On the Care and Feeding for Your Tree of Liberty

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
-Thomas Jefferson

The above bit of colorful phrasing first came to my attention on the day the President came to town. President Obama was in Portsmouth for a town hall meeting on health care reform. A gentleman by the name of William Kostric won himself some notoriety by showing up among the crowds of protesters and supporters carrying a sign that read "It Is Time To Water The Tree Of Liberty!" He was also openly carrying a loaded handgun. The incident occurred roughly a mile from my home and maybe 15 feet from my wife, who was there carrying a sign with rather different sentiments. Mr. Kostric caused quite a stir.

I assumed Mr. Kostric was indulging in a bit of performance art to highlight some imagined offenses against the first and second amendments to our constitution. To the best of my knowledge he faced no legal consequences. Whatever tyrannical measures have been implemented by the Obama administration, apparently bringing a loaded weapon to a public event attended by the President of the United States and making a not-very-subtle threat against his life, is still permissible.

I assumed this was the last we would hear on the subject of the of the care and feeding of the Tree of Liberty for a while. But the words of Mr. Jefferson recently reappeared on a Politico post (a site where I am now a semi-regular forum poster).

Geo1342 writes:

Thomas Jefferson has said "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants". He recognized that the passion that would have to exist behind such an uprising, regardless of whether driven by intellect or ignorance, was necessary to keep the republic free -- for otherwise, lethargy in the public regarding matters of government would set in, and the Government would grow unchecked.


Today, while it is true people are making a lot of noise about the abhorrent and tyrannical behavior of our government, our representatives view it as just that -- noise. Few, if any, believe the public would rise up violently against them. And thus they are emboldened.


Is it too late? Has the Tree of Liberty already died, it's leaves just waiting for a breeze to carry them away?

This poster seems to be advocating the violent overthrow of our government. Its is generally unwise to impart too much importance to an anonymous internet post. And both sides have their lunatic fringe. But these kinds of sentiments are not hard to find. In the last year, at the local and national level, the extremists and Republican core became increasingly intertwined. An undercurrent of implied violence and revolution is now a common feature of political discussions. What does it all mean?

Perhaps the talk of violent revolution isn't meant to be taken literally. Maybe even those who speak of rising up in the face of "abhorrent and tyrannical behavior" would be disgusted and repulsed by the treasonous idea of actual violence against our elected officials. I don't think the founding fathers advocated for the murder of King George III. And we can assume that Thomas Jefferson did not mean for his bloody arboreal advice to be literally applied to democratically elected presidents of the United States, like say... Thomas Jefferson.

The authors of these sentiments are playing rhetorical dress-up, pretending to be patriots. The attempts to link their grievances to those of the founding fathers is pure artifice. They know nothing of actual tyranny, actual revolution, or actual violence. By claiming equivalence they cheapen the actions those who have fought, and those who are still fighting, for democracy and against dictatorship. They dress up their argument in innuendo and metaphor for effect and talk vaguely of "abhorrent and tyrannical behavior" but decline to offer specifics. Were they do do so, any actual listing of "grievances" and "acts of tyranny" would be laid bare as petty, and partisan, and totally unworthy of the bombast that accompanies them.

Is the talk of revolution just noise? Even if the rhetoric of violence is just rhetoric we should still be appalled by it. Why should anyone who lives in this country, shared in its opportunities, been protected by its laws, and enjoyed its freedoms tolerate an argument advocating for its destruction? What's the difference between a Muslim extremist, or left-wing extremist, or a right wing extremist who calls for for the destruction of this country and the murder of its citizens? Is it Ok to clap along until someone actually pulls a trigger? Any person, any political party, any TV station, anyone who advocates violence against our elected officials should receive our scorn. The are not entitled to call themselves patriots. With threats of violence against it, they disrespect this country, its constitution, it history, and its citizens.

Left Wing Blogger Seeks Worthy Adversary

I've had a lot of fun since I started up this blog a few months ago. It's nice having a soapbox from which to respond to current events, make my case, and share my observations about the world. Feedback has been good. But I don't feel like I've reached a lot a people that didn't already agree with me.


I am more interested in having a lively debate than in just basking in the wisdom of my own opinions. I feel that Obama is an excellent president and that the health care reform bill is entirely worthy of support. I am told that these views are not universally held. Real engagement between people across the vast chasm of our political divide is sadly rare. Common ground is elusive. In a vast sea of opinion it's unusual to see someone forced to consider the arguments from the other side. But that's what I want to do. I'm looking to start a new blog with a different format. Something that would be more interesting to read and to write. I want to start a debate blog.

But first I need a worthy adversary. A nemesis. A yin to my yang. A Lex Luthor to my Superman. Or at least someone who disagrees with me and wants to write about it.

The basic idea is a kind of Crossfire in blog form taking on whatever topics interest the participants. This would be a new blog with a new name. Maybe: Dawn Pistols, or Rapiers at Dawn, or Preaching to the Convertible. Or something else.

