Daily Kos

to know one?

Yeah.

I certainly agree that we are in an absurd situation, but it is entirely the fault of corrupt people like Rand Paul, who accept payment from the oil industry for lying about the reality of climate change.

because I believe in the completely unproven and still-controversial idea of disease transmission through those unproven "germs" instead of divine punishment or body humour imbalance. I mean, if it's too small to see without the devil's optical device, then how can it possibly hurt you! Pshaw! Librul morans!

...industry? More from the article:

Paul said he believes pollution regulations are necessary, but he doesn’t support what he characterized as President Obama’s efforts to double down on regulations, when Environmental Protection Agency data shows the ones in place are working.

“What will happen is there will be no energy from coal in our country,” he said.

Instead of pushing laws that would help workers transition to new jobs, including jobs in clean energy, Paul and the other climate change bullshitters have put up obstacles to the needed transformaton of our energy infrastructruce, which harm these workers now and in the future.

when you deny the validity of something that scientific consensus says is true, because freedom.

Minus the belief in global warming equals being a member of a "religious cult", of course

and Israel they're really big fans of Holocaust references that have bloody zilch to do with the Holocaust...

To criticize my garlic yogurt dressing.

... you have to say things like this.

You are a holocaust denier if you question that the earth is round.

ones to blame. From the very beginning of talk about climate science years ago, their one and only goal it seems was to make climate change completely and totally polarizing, as it has now become. For that effort they have succeeded. I am always just amazed by so many posts on Facebook about the subject in which the party of fools can claim " there is no climate change." Even though the Pope talks about it, as does the Pentagon. The sheep of the party just amble along like nothing is going on in the climate. Once the water levels start really rising, and it won't be long, then we shall see the reaction of the party of fools.

break out the crucifixes and holy water

contention that (i) physicians and (ii) Duke graduates have no scientific training and/or understanding whatsoever.

And when combined, oh my, what a complete train wreck!

Any reference by an American politician to Hitler, Nazis, Holocaust etc. not specific to those actual persons and/or events should send your bogosity meter off the charts.

when 56% of Congressional Republicans deny or question climate change.

We can't have an intelligent conversation with lightweight$ $uch as thi$ lo$er, when hi$ argument$ are ba$ed on donation$ from polluter$ instead of solid science.  
We could all have a good laugh about it, if we weren't heading toward the planet's inhabitability by humans and other species, and morons such as this guy are considered appropriate "leaders" by ANYBODY.

time?  Let's highlight real candidates and real events and put the morons in a special sub-section: "More-on the GOP candidates...."

it makes you a flat earther.

...kinda like the cult your daddy named you after?

He's not being asked to "believe."  The man has an advanced degree in medicine.  He's being asked to look at some research and understand, to have some discussion with Ph.D.s in the climate field, and to think.

That's fundamentally different than "belief."

Slow people, lazy people... fine.  Just ask them to accept what the experts tell them.  But presidential candidates - especially those with the background of a Rand Paul?  More is expected; more is required.

This is willful dishonesty, yet again. Doh.

notice me...watch this."

unfortunately, a lot that doesn't happen.

People try to swing "scientific consensus" like a bat -- and, in the process kinda sorta tella buncha itsy bitsy lies.

There absolutely is a scientific consensus on the reality and danger of anthropomorphic global warming.  There are a few naysayers and contrarians -- but that's actually the nature of science.  There were naysayers when copernicus introduced his heliocentric models -- and naysayers for good reason given the contemporary beliefs of distance to the stars, etc.

But...there's a variation when it comes to how much, how fast, how it will manifest and when.

There lots of room for discussing the best ways to deal with global warming -- a political issue every bit as much as a scientific one, if not more.

And so many good things happening -- not the least of which is price drops and new technologies for solar panels, electricity storage, hydrogen production, etc, etc, etc, etc.

We should all be talking our heads off -- including to those folks who think a world without fossil fuels is a sad and sorry place.  It simply doesn't have to be that way.

Rand Paul would wave the flag of Israeli State, lick Netenyahoo's boots for a few votes, and then stand on the graves of the Jews who died in the Holocaust to make his political points.

Face it America...this is your 'friend of Israel'...right here folks.  

It is they who politicize an issue that should not even involve partisan politics.  The only valid argument is over "Given what we know, based on empirical evidence, what can we do to mitigate the problem?"

Eisenhower and even Goldwater and Nixon are probably spinning in their graves! However, Nixon is to blame that the Republican Party is the mess that it is. The piper now wants his pay!

deniers are probably about the same percentage (outside of American Republicans). Btw, does Paul have a condo in Miami. If so, it's sell time, guy.

Yeah, rhetorical question.

get through a policy conversation without once making comparisons to the holocaust, the civil rights movement or slavery.

... with facts and evidence.   And we counter climate change deniers with facts and evidence as well.

So, if anything, it is the climate change deniers that are like Holocaust deniers.

The reason you're like a Holocaust denier is that both groups ignore clear evidence that rebuts their beliefs.  You can add Moon Landing Hoaxers into that mix as well and any number of rabid conspiracy theorists who, when shown data or other evidence that rebuts their belief, ignore it or claim it is a fabrication (usually with no evidence to support such a claim).

