertions on the verse above.
The following are a series of quotes broadly encompassing the theme of my verse, in this case on the subject of “delusion,” “stubborn” and “science.” These are all from Forty Thousand Sublime and Beautiful Thoughts from 1914 and Day’s Collacon from 1884. I’ve tried to get a biography of each, taken from writings in Wikipedia for your information, when available.
“Delusions, like dreams, are dispelled by our awaking to the stern realities of life.”
-A. R. C. Dallas.
Dallas, Alexander Robert Charles (1791–1869), evangelical missionary, was born 29 March 1791 in Colchester, Essex, eldest son of Robert Charles Dallas (d. 1824), minor polemicist, and Sarah Dallas (née Harding). Suffering, by his own account, a claustrophobic early upbringing, in which he was given an eccentric schooling at home and oppressed by devotional piety, he had a tense and embittered relationship with his father. Escaping to a clerical post in the Treasury at Whitehall in 1805, he later received a commission to serve as deputy assistant commissary-general with the British army in Spain (1808–11) during the Peninsular war, and fought in the campaigns against Napoleon in 1813–15. After discharge on half-pay, he wrote popular romantic novels to help fund a taste for high life in Paris and London.
“Stubbornness is usually the companion of ignorance and pride.”
— Mrs. L. N. Ranyard.
Ellen Henrietta Ranyard (9 January 1810 – 11 February 1879) was an English writer and missionary who worked with the poor of London. She founded the London Bible and Domestic Female Mission. The title 'Bible woman' was first used in connection to her work among the poor. They were called as Bible women because they distributed the Bible and read the Bible to poor ladies. In 1879 upwards of 170 Bible women were employed in the work of the mission. In 1868 Mrs. Ranyard commenced training nurses, and eighty were ultimately engaged in attending the sick poor in the poorest districts of London. The Bible women spread throughout the non-western world.
“A stubborn man is one who will not yield to an other equally stubborn.”
— A. Bell.
Andrew Bell FRSE FRAS (27 March 1753 – 27 January 1832) was a Scottish Anglican priest and educationalist who pioneered the Madras System of Education,(also known as "mutual instruction" or the "monitorial system") in schools. He was the founder of Madras College, a secondary school in St Andrews, and helped fund other schools. n 1774 he sailed to Virginia as a private tutor and remained there until 1781 when he left to avoid involvement in the war of independence. He returned to Scotland, surviving a shipwreck on the way, and officiated at the Episcopalian chapel in Leith. He was ordained deacon in 1784 and priest in the Church of England in 1785.
“Stubbornness and an obstinate disobedience must be mastered with blows.”
— J. Locke.
John Locke FRS (29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism". Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, Locke is equally important to social contract theory. His work greatly affected the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American Revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence. Internationally, Locke's political-legal principles continue to have a profound influence on the theory and practice of limited representative government and the protection of basic rights and freedoms under the rule of law.
“A stubborn mind conduces as little to wisdom or even to knowledge, as a stubborn temper to happiness.”
— R. Southey.
Robert Southey (12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic school, and Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Southey began as a radical but became steadily more conservative as he gained respect for Britain and its institutions. Other romantics such as Byron accused him of siding with the establishment for money and status. He is remembered especially for the poem "After Blenheim" and the original version of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears". Southey was also a prolific letter writer, literary scholar, essay writer, historian and biographer. His biographies include the life and works of John Bunyan, John Wesley, William Cowper, Oliver Cromwell and Horatio Nelson. The last has rarely been out of print since its publication in 1813 and was adapted as the 1926 British film Nelson. He was a generous man, particularly kind to Coleridge's abandoned family, but he incurred the enmity of many, including Hazlitt as well as Byron, who felt he had betrayed his principles in accepting pensions and the laureateship, and in retracting his youthful ideals.
“Stubbornness is mostly inherent in a person's nature; stubborn children are troublesome subjects of education, and will baffle the utmost skill and patience.”
— G. Crabb.
George Crabbe (24 December 1754 – 3 February 1832) was an English poet, surgeon and clergyman. He is best known for his early use of the realistic narrative form and his descriptions of middle and working-class life and people. I n the 1770s, Crabbe began his career as a doctor's apprentice, later becoming a surgeon. In 1780, he travelled to London to make a living as a poet. After encountering serious financial difficulty and being unable to have his work published, he wrote to the statesman and author Edmund Burke for assistance. Burke was impressed enough by Crabbe's poems to promise to help him in any way he could. The two became close friends and Burke helped Crabbe greatly both in his literary career and in building a role within the church.
“If men were stubborn just in proportion as they were right, stubbornness would take her seat among the virtues; but men are generally stubborn just in proportion as they are ignorant and wrong.”
- H. W. Shaw.
Josh Billings was the pen name of 19th-century American humorist Henry Wheeler Shaw (April 21, 1818 – October 14, 1885). He was a famous humor writer and lecturer in the United States during the latter half of the 19th century. He is often compared to Mark Twain. Shaw worked as a farmer, coal miner, explorer, and auctioneer before he began making a living as a journalist and writer in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1858. Under the pseudonym "Josh Billings" he wrote in an informal voice full of the slang of the day, with often eccentric phonetic spelling, dispensing wit and folksy common-sense wisdom.
“Science is knowledge certain and evident in itself, or by the principles from which it is deducted, or with which it is certainly connected. It is subjective, as existing in the mind; objective, as embodied in truths; speculative, as leading to do something, as in practical science.”
- William Fleming.
FLEMING, WILLIAM, born about 1527; an English divine; died about 1592.
“Science is, I believe, nothing but trained and organized common-sense, differing from the latter only as a veteran may differ from a raw recruit: and its methods differ from those of so far as common-sense only the guardsman's cut and thrust differ from the manner in which a savage wields his club.”
- Professor Huxley.
Thomas Henry Huxley PC FRS HonFRSE FLS (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist who specialized in comparative anatomy. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Huxley coined the term "agnosticism" in 1869 and elaborated on it in 1889 to frame the nature of claims in terms of what is knowable and what is not. Huxley had little formal schooling and was virtually self-taught. He became perhaps the finest comparative anatomist of the later 19th century.
My lofty writing (if it would qualify as such) and lofty quotes above covered what I wished to cover for this concern. Seems that we’ve always had the right frame of mind and intelligence to adequately save ourselves from the threat which is now upon us and only increasing in intensity. However, we’ve enough ignorance and pigheadedness to offset such qualities as well. This is a slowly sinking ship, some are bailing out water while others want to put more holes in our hull. Still others are asleep on the deck chairs. Anyway, this is enough for today.
91st Posting, September 12, 2023