The New York Times claims to be the "Paper of Record." If that is true, then they should consider that with such a lofty status should come a great burden of responsibility to ensure that the material that they publish both encourages civil discourse and discourages that which will hurt others. It should not matter if that harm is tangible or intangible, yet they seem to be completely unwilling to meet the strict editorial standards to which their claim holds them.
Last Thursday, Ezra Klein wrote an Opinion Editorial in which he openly asked why people who care about the environment have not already begun violent insurgencies in defense of it. The article was intended to be a critical view of Andreas Malm’s book entitled How to Blow Up a Pipeline, but ended up being an apologetic for it. In truth, it really seems as if it was always intended to be so. Read this excerpt from Klein's article:
"Andreas Malm’s ‘How to Blow Up a Pipeline’ is only slightly inaptly named. You won’t find, anywhere inside, instructions on sabotaging energy infrastructure. A truer title would be ‘Why to Blow Up a Pipeline.’ On this, Malm’s case is straightforward: Because nothing else has worked."
If that's not a person excusing violence in the name of a subject or cause that they care about, then nothing qualifies.
Yet, this should not surprise you. If you have been paying attention to just about anything going on in our country today, violence appears to be the answer to everything as those who have "cause," see themselves as righteous, and as such, feel a form of universal pardon for any acts that they may or may not do.
It is the ultimate, "ends justify the means" philosophy that you will find.
You see, it not longer is enough to agree to disagree. It no longer is enough to have a viewpoint and have it not shared by others. In their minds, their cause is so just that they can be excused for any action so long as that action furthers their "cause." The fact is that we're far closer to 1789 France then we are to 1776 America.
Mobs attack in the streets, politicians desperately attempt to curry favor with those whom they feel can sway the mob, and the "Robespierre"(s) of today's "movements" are neither so noble or righteous as he was, yet they are every bit as violent and extreme.
In other words, the leaders of today's social mobs are nothing more than zealots who have placed their ideology in the place of God; and like all zealots, anything and everything goes in advancing their agenda, including violence against the unbeliever.
Yep, if you do not believe in Climate Change, you are to a climate extremist as an infidel to a Jihadist. Therefore, whatever it takes to convince and/or convert you will stand, regardless of how much evidence or critical thinking you give to them. That goes double for people like Ezra Klein and his editors as they have not only seeded their contempt for "deniers" in the hearts of their followers, but they have also endorsed violence against them.
AND IT WAS NOT EVEN SUBTLE
Violence ALWAYS begets violence, even when violence is necessary. That makes its use, even when the cause is right, something to be avoided if at all possible, and in the case of the cause being wrong, to be avoided vociferously.
MAN MADE Climate Change is wrong, and certainly not worth violence of any kind.
You would think that "The Paper of Record" would know this, and would use their "mantle" to help avoid every bit of unnecessary violence...
Yet they do not...
Maybe it is time for a new record.
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