For the format I'm thinking of a simplified, casual Lincoln-Douglas format: Affirmative post, Negative Post, Affirmative Rebuttal, Negative Rebuttal. 4 posts total on a topic, 2 from each side, maybe 300-1000 words per post. We spend about a week on a topic. Then we move on to a new topic. The other guy starts off with an Affirmative post that can be a spin on the old topic or something entirely new (or whatever you want).

So, I start with:
Obama's Health Care Plan is Great: blah, blah, blah
You reply: No, its not...
I reply: Really, it is...
You post: No its not...

New topic, your choice.
You say: Obama is a Terrible Commander in Chief
I say, no he's not...
etc, etc...

Sound like fun? The offer is open. Somewhere out there there must be a right-wing blogger with opinions to spare looking for a lively debate. I await you. Terms are negotiable.

My Take on the "Whole AGW Scheme"

Recently I've been poking around on some political sites, looking for a lively debate (I'll post more on this adventure very soon). I wandered over to the forums on Politico where I was asked about my "opinion of the whole AGW scheme". I obliged. Here it is.


Regarding Anthropogenic Global Warming there are two main questions before us:

1. Are we human beings causing a rapid increase in global temperatures?

2. What, if anything, should we do about it?

In this post, I'll just look at question #1. This is not really a political question. Regardless of what I think, either all that carbon we're burning is causing the atmosphere to heat up or it isn't. Is this real or not? The honest answer is: How should I know? I don't spend my time examining polar ice cores or tracking ocean temperates.

There are a wide array of factors that have changed the earth's climate over the years. There were ice ages and warmer epochs long before humans were around. We are not the only agent of climate change. But we should take no comfort from this. The natural forces that have caused the earth's climate to change have occurred over a much longer span -- tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or millions of years. On those occasions where the climate did change rapidly, the record suggests this was very bad news for the creatures who had the misfortune to be around at the time.

Let's just concern ourselves with the next 100 years or so, a blink in history, but it's our blink. Climate worrywarts estimate the average global temp will maybe increase around 5° F by 2100. That sounds like a small change. You'll never detect it standing in your yard. It's certainly not a threat to all human life. But still, if we believe the climatologists, even a 5° bump will trigger massive coastal flooding, crazy weather system, fresh water shortages, agricultural disruption and a host of other problems we might prefer to avoid.

A considerable majority of the people who spend their time on this issue are in agreement, and have been for years now. Global warming due to human activity is real. And it's going to cause some big, big problems for us humans if we don't do something about it. The question for us is, should we believe them?

Even if climate change is happening, it is happening at a pace that's hard for us as individuals to perceive. Gradual changes that happen over decades may trigger big environmental changes. But as we live day to day, we don't see it. We can't see it. But if we think about aggregate human activity, it's not that hard to imagine. For over a century now, we've been extracting oil and coal and other carbon-rich fuels from the ground, and burning them as fast we can. Currently, we burn about 85 million barrels of oil a day. We have massive operations going to pull these fuels out of the ground and we use them to run our cars, and heat our homes, and power our power plants. We've been doing this on massive scale for a while now and have every intention of continuing to do it. 85 million barrels. Every day.

Even if we don't know the exact net effect of releasing all these greenhouse gasses is, we know the basics of how these gasses trap solar radiation and keep the planet warm and habitable. We also know that we are extracting and burning fuels, creating more greenhouse gasses, as fast as we can. And that's pretty fast.

And why wouldn't we? Oil is great stuff. From the industrial revolution to the information age-- modernity, life as we know it, is made possible by energy. Power. Oil, and its carbon-rich fossil fuel friends, are the cheapest, most efficient, most scalable, most plentiful sources of energy we've got.

It is precisely because fossil fuels are so wonderful that we really don't want to hear about the nasty side-effects. It would be really, really swell if we could just burn all the oil we want as fast as want, for as long as we want and not ever have to worry about all that additional carbon in our atmosphere. That's a pleasant thought. But wishing won't make it so.

Wishful thinking will make us want to listen to those who tell us what we want to hear. As usual, there is no shortage of people willing to tell us there is a free lunch, that we don't have to sacrifice or work together. You can do what you want. Al Gore is a jerk, and bore, and Democrat. Don't trust him. Look, newly reveled emails show us that some scientists are cleaning up and spinning some of their data. Now we get to ignore everything they and their colleagues have ever done. And every other climate scientist is probably doing the same thing. Let's ignore them too. They can't even get each and every scientist, pundit, blogger and ex-vice-presidential candidate to agree there is problem! Clearly this is very controversial at best. We should probably just hold off and study the problem some more. Let's wait until everyone agrees. We'll do something then.

Unfortunately, the AGW deniers have a lot more media attention than scientific credibility. There are over 180 countries taking part in the Copenhagen conference. All of those countries are populated by citizens that don't want to be told to cut back, pay more, or use less. All of those countries have scientists who are telling their leaders that this is real, and we need to do something about it. I hope they are wrong. But I believe they are right.