So, yeah.  That's about right.

Here's another Venn Diagram you can draw with overlapping circles with large numbers of Republicans in the common areas:  Idiots and Rand Paul supporters.

Ok, I tell a lie there.  There aren't "large numbers" of Rand Paul supporters, according to the latest polls.  If Rand's numbers drop any further, Rand Paul supporters will be joining the ranks of Bigfoot and the Jersey Devil (the mythical beast, not Chris Christie, just to be clear, although they both may share some characteristics).

That's some fancy thought-wrangling, Rand. The Confusion Committee has arrived.

I would have said Its like you believe the Earth is flat.

Round Earth Denier.

memo to the Bush administration and other GOP leaders to stop referring to "global warming" and instead only say "climate change" (http://www.theguardian.com/... https://www2.bc.edu/...) having become the reality all across the spectrum. This messaging coup goes beyond Luntz's wildest dreams. I read a comment just the other day from a liberal who said that scientists used to call it global warming when they thought the Earth was warming up, but now they believe that there will be unpredictable extreme weather events and so they call it climate change. Such deep confusion about the science is the direct result of the FUD that resulted from Luntz's memo and the tragic adoption of this language by all the media and even by leading Democrats like President Obama.

in believing climate change has nothing to do with human behavior?

Is it because they're so completely resistant to any inconvenient lifestyle changes, they have to characterize it as "God's Will"--just to justify doing nothing to curb their carbon big feet?

Is that all it is about? Just ignobly wanting what they want, and the devil take the hindmost?

the ACTUAL religious cult (the GOP) that says "You have to believe as I do"?

...he hit the nail on the head...and he doesn't even realize it. Because, he's right...it is "like" he is a "Holocaust denier."
Exactly like one.

mercury in our water is bad, smog is bad, rising ocean acidity is bad.  Forget about climate change. You're choosing money over planet even if you don't believe in man made climate change.

trees are good.

oceans are good.

filling the "thin blue line" with poisonous gas is bad.  

if we dedicated every dollar we've spent since 2001 in the middle east to renewable energy we'd have no reason to go to war there anymore because we certainly wouldn't need the oil.

instead we spent the trillions and still need to deal with proxy wars with russia.

why would you ever argue against a cleaner planet where you need less shit from the middle east?

Money.

And as a theologian friend of mine likes to say, "Whether you believe in the law of gravity is rather beside the point, especially if you slip on the ice."

Climate change isn't something you "believe in" or "don't believe in," like the tooth fairy or Elvis. It just is. That's the difference between science (data-based) or historical fact (data-based) and faith (belief-based and not susceptible to scientific proof).

that the cult of science denial is what's the equivalent of Haulocaust denial.

“It has become sort of like you’re a Holocaust denier if you question any of the religious cult that says, ‘You have to believe as I do.’ I think we’re in an absurd situation,” the U.S. senator from Kentucky said on Friday.

First, religion has nothing to do with it.  This is science, not religion.

Second, as Neil deGrasse Tyson says:

“The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.”

"Thank you" to the nearest, grimiest, sootiest smokestacks you can find." So said Paul's fave, Ayn Rand. Her idea was that, since average human longevity had grown considerably during industrial revolution, then you should love the smog. It didn't occur to her those averages had more to do with the advances in medicine for infants and children. More Rand (Ayn, that is) "The immediate goal [of the environmental movement] is obvious: the destruction of the remnants of capitalism in today's mixed economy, and the establishment of a global dictatorship. This goal does not have to be inferred--many speeches and books on the subject state explicitly that the ecological crusade is a means to that end." Yep. And she is the Goddess of conservatives. And she was nuts.

Ok I'm willing to take the bait there, Yes, you are just a bad a a holocaust denier if you question the reality of man made climate change

Climate denial is like Holocaust denial.

All right. That's a slight exaggeration. But there is almost as much evidence for the consensus on climate change as there is for the historical facts of the Holocaust. If you deny the former, you're just going up against reality.

I know republicans miss the past, but harking all the way back to Sept 23 1632 is a bit far flung.

that the scientists are wrong.'

“I don’t think anybody in this room knows how much is nature and how much is man. What I can tell you is, if you read the general lay press, everybody’s like, ‘Oh yeah, it’s all man. It’s 99 percent man.’ They’re convinced of this. They know nothing about (it) – and nobody knows. It’s a conjecture,” he said.

The irony of Rand Paul's position is that to a large extent it does not matter whether industry and human exploitation of the environment is the central or primary cause of the change in the climate of the Earth. The crux of the problem is that if the Earth's climate is changing, regardless of whether it is part of Nature or anthropomorphism, humans need to make adjustments to compensate for that change so that the polar caps do not melt enough to destroy the Earth's inhabited coastlines and engender climatic and environmental disasters that could have otherwise been prevented with some planning, forethought and anticipation. Or, as a presidential aspirant, does Rand Paul actually think budgetary and legislative preparations ought to be done on an off-the-cuff, instantaneous approach, in concert with his live-and-let-live economic dogma?