Modern intellectualism: “Lie to the public.”
New York Times columnist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman on Friday suggested on HBO that scientists should get together and lie to the public about a threat of alien invasion in order to create a crisis that will force the public to agree to big government projects.
To quote him:
I actually have a serious proposal which is that we have to get a bunch of scientists to tell us that we’re facing a threatened alien invasion, and in order to be prepared for that alien invasion we have to do things like build high-speed rail. And the, once we’ve recovered, we can say, “Look, there were no aliens.” But look, I mean, whatever it takes because right now we need somebody to spend, and that somebody has to be the U.S. government.
After you have finished laughing at this fool, think more seriously about what he has said. He is proposing that it is a good thing for our elite intellectual, scientific, and political class to lie to the public in order to get what they want. Moreover, he is so certain that his proposals, such as high speed rail, are right that he is will to do anything, “whatever it takes,” to achieve them.
In fact, this is exactly what the climate scientist community has been doing, manufacturing a lie that we are all going to die from global warming and then demanding endless funds and draconian laws to deal with the fake crisis.
Sadly, this kind of unethical behavior never leads to the utopia these ideologues imagine. Instead, it gives us a Hitler in Germany, a Stalin in Russia, a Mao in China, and the Islamic terrorists in the Middle East. In the end, instead of a utopia all we get is a nightmare of death, murder, oppression, and genocide.
I am sure that Paul Krugman has nothing by good intentions. He truly believes that a high speed rail system will somehow solve our energy problems. He also truly believes that we can spend our way out of poverty, even when the government is on the verge of bankruptcy and literally has to print trillions to pay its bills.
But then, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It horrifies me that Krugman doesn’t see this.
Update: Let me add this little excerpt from The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski. As I wrote back when I first posted this on Behind the Black on July 16, 2010:
One of the best television science series ever produced was The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski. Rather than simply describe science and knowledge, Bronowski instead pondered the nature of humanity. The best episode of the series was Knowledge or Certainty, in which Bronowski compared the humane uncertainty of science with the terrible consequences of dogma. As Oliver Cromwell said, “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.”
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What should actually horrify you is that this is how the Left operates. In their mind, they are right; they should not lose any argument, because anyone with an ounce of sense should see that their way is the only way. Statements like Krugman’s are the last gasp of a demonstrably false ideology. They know that their worldview has been proven wrong over centuries, yet they persist. If they weren’t so powerful, they’d deserve our pity.
To the Left, scientists are the new high priests of society with science as the grand illusion and science fiction as its opium for the masses. Karl Marx and Siggy Freud would be taken aback by the sheer boldness and arrogance of today’s Left. On the other hand, Orwell would be snickering with delight. Everytime one of these elitist, secular humanists mentions the travesties of “the Dark Ages” and the travails of Gallileo, they should burst into flames for their pure hypocracy, instead a putz like Paul Krugman gets facetime on each alphabet Sunday morning week in review show.
This idea would be different in which particulars concerning man made global warming?
Let’s see, you have a Nobel Laurette advocating deception by scientists for “the greater good”. This is the same guy who uses his stature as both an economist and a Nobel prize winner as a bludgeon against his critics (again, for the greater good). You don’t suppose that the good doctor is practicing the deception he is suggesting do you? You know, like is he making arguments he doesn’t really believe in just to achieve some other, greater goal? How can anyone trust (not that any rational person currently does) what he says ever again? Apparently Krugman hasn’t fully thought out the implications of his suggestion, as usual.
I pray that people, especially the average democrat baby-boomer demographic, finally wake up to the utter fraud that is our modern academia, our mainstream median and our pop culture celebritard icons. Their narrative is ruining this great country person by person by permeating a rot of self- indulgence, government entitlements and an anti-american sentiment while simultaneously fanning flames of division by race, by religion, by economic class and by gender. No one will know who to trust and what to believe asa result, and this country will be ripe for riots and ruination. November 2012 can’t come soon enough!
Somewhat embarassed, didn’t read the cited article and so didn’t know the global warming scare had already been noted. Geez,,, ah well.
By the way, it is not an original idea: See the “Architects of Fear” episode of the original Outer Limits TV series, staring Robert Culp.
Joe,
That Krugman latched onto a science fiction idea (thanks for reminding me about the show) is hardly surprising. He seems to think of himself as Hari Seldon and the field of Economics as Psycho-History.